How to add a validation error message next to a field using jQuery

How to add a validation error message next to a field using jQuery

Hi have a form with a few fields. Amongst them:
<div>
<label for="phoneNumber" class="label">Phone Number</label>
<input name="phoneNumber" type="text" id="phoneNumber" size="13"
style="float:left;margin-right:10px;">
</div>
<div>
<input type="checkbox" name="activePN" id="activePN" checked >
<label for="activePN">Active</label>
</div>
The, when the form is submited, I want to validate the input and write
next to each field for whichever field didn't validate. Like this:
$('#submit').click(function () {
var proceed = true;
var strippedPN = $('#phoneNumber').val().replace(/[^\d\.]/g,
'').toString(); //strips non-digits from the string
if (strippedPN.length !== 10) {
$('#phoneNumber').text('<p>Phone number has to be 10 digits
long.</p>')
proceed = false;
}
...
...
...
});
I was hopping that adding those <p> </p> tags would do it. But they
don't... Note: I also tried with html() instead of text() and with
activePN instead of phoneNumber.