Now if a man will marry, with such absurd ideas of what marriage ought to be, and if he will marry a fool, I advise him not to go whining round the world about it: he deserves the consequences. But let him not insist that all women are fools, because he got on his knees to obtain one. I will always maintain that there are twenty bad husbands to one bad wife; and that, that one would seldom continue bad if her husband were just and kind to her. As to marriage "narrowing a man's mind," that which never had any breadth cannot be narrowed. And history abundantly shows how wise in counsel, how judicious in influence, how helpful in sympathy and co-operation have been many such wives.

Now it is often said that a wife, to a literary man, is only a hindrance. Provided she is not a fool, it would pay him, in my opinion, to give her a regular salary, if he could not obtain it otherwise, to give him the feminine side of every great question of the day, as it comes up—which by the way, she does unconsciously, and which has anything but a "narrowing" effect either on his mind or his writings, whether he acknowledges it or not.

It is no small thing to be able to toss her a book and say, "I want to know what is in that book, but I haven't time to read it; run it over, will you, and tell me what you think of it?"—or to get from her the condensation of newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, in the same way; or translations; or to have her assistance in answering letters, without prompting, when pressed for time; to ask her where such and such a passage may be found in certain authors, which have escaped his memory. Is contact with such a woman narrowing?

It is horrible for a man of sense to be yoked to a fool, and vice versa. No one denies it. But the whole kernel of the woman matter is just this: Men no longer are what they were. There are no young men now. Before they have ceased to be young men, the majority of them, by a total disregard of Nature's laws, have unfitted themselves for contact with, and companionship and appreciation of, pure, good women. It is as if a baby should be fed from birth with highly-spiced condiments; and then, at maturity, be expected to have a relish for pure, wholesome food. The fault is not in women, but in the men, who bring to the healthful, simple, sweet pleasures of matrimony, diseased minds and dilapidated bodies.

It is perfectly amazing the quantity of insulting advice volunteered in this day to women. Now here is an extract, I am happy to say, in this instance, from an English journal; the land, par excellence, of wife-beating, and kindred abominations in "high" and "low" life, in which the wife is advised if she would "wind her husband around her finger,"—though why that amusement is particularly desirable I fail to see,—if she would do this, "she must carefully study the cookery-book; so that his meals need not be monotonous." How many of his children she must attend to, during this interesting perusal, and while perfecting the results of such study, our writer does not state; nor does he throw any light upon the question—whether, when this delicate animal is gorged like the anaconda, he will, as does the anaconda, go immediately into a state of stupor, and be comparatively harmless until other re-enforcements are needed.

Also he tells the wife that "opposition and contradiction always make him furious; then he stamps and roars and becomes dangerous: she must by all means avoid that." It is so strange, this Solomon says, "that when a wife knows that a certain line of conduct is sure to produce this effect, she will do it, though victory is easy provided"—well, in short, provided she allows him to stamp and roar and become dangerous, like his son Tommy, when he can't have another stick of candy, and whom he himself would severely punish, for imitating his gentlemanly papa.

Are there no lines of conduct a husband persistently pursues towards his wife, though he "knows they are sure to wound and give offence?" And would he think "stamping and roaring and being dangerous" any excuse for a dislike of it? Is the man who sends his dear little child for that which will intoxicate him, or takes that child to bar-rooms and drinking-places to obtain it, never to be remonstrated with by the mother, lest he should be "angry"? Is the man who allows his relatives constantly to interfere with and slander his wife, who never write him letters without containing sly insinuations, intended—howsoever they may fail—to disturb conjugal and family harmony; who institute a court of inquiry into family expenses, probable journeys, &c., location of residence, and insist upon all these things being settled according to their means and standard, is this husband never to be told that such interference is insufferable, "because he will be angry"?

Is there a husband living who would permit a wife's father or brother to insist on managing his business affairs in such a clandestine, down-cellar, surreptitious manner through the wife? If he preferred going to spend the summer at one place rather than another, how would he like that matter settled by a conclave of his wife's relatives, and determined by their probable locality? I do not say that the latter, too, has not happened. In either case, it is a monstrous impertinence, and to be resented. I might multiply other instances of abuse to women, but these will suffice.

Let men, above all, ask themselves with regard to women—to wives—this question—and answer it in a manly, honest manner, whether it is condemnatory of their own "line of conduct" or the contrary: Should I be willing to endure what I expect my wife to bear, were I a woman and a wife? If not—is it just, or right, or manly, then, for me to expect it of her?

It is needless to say that this is the last question asked; and this is the root of all the evil. This making by men a broad easy road of license for themselves, while women are clogged, fettered, penned in, worried, harassed and unjustly treated, till even they—"become dangerous." And though the author above quoted seems to entertain no such possibility, our lunatic asylums and tomb-stones, if they stated the actual causes of insanity and death, might convince the most skeptical.