who was to be deceived by none of his stories or professions, saw him get off with deep and manifest disappointment and chagrin.’  I have thought of this many times since, when I have had occasion to witness the quick-sightedness and penetration of women.  The same quality that makes them, as they notoriously are, more quick in discovering expedients in cases of difficulty, makes them more apt to penetrate into motives and character.

191.  I now come to a matter of the greatest possible importance; namely, that great troubler of the married state, that great bane of families, JEALOUSY; and I shall first speak of jealousy in the wife.  This is always an unfortunate thing, and sometimes fatal.  Yet, if there be a great propensity towards it, it is very difficult to be prevented.  One thing, however, every husband can do in the way of prevention; and that is, to give no ground for it.  And here, it is not sufficient that he strictly adhere to his marriage vow; he ought further to abstain from every art, however free from guilt, calculated to awaken the slightest degree of suspicion in a mind, the peace of which he is bound by every tie of justice and humanity not to disturb, or, if he can avoid it, to suffer it to be disturbed by others.  A woman that is very fond of her husband, and this is the case with nine-tenths of English and American women, does not like to share with another any, even the smallest portion, not only of his affection, but of his assiduities and applause; and, as the bestowing of them on another, and receiving payment in kind, can serve no purpose other than of gratifying one’s vanity, they ought to be abstained from, and especially if the gratification be to be purchased with even the chance of exciting uneasiness in her, whom it is your sacred duty to make as happy as you can.

192.  For about two or three years after I was married, I, retaining some of my military manners, used, both in France and America, to romp most famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day, at Philadelphia, my wife said to me, in a very gentle manner, ’Don’t do that:  I do not like it.’  That was quite enough:  I had never thought on the subject before:  one hair of her head was more dear to me than all the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw, that she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from every thing that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection.  I beseech young married men to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort, the happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns.  If the mind of a wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly groundless; though they be wild as the dreams