212.  As to the expense, there is no comparison between that of a woman servant and a wife, in the house of a farmer or a tradesman.  The wages of the former is not the expense; it is the want of a common interest with you, and this you can obtain in no one but a wife.  But there are the children.  I, for my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would be able to save more money during these years, than a bachelor, of the same age, would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of time, he keeping only one maid servant.  One single fit of illness, of two months’ duration, might sweep away more than all the children would cost in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual waste and pillage, and the idleness, going on from the first day of the ten years to the last.

213.  Besides, is the money all?  What a life to lead!!  No one to talk to without going from home, or without getting some one to come to you; no friend to sit and talk to:  pleasant evenings to pass!  Nobody to share with you your sorrows or your pleasures:  no soul having a common interest with you:  all around you taking care of themselves, and no care of you:  no one to cheer you in moments of depression:  to say all in a word, no one to love you, and no prospect of ever seeing any such one to the end of your days.  For, as to parents and brethren, if you have them, they have other and very different ties; and, however laudable your feelings as son and brother, those feelings are of a different character.  Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain altogether, are they generally of little expense? and are they attended with no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jealousy even, and are they never followed by shame or remorse?

214.  It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor’s life is ‘devoid of care.’  My observation tells me the contrary, and reason concurs, in this regard, with experience.  The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely.  When he quits his home, he carries with him cares that are unknown to the married man.  If, indeed, like the common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes, given in charge to some one, he may be at his ease; but if he possess any thing of a home, he is never sure of its safety; and this uncertainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness.  And as to efficiency in life, how is the bachelor to equal the married man?  In the case of farmers and tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage over the former, that one need hardly insist upon the point; but it is, and must be, the same in all the situations of life.  To provide for a wife and children is the greatest of all possible spurs to exertion.  Many a man, naturally prone to idleness, has become active and industrious when he saw children growing up about him; many a dull sluggard has become, if not a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused to exertion by his love.  Dryden’s account of the change wrought in CYMON, is only a strong case of the kind.  And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself for the sake of a wife and children, he can have no exertion in him; or he must be deaf to all the dictates of nature.