is giving him the command and possession of her person.  But does she not help to acquire the money?  Speaking, for instance, of the farmer or the merchant, the wife does not, indeed, go to plough, or to look after the ploughing and sowing; she does not purchase or sell the stock; she does not go to the fair or the market; but she enables him to do all these without injury to his affairs at home; she is the guardian of his property; she preserves what would otherwise be lost to him.  The barn and the granary, though they create nothing, have, in the bringing of food to our mouths, as much merit as the fields themselves.  The wife does not, indeed, assist in the merchant’s counting-house; she does not go upon the exchange; she does not even know what he is doing; but she keeps his house in order; she rears up his children; she provides a scene of suitable resort for his friends; she insures him a constant retreat from the fatigues of his affairs; she makes his home pleasant, and she is the guardian of his income.

220.  In both these cases, the wife helps to gain the money; and in cases where there is no gain, where the income is by descent, or is fixed, she helps to prevent it from being squandered away.  It is, therefore, as much hers as it is the husband’s; and though the law gives him, in many cases, the power of keeping her share from her, no just man will ever avail himself of that power.  With regard to the tying up of widows from marrying again, I will relate what took place in a case of this kind, in America.  A merchant, who had, during his married state, risen from poverty to very great riches, and who had, nevertheless, died at about forty years of age, left the whole of his property to his wife for her life, and at her disposal at her death, provided that she did not marry.  The consequence was, that she took a husband without marrying, and, at her death (she having no children), gave the whole of the property to the second husband!  So much for posthumous jealousy!

221.  Where there are children, indeed, it is the duty of the husband to provide, in certain cases, against step-fathers, who are very prone not to be the most just and affectionate parents.  It is an unhappy circumstance, when a dying father is compelled to have fears of this sort.  There is seldom an apology to be offered for a mother that will hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage.  The law allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, ’something beyond the letter of the law.’  I know what ticklish ground I am treading on here; but, though it is as lawful for a woman to take a second husband as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely different, in the eye of morality and of reason; for, as adultery in the wife is a greater offence than adultery in the husband; as it is more gross, as it includes prostitution;