115.  KNOWLEDGE OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.  Without more or less of this knowledge, a lady, even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing.  It was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal about these affairs, and it would be very hard to make me believe that this did not tend to promote the interests and honour of their husbands.  The affairs of a great family never can be well managed, if left wholly to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in which it would be unseemly for the husband to meddle.  Surely, no lady can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted with the characters and general demeanour of all the female servants.  To receive and give them characters is too much to be left to a servant, however good, and of service however long.  Much of the ease and happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by whom they are served:  they live under the same roof with them; they are frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours; the conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more weight there must be in one word from them than in ten thousand words from a person who, call her what you like, is still a fellow-servant, it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this at once important and pleasing part of their duty.  It was from the mansions of noblemen and gentlemen, and not from boarding-schools, that farmers and tradesmen formerly took their wives; and though these days are gone, with little chance of returning, there is still something left for ladies to do in checking that torrent of immorality which is now crowding the streets with prostitutes and cramming the jails with thieves.

116.  I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the middle rank of life; and here a knowledge of domestic affairs is so necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in his eye.  Not only a knowledge of these affairs; not only to know how things ought to be done, but how to do them; not only to know what ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able to make the pie or the pudding.  Young people, when they come together, ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a great way of business, to think about servants!  Servants for what!  To help them to eat and drink and sleep?  When children come, there must be some help in a farmer’s or tradesman’s house; but until then, what call for a servant in a house, the master of which has to earn every mouthful that is consumed?