spare you years of pain in time to come.  Many a man has been miserable, and made his wife miserable too, for a score or two of years, only for want of resolution to bear one day of pain:  and it is a great deal to bear; it is a great deal to do to thwart the desire of one whom you so dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her more and more dear to you.  But (and this is one of the most admirable of the mother’s traits) as she herself will, while the tears stream from her eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, whose every cry is a dagger to her heart; as she herself has the courage to do this for the sake of her child, why should you flinch from the performance of a still more important and more sacred duty towards herself, as well as towards you and your children?

186.  Am I recommending tyranny?  Am I recommending disregard of the wife’s opinions and wishes?  Am I recommending a reserve towards her that would seem to say that she was not trust-worthy, or not a party interested in her husband’s affairs?  By no means:  on the contrary, though I would keep any thing disagreeable from her, I should not enjoy the prospect of good without making her a participator.  But reason says, and God has said, that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their husbands; and the very nature of things prescribes that there must be a head of every house, and an undivided authority.  And then it is so clearly just that the authority should rest with him on whose head rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, when patiently reasoned with on the subject, must be a virago in her very nature not to submit with docility to the terms of her marriage vow.

187.  There are, in almost every considerable neighbourhood, a little squadron of she-commanders, generally the youngish wives of old or weak-minded men, and generally without children.  These are the tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage; they, in virtue of their experience, not only school the wives, but scold the husbands; they teach the former how to encroach and the latter how to yield:  so that if you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon under the care of a comite as completely as if you were insane.  You want no comite:  reason, law, religion, the marriage vow; all these have made you head, have given you full power to rule your family, and if you give up your right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the ruin that is, in all probability, your doom.

188.  Taking it for granted that you will not suffer more than a second or third session of the female comite, let me say a word or two about the conduct of men in deciding between the conflicting opinions of husbands and wives.  When a wife has a point to carry, and finds herself hard pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid all the force she can possibly muster, one of her resources