At first, quarrels arise which in the eye of wives give an air of tyranny to husbands.  The tyranny of a husband is always a terrible excuse for inconsistency in a wife.  Then, in their frivolous discussions they are enabled to prove to their families and to ours, to everybody and to ourselves, that we are in the wrong.  If, for the sake of peace, or from love, you acknowledge the pretended rights of women, you yield an advantage to your wife by which she will profit eternally.  A husband, like a government, ought never to acknowledge a mistake.  In case you do so, your power will be outflanked by the subtle artifices of feminine dignity; then all will be lost; from that moment she will advance from concession to concession until she has driven you from her bed.

The woman being shrewd, intelligent, sarcastic and having leisure to meditate over an ironical phrase, can easily turn you into ridicule during a momentary clash of opinions.  The day on which she turns you into ridicule, sees the end of your happiness.  Your power has expired.  A woman who has laughed at her husband cannot henceforth love him.  A man should be, to the woman who is in love with him, a being full of power, of greatness, and always imposing.  A family cannot exist without despotism.  Think of that, ye nations!

Now the difficult course which a man has to steer in presence of such serious incidents as these, is what we may call the haute politique of marriage, and is the subject of the second and third parts of our book.  That breviary of marital Machiavelism will teach you the manner in which you may grow to greatness within that frivolous mind, within that soul of lacework, to use Napoleon’s phrase.  You may learn how a man may exhibit a soul of steel, may enter upon this little domestic war without ever yielding the empire of his will, and may do so without compromising his happiness.  For if you exhibit any tendency to abdication, your wife will despise you, for the sole reason that she has discovered you to be destitute of mental vigor; you are no longer a man to her.

But we have not yet reached the point at which are to be developed those theories and principles, by means of which a man may unite elegance of manners with severity of measures; let it suffice us, for the moment, to point out the importance of impending events and let us pursue our theme.

At this fatal epoch, you will see that she is adroitly setting up a right to go out alone.

You were at one time her god, her idol.  She has now reached that height of devotion at which it is permitted to see holes in the garments of the saints.

“Oh, mon Dieu!  My dear,” said Madame de la Valliere to her husband, “how badly you wear your sword!  M. de Richelieu has a way of making it hang straight at his side, which you ought to try to imitate; it is in much better taste.”

“My dear, you could not tell me in a more tactful manner that we have been married five months!” replied the Duke, whose repartee made his fortune in the reign of Louis XV.