§ 93
One’s wife is the closest part of one’s objective ego. She is at least that. Many men are of course careless of their own bodies and personal appearance. They recognize, however, that the responsibility for these is their own and no one else’s. But their wives are above all things their complementary bodies, and practically as much their own responsibility as their own personal corporeal systems. A man may conceivably think his wife has no right to happiness but as part of himself he must see that she is really happy. She is as important for his welfare at least as his arms or legs, which he would not choose to have cramped or palsied. Yet a man with an unsatisfied wife is as personally and intimately defective in himself as if he had a withered hand, and he is much more responsible for the wife’s condition than he is for that of his other members.