“O friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural pleasure pass’d.”
Marriage is frequently an union of interest: the happiness of one is made a source of enjoyment to the other. It is for life, because it is most agreeable with the inclination of mankind that friendship, esteem and love should be permanent. In this instance a continuance of the union constitutes no small part of the bliss. The expectation of a durable connection makes men careful, otherwise they would marry and unmarry every week. There is, by the arrangement of the Almighty, a comparative power or influence [p206] vested in the man, because, agreeably with all good government,—
“Some are, and must be, greater than the rest;”
but then, as Dr Beattie observes, “the superiority vested by law in the man is compensated to the woman by that superior complaisance which is paid them by every man who aspires to elegance of manners.” And besides this, the husband has frequently the nominal, while the wife has the actual power:—
“Like as the helme doth rule the shippe,”
so she regulates all the household affairs. This is proper, when the husband allows it; and he ought to do so, when his wife is capable of managing these things; but when the inclinations of his Eve run perversely, when he is conscious that he has reason on his side, and she only folly, and yet he is vacillating and yielding, he is unmanly and inconsistent; he sacrifices future happiness to present peace. Every woman, it must be granted, is not a sensible one; and “there is nothing,” as Lord Burleigh observed to his son, “more fulsome than a she foole.” If Socrates had properly controlled his Xantippe before her disorder had increased beyond cure, it would have contributed to her happiness and his own. Prince Eugene observed, on one occasion, rather satirically, that love was a mere amusement, and calculated for nothing more than to enlarge the influence of the woman, and abridge the power of the man. Goldsmith’s Hermit said to his lovely visiter,—
“And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair one’s jest;