“Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.”
—Pope.
7.—“Her every wish made subject ...”
For a somewhat modern exemplification may be taken the instance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in Paris with her husband, in 1852. She writes of Georges Sand:—“She received us in a room with a bed in it, the only room she has to occupy, I suppose, during her short stay in Paris.... Ah, but I didn’t see her smoke; I was unfortunate. I could only go with Robert three times to her house, and once she was out. He was really very good and kind to let me go at all after he found the sort of society rampant around her. He didn’t like it extremely, but, being the prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires, and yielded the point.”—(“Life of Robert Browning,” by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, 1891.)
8.—“... her God.”
Conf. Milton (“Paradise Lost,” Book IV., 299):—
“He for God only, she for God in him.”
See Note XXXV., 5. Compare also the Code of Manu, v. 154, as quoted by Letourneau:—“Although the conduct of her husband may be blameworthy, and he may give himself up to other amours, and be devoid of good qualities, a virtuous woman ought constantly to revere him as a God.”—(“Evolution of Marriage,” Chap. XIII.)
Id.... Here may fittingly be appended some masculine concepts of feminine duty in other races.