Has he any call to be a husband, who adds to his wife’s manifold cares that of selecting and providing the household stores, and inquires of her, at that, how she spent the surplus shilling of yesterday’s appropriation?
Has he any call to be a husband, who permits his own relatives, in his hearing, to speak disrespectfully or censoriously of his wife?
Has he any call to be a husband, who reads the newspaper from beginning to end, giving notice of his presence to the weary wife, who is patiently mending his old coat, only by an occasional “Jupiter!” which may mean, to the harrowed listener, that we have a President worth standing in a driving rain, at the tail of a three-mile procession, to vote for, or—the contrary? and who, after having extracted every particle of news the paper contains, coolly puts it in one of his many mysterious pockets, and goes to sleep in his chair?
Has he a call to be a husband, who carries a letter, intended for his wife, in his pocket for six weeks, and expects any thing short of “gunpowder tea” for his supper that night?
Has he a call to be a husband, who leaves his wife to blow out the lamp, and stub her precious little toes while she is navigating for the bed-post?
Has he a call to be a husband, who tells his wife “to walk on a couple of blocks and he will overtake her,” and then joins in a hot political discussion with an opponent, after which, in a fit of absence of mind, he walks off home, leaving his wife transformed by his perfidy into “a pillar of salt?”
Has he any call to be a husband, who sits down on his wife’s best bonnet, or puts her shawl over her shoulders upside down, or wrong side out at the Opera?
Has he any call to be a husband, who goes “unbeknown” to his wife, to some wretch of a barber, and parts, for twenty-five cents, with a beard which she has coaxed from its first infantile sprout, to luxuriant, full-grown, magnificent, unsurpassable hirsuteness, and then comes home to her horrified vision a pocket edition of Moses?
Has he any call to be a husband, who kisses his wife only on Saturday night, when he winds up the clock and pays the grocer, and who never notices, day by day, the neat dress, and shining bands of hair arranged to please his stupid milk-and-water-ship?