Anna blushed, and almost repented of her generous warmth, but, being perfectly sincere, she would not deny her sentiments.
“They ought to be the opinion of every wife,” she answered. “I could not endure to see the man to whom I could wish on all occasions to look up, soliciting the means on which we both subsisted. It would be my delight, if I had money and he had none, to pour all into his lap, and then come and ask of him as much as was necessary to my comfort.[comfort.]”
“If he had the soul of a man he would not wait to be asked, but would endeavour to anticipate your smallest wants. I believe you are right, and that happiness is best secured by confidence.”
“And in not reversing the laws of nature. Why do women vow to obey and honour their husbands, if they are to retain them as dependants? I declare, John Wilmeter, I should almost despise the man who could consent to live with me on any terms but those in which nature, the church, and reason, unite in telling us he ought to be the superior.”
“Well, Anna, this is good, old-fashioned, womanly sentiment; and I will confess it delights me to hear it from you. I am the better pleased, because, as Uncle Tom is always complaining, the weakness of the hour is to place your sex above ours, and to reverse all the ancient rules in this respect. Let a woman, now-a-days, run away from her husband, and carry off the children; it is ten to one but some crotchety judge, who thinks more of a character built up on gossip than of deferring properly to that which the laws of God and the wisdom of man have decreed, refuse to issue a writ of habeas corpus to restore the issue to the parent.”
“I do not know, John,”—Anna hesitatingly rejoined, with a true woman’s instinct—“it would be so hard to rob a mother of her children!”
“It might be hard, but in such a case it would be just. I like that word ‘rob,’ for it suits both parties. To me, it seems that the father is the party robbed, when the wife not only steals away from her duty to her husband, but deprives him of his children too.”
“It is wrong, and I have heard Mr. Dunscomb express great indignation at what he called the ‘soft-soapiness’ of certain judges in cases of this nature. Still, John, the world is apt to think a woman would not abandon the most sacred of her duties without a cause. That feeling must be at the bottom of what you call the decision, I believe, of these judges.”
“If there be such a cause as would justify a woman in deserting her husband, and in stealing his children—for it is robbery after all, and robbery of the worst sort, since it involves breaches of faith of the most heinous nature—let that cause be shown, that justice may pronounce between the parties. Besides, it is not true that women will not sometimes forget their duties without sufficient cause. There are capricious, and uncertain, and egotistical women, who follow their own wayward inclinations, as well as selfish men. Some women love power intensely, and are never satisfied with simply filling the place that was intended for them by nature. It is hard for such to submit to their husbands, or, indeed, to submit to any one.”
“It must be a strange female,” answered Anna, gently, “who cannot suffer the control of the man of her choice, after quitting father and mother for his sake.”