Advice to Young Men / And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover, a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.

by William Cobbett

198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jealousy in a wife, I cannot help expressing my abhorrence of those husbands who treat it as a matter for ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a man is less heinous than infidelity in the wife; but still, is the marriage vow nothing? Is a promise solemnly made before God, and in the face of the world, nothing? Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a feebler party, nothing of which a man ought to be ashamed? But, besides all these, there is the cruelty. First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a woman's affections; then, in order to get possession of her person, you marry her; then, after enjoyment, you break your vow, you bring upon her the mixed pity and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to weep out her life. Murder is more horrible than this, to be sure, and the criminal law, which punishes divers other crimes, does not reach this; but, in the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed by very few of those crimes. Passion may be pleaded, and so it may, for almost every other crime of which man can be guilty. It is not a crime against nature; nor are any of these which men commit in consequence of their necessities. The temptation is great; and is not the temptation great when men thieve or rob? In short, there is no excuse for an act so unjust and so cruel, and the world is just as to this matter; for, I have always observed, that, however men are disposed to laugh at these breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to produce injury to the whole character; it leaves, after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst those who depend on character for a livelihood, it often produces ruin. At the very least, it makes an unhappy and wrangling family; it makes children despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an example at the thought of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought to shudder. In such a case, children will take part, and they ought to take part, with the mother: she is the injured party; the shame brought upon her attaches, in part, to them: they feel the injustice done them; and, if such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour of his or her life.

199. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the husband, it is much worse in the wife: a proposition that it is necessary to maintain by the force of reason, because the women, as a sisterhood, are prone to deny the truth of it. They say that adultery is adultery, in men as well as in them; and that, therefore, the offence is as great in the one case as in the other. As a crime, abstractedly considered, it certainly is; but, as to the consequences, there is a wide difference. In both cases, there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is this great distinction, that the husband, by his breach of that vow, only brings shame upon his wife and family; whereas the wife, by a breach of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious offspring to maintain, and may bring that spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some cases of their bread, her legitimate children. So that here is a great and evident wrong done to numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace inflicted in this case than in the other.

200. And why is the disgrace deeper? Because here is a total want of delicacy; here is, in fact, prostitution; here is grossness and filthiness of mind; here is every thing that argues baseness of character. Women should be, and they are, except in few instances, far more reserved and more delicate than men; nature bids them be such; the habits and manners of the world confirm this precept of nature; and therefore, when they commit this offence, they excite loathing, as well as call for reprobation. In the countries where a plurality of wives is permitted, there is no plurality of husbands. It is there thought not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives; but the bare thought of a woman having two husbands would excite horror. The widows of the Hindoos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their husbands; but the Hindoo widowers do not dispose of themselves in this way. The widows devote their bodies to complete destruction, lest, even after the death of their husbands, they should be tempted to connect themselves with other men; and though this is carrying delicacy far indeed, it reads to Christian wives a lesson not unworthy of their attention; for, though it is not desirable that their bodies should be turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmutation were preferable to that infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the cheeks of their parents, their children, and on those of all who ever called them friend.

201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is that this species of offence is far more heinous in the wife than in the husband; and the people of all civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. Men who have been guilty of the offence are not cut off from society, but women who have been guilty of it are; for, as we all know well, no woman, married or single, of fair reputation, will risk that reputation by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has ever, at any time, committed this offence, which contains in itself, and by universal award, a sentence of social excommunication for life.

202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the husband to adhere strictly to his marriage vow: if his breach of that vow be naturally attended with the fatal consequences above described: how much more imperative is the duty on the wife to avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from that vow! If the man's misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many innocent parties, what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow such misconduct in the wife! Her parents, those of her husband, all her relations, and all her friends, share in her dishonour. And her children! how is she to make atonement to them! They are commanded to honour their father and their mother; but not such a mother as this, who, on the contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but hatred, abhorrence, and execration. It is she who has broken the ties of nature; she has dishonoured her own offspring; she has fixed a mark of reproach on those who once made a part of her own body; nature shuts her out of the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the just detestation of those whom it formerly bade love her as their own life.

203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, and the punishment so much more severe, in the case of the wife than it is in the case of the husband, so the caution ought to be greater in making the accusation, or entertaining the suspicion. Men ought to be very slow in entertaining such suspicions: they ought to have clear proof before they can suspect; a proneness to such suspicions is a very unfortunate turn of the mind; and, indeed, few characters are more despicable than that of a jealous-headed husband; rather than be tied to the whims of one of whom, an innocent woman of spirit would earn her bread over the washing-tub, or with a hay-fork, or a reap-hook. With such a man there can be no peace; and, as far as children are concerned, the false accusation is nearly equal to the reality. When a wife discovers her jealousy, she merely imputes to her husband inconstancy and breach of his marriage vow; but jealousy in him imputes to her a willingness to palm a spurious offspring upon him, and upon her legitimate children, as robbers of their birthright; and, besides this, grossness, filthiness, and prostitution. She imputes to him injustice and cruelty: but he imputes to her that which banishes her from society; that which cuts her off for life from every thing connected with female purity; that which brands her with infamy to her latest breath.

204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to be in entertaining even the thought of this crime in his wife. He ought to be quite sure before he take the smallest step in the way of accusation; but if unhappily he have the proof, no consideration on earth ought to induce him to cohabit with her one moment longer. Jealous husbands are not despicable because they have grounds; but because they have not grounds; and this is generally the case. When they have grounds, their own honour commands them to cast off the object, as they would cut out a corn or a cancer. It is not the jealousy in itself, which is despicable; but the continuing to live in that state. It is no dishonour to be a slave in Algiers, for instance; the dishonour begins only where you remain a slave voluntarily; it begins the moment you can escape from slavery, and do not. It is despicable unjustly to be jealous of your wife; but it is infamy to cohabit with her if you know her to be guilty.

205. I shall be told that the law compels you to live with her, unless you be rich enough to disengage yourself from her; but the law does not compel you to remain in the same country with her; and, if a man have no other means of ridding himself of such a curse, what are mountains or seas or traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be) of exchanging a life of bodily ease for a life of labour? What are these, and numerous other ills (if they happen) superadded? Nay, what is death itself, compared with the baseness, the infamy, the never-ceasing shame and reproach of living under the same roof with a prostituted woman, and calling her your wife? But, there are children, and what are to become of these? To be taken away from the prostitute, to be sure; and this is a duty which you owe to them: the sooner they forget her the better, and the farther they are from her, the sooner that will be. There is no excuse for continuing to live with an adultress; no inconvenience, no loss, no suffering, ought to deter a man from delivering himself from such a state of filthy infamy; and to suffer his children to remain in such a state, is a crime that hardly admits of adequate description; a jail is paradise compared with such a life, and he who can endure this latter, from the fear of encountering hardship, is a wretch too despicable to go by the name of man.

206. But, now, all this supposes, that the husband has well and truly acted his part! It supposes, not only that he has been faithful; but, that he has not, in any way, been the cause of temptation to the wife to be unfaithful. If he have been cold and neglectful; if he have led a life of irregularity; if he have proved to her that home was not his delight; if he have made his house the place of resort for loose companions; if he have given rise to a taste for visiting, junketting, parties of pleasure and gaiety; if he have introduced the habit of indulging in what are called 'innocent freedoms;' if these, or any of these, the fault is his, he must take the consequences, and he has no right to inflict punishment on the offender, the offence being in fact of his own creating. The laws of God, as well as the laws of man, have given him all power in this respect: it is for him to use that power for the honour of his wife as well as for that of himself: if he neglect to use it, all the consequences ought to fall on him; and, as far as my observation has gone, in nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in wives, the crimes have been fairly ascribable to the husbands. Folly or misconduct in the husband, cannot, indeed, justify or even palliate infidelity in the wife, whose very nature ought to make her recoil at the thought of the offence; but it may, at the same time, deprive him of the right of inflicting punishment on her: her kindred, her children, and the world, will justly hold her in abhorrence; but the husband must hold his peace.

207. 'Innocent freedoms!' I know of none that a wife can indulge in. The words, as applied to the demeanour of a married woman, or even a single one, imply a contradiction. For freedom, thus used, means an exemption or departure from the strict rules of female reserve; and, I do not see how this can be innocent. It may not amount to crime, indeed; but, still it is not innocent; and the use of the phrase is dangerous. If it had been my fortune to be yoked to a person, who liked 'innocent freedoms,' I should have unyoked myself in a very short time. But, to say the truth, it is all a man's own fault. If he have not sense and influence enough to prevent 'innocent freedoms,' even before marriage, he will do well to let the thing alone, and leave wives to be managed by those who have. But, men will talk to your wife, and natter her. To be sure they will, if she be young and pretty; and would you go and pull her away from them? O no, by no means; but you must have very little sense, or must have made very little use of it, if her manner do not soon convince them that they employ their flattery in vain.