e, or else of equality of worth and refinement in both. "Love
does not secure happiness in marriage, often the contrary: reason is
necessary." So said the wise Jean Paul. He also said, "The best man
joined with the worst woman has a greater hell than the best woman
joined with the worst man." This is, no doubt, true as a general
rule, because woman is so much more capable than man of self
abnegation, silent patience, meek submission, and flexible adjustment
to inevitable circumstances. Probably the women who keenly and
chronically suffer from unhappy marriages are far more numerous than
the kindred sufferers of the other sex. This is because they are more
deeply susceptible to cruelty and indifference and to all the
repulsive traits of character; are less capable of ignoring such
things; have less of absorbing occupation of their own to take up
their attention, and are less able to be absorbed in things beyond
the personal and domestic sphere. There are unquestionably thousands
of married women whose experience is made a living martyrdom by the
infidelity, the tyranny, the coarseness, the general odiousness and
wearisomeness of their husbands. In most cases, even where a divorce
is wished, the shocking public scandal and disgrace are too much; and
they wear on to the end. What misery delicate and conscientious
women, of dedicated souls and polished manners, who love every thing
that is pure and beautiful, are compelled to undergo in their bondage
to husbands, ignorant, uninteresting, ignoble, relentlessly
domineering, is not to be expressed. Their best weapons in such
cases, if they knew it, are gentleness, patience, persuasion, and the
skilful use of every means to improve and uplift their unequal
companions to their own level. The Persian poet expressed a rich
truth when he wrote, "Gentleness is the sail on the table of morals."
It is a tragedy that the good wife of a bad husband is so identified
with him, that the penalties of his offences fall on her head, often
more terribly than on his. A pure woman loving a wicked man must
expect to have her affections ravaged by his sins: does not the
lightning drawn by the rod blast the innocent ivy entwining it? What
lacerating woes the gambler, the drunkard, the forger, the adulterer,
inflicts on his wife!

And yet, profound as is the misfortune, sharp as is the suffering of
such, it may be doubted whether a noble, sensitive, cultivated man,
with a yearning heart of softness