rary, diminished by the
disrespect which the inferior class of men always at heart feel
towards those who are subject to their power. But when we ascend
higher in the scale, we come among a totally different set of moving
forces. The wife's influence tends, as far as it goes, to prevent the
husband from falling below the common standard of approbation of the
country. It tends quite as strongly to hinder him from rising above
it. The wife is the auxiliary of the common public opinion. A man who
is married to a woman his inferior in intelligence, finds her a
perpetual dead weight, or, worse than a dead weight, a drag, upon
every aspiration of his to be better than public opinion requires him
to be. It is hardly possible for one who is in these bonds, to attain
exalted virtue. If he differs in his opinion from the mass--if he
sees truths which have not yet dawned upon them, or if, feeling in
his heart truths which they nominally recognise, he would like to act
up to those truths more conscientiously than the generality of
mankind--to all such thoughts and desires, marriage is the heaviest
of drawbacks, unless he be so fortunate as to have a wife as much
above the common level as he himself is.

For, in the first place, there is always some sacrifice of personal
interest required; either of social consequence, or of pecuniary
means; perhaps the risk of even the means of subsistence. These
sacrifices and risks he may be willing to encounter for himself; but
he will pause before he imposes them on his family. And his family in
this case means his wife and daughters; for he always hopes that his
sons will feel as he feels himself, and that what he can do without,
they will do without, willingly, in the same cause. But his
daughters--their marriage may depend upon it: and his wife, who is
unable to enter into or understand the objects for which these
sacrifices are made--who, if she thought them worth any sacrifice,
would think so on trust, and solely for his sake--who can participate
in none of the enthusiasm or the self-approbation he himself may
feel, while the things which he is disposed to sacrifice are all in
all to her; will not the best and most unselfish man hesitate the
longest before bringing on her this consequence? If it be not the
comforts of life, but only social consideration, that is at stake,
the burthen upon his conscience and feelings is still very severe.
Whoever has a wife and children has given hostages