of dissension is got rid of, by reducing the minds of
women to such a nullity, that they have no opinions but those of Mrs.
Grundy, or those which the husband tells them to have. When there is
no difference of opinion, differences merely of taste may be
sufficient to detract greatly from the happiness of married life. And
though it may stimulate the amatory propensities of men, it does not
conduce to married happiness, to exaggerate by differences of
education whatever may be the native differences of the sexes. If the
married pair are well-bred and well-behaved people, they tolerate
each other's tastes; but is mutual toleration what people look
forward to, when they enter into marriage? These differences of
inclination will naturally make their wishes different, if not
restrained by affection or duty, as to almost all domestic questions
which arise. What a difference there must be in the society which the
two persons will wish to frequent, or be frequented by! Each will
desire associates who share their own tastes: the persons agreeable
to one, will be indifferent or positively disagreeable to the other;
yet there can be none who are not common to both, for married people
do not now live in different parts of the house and have totally
different visiting lists, as in the reign of Louis XV. They cannot
help having different wishes as to the bringing up of the children:
each will wish to see reproduced in them their own tastes and
sentiments: and there is either a compromise, and only a
half-satisfaction to either, or the wife has to yield--often with
bitter suffering; and, with or without intention, her occult
influence continues to counterwork the husband's purposes.

It would of course be extreme folly to suppose that these differences
of feeling and inclination only exist because women are brought up
differently from men, and that there would not be differences of
taste under any imaginable circumstances. But there is nothing beyond
the mark in saying that the distinction in bringing-up immensely
aggravates those differences, and renders them wholly inevitable.
While women are brought up as they are, a man and a woman will but
rarely find in one another real agreement of tastes and wishes as to
daily life. They will generally have to give it up as hopeless, and
renounce the attempt to have, in the intimate associate of their
daily life, that _idem velle, idem nolle_, which is the recognised
bond of any society that