eptions of
a young innocent and sentimental girl who marries an egoistic roue,
and whose life is transformed into martyrdom and completely ruined. De
Maupassant's romances contain such true psychology of sexual life and
love in all their forms, often even in their exceptional aberrations,
that they furnish an admirable illustration to the present chapter.

=Petticoat Government.=--A series of most important irradiations of
love in woman results from the need she feels of being, if not
dominated, at least protected by her husband. To be happy, a woman
must be able to respect her husband and even regard him with more or
less veneration; she must see in him the realization of an ideal,
either of bodily strength, courage, unselfishness or superior
intellect. If this is not the case, the husband easily falls under the
petticoat government, or indifference and antipathy may develop in the
wife, at least if misfortune or illness in the husband does not excite
her pity and transform her into a resigned nurse.

Petticoat government can hardly make a household truly happy, for here
the positions are reversed and the wife rules because the husband is
weak. But the normal instinct of woman is to rule over the heart of
man, not over his intelligence or on his will. Ruling in these last
domains may flatter a woman's vanity and render it dominating, but it
never satisfies her heart, and this is why the woman who rules is so
often unfaithful to her husband, if not in deed, at least in thought.

In such a union she has not found the true love which she sought, and
for this reason, if her moral principles are weak, she looks for
compensation in some Don Juan. If the woman in question has a strong
character, or if she is sexually cold, she may easily become sour and
bitter. These women, who are not rare, are to be dreaded; their
plighted love is transformed into hatred, bad temper or jealousy, and
only finds satisfaction in the torment of others.

The psychology of this kind of woman is interesting. They are not
usually conscious of their malice. The chronic bitterness resulting
from an unfortunate hereditary disposition in their character, as much
as from their outraged feelings, makes them take a dislike to the
world and renders them incapable of seeing anything but the worst side
of people. They become accustomed to disparage everything
automatically, to take offense at everything and to speak ill of
everything on every occasion. T