s "as clear as that of a proposition in Euclid." He
thinks that the business of life can be carried on by no other method. How
is it, then, that when we come to what is called technically and especially
the "business" of every day, this whole fine-spun theory is disregarded,
and men come together in partnership on the basis of equality?

Nobody is farther than I from regarding marriage as a mere business
partnership. But it is to be observed that the points wherein it differs
from a merely mercantile connection are points that should make equality
more easy, not more difficult. The tie between two ordinary business
partners is merely one of interest: it is based on no sentiments, sealed by
no solemn pledge, enriched by no home associations, cemented by no new
generation of young life. If a relation like this is found to work well on
terms of equality,--so well that a large part of the business of the world
is done by it,--is it not absurd to suppose that the same equal relation
cannot exist in the married partnership of husband and wife? And if law,
custom, society, all recognize this fact of equality in the one case, why,
in the name of common-sense, should they not equally recognize it in the
other?

And, again, it may often be far easier to assign a sphere to each partner
in marriage than in business; and therefore the double headship of a family
will involve less need of collision. In nine cases out of ten, the external
support of the family will devolve upon the husband, unquestioned by the
wife; and its internal economy upon the wife, unquestioned by the husband.
No voluntary distribution of powers and duties between business partners
can work so naturally, on the whole, as this simple and easy demarcation,
with which the claim of suffrage makes no necessary interference. It may
require angry discussion to decide which of two business partners shall
buy, and which shall sell; which shall keep the books, and which do the
active work, and so on; but all this is usually settled in married life by
the natural order of things. Even in regard to the management of children,
where collision is likely to come, if anywhere, it can commonly be settled
by that happy formula of Jean Paul's, that the mother usually supplies the
commas and the semicolons in the child's book of life, and the father the
colons and periods. And as to matters in general, the simple and practical
rule, that each question that arises should be decided