, as it often is, by a wise and cautious
mother-in-law: "My dear," she would say, "you must never let your
husband have matters all his own way."

A woman who abdicates all her authority, who is not queen over her
kitchen, her chamber, and her drawing-room or best parlor, does a very
dangerous and foolish thing, and will soon dwarf down into a mere
assenting dummy. Now old Burleigh, the wise counselor of Queen
Elizabeth, has, in his advice to his son, left it upon record that "thou
shalt find there is nothing so irksome in life as a female fool." A wife
who is the mere echo of her husband's opinions; who waits for his advice
upon all matters; who is lazy, indolent, and silly in her household;
fussy, troublesome, and always out of the way or in the way when she is
traveling; who has no opinions of her own, no temper of her own; who
boasts that "she bears every thing like a lamb;" and who bears the
breakage of her best china and the desecration of her white curtains
with tobbaco-smoke with equal serenity; such a woman may be very
affectionate and very good, but she is somewhat of a "she-fool." Her
husband will too often first begin to despise and then to neglect her.
She will follow so closely on the heels of her husband's ideas and her
husband's opinions that she will annoy him like an echo. Her genuine
love will be construed into something like cunning flattery; her very
devotion will be mistaken; her sweet nature become tiresome and irksome,
from want of variety; and, from being the mistress of the house, she
will sink into the mere slave of the husband. A wife should therefore
learn to think, to walk alone, to bear her full share of the troubles
and dignities of married life, never to become a cipher in her own
house, but to rise to the level of her husband, and to take her full
share of the matrimonial throne. The husband, if a wise man, will never
act without consulting his wife; nor will she do any thing of importance
without the aid and advice of her husband.

There is, however--and in these days of rapid fortune-making we see it
constantly--a certain class of men who rise in the world without the
slightest improvement in their manners, taste, or sense. Such men are
shrewd men of business, or perhaps have been borne to the haven of
fortune by a lucky tide; and yet these very men possess wives who,
although they are of a lower sphere, rise at once with their position,
and in manner, grace, and address are perfect