is officially above Mr. Seward, it does not
follow that there can be nothing between them but absolute command on
the one part and prostrate submission on the other; neither does it
follow that the superior claims in all respects to regulate the affairs
and conduct of the inferior. There are still wide spheres of individual
freedom, as there are in the case of husband and wife; and no sensible
man but would feel himself ridiculous in entering another's proper
sphere with the voice of authority.

The inspired declaration, that "the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the Church," is certainly to be qualified
by the evident points of difference in the subjects spoken of. It
certainly does not mean that any man shall be invested with the rights
of omnipotence and omniscience, but simply that in the family state he
is the head and protector, even as in the Church is the Saviour. It is
merely the announcement of a great natural law of society which obtains
through all the tribes and races of men,--a great and obvious fact of
human existence.

The silly and senseless reaction against this idea in some otherwise
sensible women is, I think, owing to the kind of extravagances and
overstatements to which we have alluded. It is as absurd to cavil at the
word _obey_ in the marriage ceremony as for a military officer to set
himself against the etiquette of the army, or a man to refuse the
freeman's oath.

Two young men every way on a footing of equality and friendship may be
one of them a battalion-commander and the other a staff-officer. It
would be alike absurd for the one to take airs about not obeying a man
every way his equal, and for the other to assume airs of lordly
dictation out of the sphere of his military duties. The mooting of the
question of marital authority between two well-bred, well-educated
Christian people of the nineteenth century is no less absurd.

While the husband has a certain power confided to him for the support
and maintenance of the family, and for the preservation of those
relations which involve its good name and well-being before the world,
he has no claim to an authoritative exertion of will in reference to the
little personal tastes and habits of the interior. He has no divine
right to require that everything shall be arranged to please him, at the
expense of his wife's preferences and feelings, any more than if he were
not the head of the household. In a thousand ind