But this discussion would take us far from our subject, if it led us
to examine, in all its details, the vast improvement in morals which
doubtless will distinguish twentieth century France; for morals are
reformed only very gradually! Is it not necessary, in order to produce
the slightest change, that the most daring dreams of the past century
become the most trite ideas of the present one? We have touched upon
this question merely in a trifling mood, for the purposes of showing
that we are not blind to its importance, and of bequeathing also to
posterity the outline of a work, which they may complete. To speak more
accurately there is a third work to be composed; the first concerns
courtesans, while the second is the physiology of pleasure!

"When there are ten of us, we cross ourselves."

In the present state of our morals and of our imperfect civilization,
a problem crops up which for the moment is insoluble, and which renders
superfluous all discussion on the art of choosing a wife; we commend it,
as we have done all the others, to the meditation of philosophers.

PROBLEM.

It has not yet been decided whether a wife is forced into infidelity by
the impossibility of obtaining any change, or by the liberty which is
allowed her in this connection.

Moreover, as in this work we pitch upon a man at the moment that he
is newly married, we declare that if he has found a wife of sanguine
temperament, of vivid imagination, of a nervous constitution or of an
indolent character, his situation cannot fail to be extremely serious.

A man would find himself in a position of danger even more critical if
his wife drank nothing but water [see the Meditation entitled _Conjugal
Hygiene_]; but if she had some talent for singing, or if she were
disposed to take cold easily, he should tremble all the time; for it
must be remembered that women who sing are at least as passionate as
women whose mucous membrane shows extreme delicacy.

Again, this danger would be aggravated still more if your wife were less
than seventeen; or if, on the other hand, her general complexion were
pale and dull, for this sort of woman is almost always artificial.

But we do not wish to anticipate here any description of the terrors
which threaten husbands from the symptoms of unhappiness which they read
in the character of their wives. This digression has already taken
us too far from the subject of boarding schools, in