And this I think is chiefly a point for men to consider. The conception of a husband as a sort of Czar within his own home still lingers, though it may not be openly proclaimed. Men still grow up with the idea that a wife should be a sort of submissive and very charming slave, honored by occasional demonstrations of affection, and that the whole household should be ordered to suit his lordship's convenience. Such men will protect their wives, give them money, make love to them, humor them, and honor them in public; and in return will expect something little short of sheer submission. Behind all this lurks the half-conscious idea that woman is man's inferior, and that idea really does remain hidden even in the minds of some who would repudiate it. The fact is that the ultimate value of marriage--the thing that makes it good fun, as well as a noble thing--lies in the fact that men and women are so different; that they have not the same powers, and can alternately take the lead in their common life. It is comradeship, and not mere occasional love-making, that they must achieve in order to be permanently happy, and comradeship is a relation in which each must be free to be his or her natural self. Marriage _can_ be made a cramping thing, and then in time it becomes almost an insufferable thing. But if each will give the other room to grow it can be an enlarging experience. It may contain the sum of the interests of two different people. If mutual learning is brought into it, it dignifies the lives of both. I believe in obedient wives. But then I also believe in obedient husbands. If I did not follow my wife's lead in some departments of life, I should be neither more nor less than a fool. And I believe that she is quite wise to follow my lead in some other connections. What all this really points to is that the element of liberty is worth conserving within marriage with very great care. When a wife has no private means it is an essential thing for the husband to give her regularly a stated allowance and to ask no questions as to how it is spent. It is a good thing--a very good thing--to make certain that, if possible, a wife has a holiday now and then from the heavy bondage of housekeeping. It is even a good thing that she should have a holiday now and then from the charms and joys of family life. For we men are very like children in the way we come to depend on our wives. All our little woes must be brought to them--from buttonless shirts to the pitiful tale of our last defeat at golf. The children consult them daily about a hundred things as of right, and their husbands must often seem to them the biggest bairns of the lot. I quite see why women like it. But it must get very wearing at times. It surely is a good thing that now and then a wife should turn her back on it all, meet old friends, have days in which to enjoy herself without any bothers, and even for a few hours forget her exacting if charming dependents.