Another cause of disunion springs from the proud temper of some wives. They erroneously and obstinately persuade themselves that fidelity includes all their duty. More than one husband, incessantly tormented by an imperious and capricious wife, feels almost disposed to envy the gentle spouse who sleeps pleasantly under deceitful caresses. As much as an honest man ought to avoid crimes, in order to merit his reputation and sustain it, ought the highest meed awarded to women to be bestowed, not on those alone who are chaste, but on those who know how to watch over the happiness of their family by eager attentions and studious cares. This petulance of temper is commonly supposed to be a conjoined attribute of conjugal fidelity. I have sometimes seen wives both peevish and coquettish, and I cannot imagine a more odious combination. If we despise the man who is rough and slovenly at home, and becomes charming in society, what sentiment does that wife merit who wears out her husband’s patience with her arrogance, and puts on seducing graces, and affects sensibility, in the presence of strangers? I have often heard men who were sensible upon every other subject, express their conviction that the orientals, in excluding their women from all eyes but their own, had established the only reasonable domestic policy. There is no more wit than humanity in this barbarous sentiment, however frequently it is uttered. No one could be in earnest, in wishing to copy, into free institutions, this appalling vestige of slavery. But my inward respect for women withholds me from flattering them. Authority ought to belong to the husband; and the influence of tenderness, graces and the charms of constancy, gentleness and truth, constituting the appropriate female empire, belongs of right to the wife. I take leave to illustrate this phrase. Masculine vigor, and aptitude to contend and resist, clearly indicate that nature has confided authority to man. To dispossess him of it, and control him by a still more irresistible sway, it is necessary that the feeble sex should learn patience, docility, passive courage, and the management of their appropriate weapons in danger and sorrow, and to become energetic for the endurance of the peaceful cares of the domestic establishment. Man is formed by nature for the calls of active courage; and woman, for the appalling scenes of pain and affliction, and the agony of the sick and dying bed. In a word, all argument apart, nature has clearly demonstrated to which sex authority belongs.