So much for the physical aspect. In regard to moral principles, there was one that was firmly established. The man who was bringing himself to the marrying point was haunted by the spectre of feminine independence; the terror he felt in anticipation of some enforced sacrifice of his tastes or whims took possession of him and dominated every other sentiment. So when he set out in quest of a young wife, he looked for one in his own rank of society, on his own level, so that she might have nothing to hope for from him, nothing to cast in his face, that he might owe her nothing, that she might have no pretext for riding roughshod over him, but might resign herself quite contentedly to play second fiddle, regarding this subordination as natural, just as the ivy gladly embraces the asperities of the wall it is fixed to. The husbands wished their wives to take pleasure in resignation and to fancy that their woes were the source of true felicity. The first condition towards attaining this end was that the ladies should not have a higher, nor even a lower station in society to look back on. In a fit of epicurism dashed with respectability you marry your cook, thinking you are securing careful attentions, a good table, and a warm bed! Woful mistake! You are wedding a fishwife, who will treat you after the manner of fishwives, and overwhelm you with coarse abuse: she will never tire of telling you you are not man enough for her. You would not find it much more pleasant to marry a woman a little too much above you, who, at the critical moment, would hold you with an admirable curtain lecture, and, instead of doing her wifely duty, would discourse to you for the hundredth time on the splendid matches she had declined, the rage of her family, your poverty,[31] and so forth. It is easy to understand with what uneasiness and fatalism all these considerations, not to mention others, fill the mind of a man who has reached the age of official paternity. He hesitates long, and makes up his mind at last with his eyes wide open, knowing that “in the best of marriages one must expect at least as much pain as pleasure.” Not that he would maintain that marriage is a mistake for men, but he does think that “neither joy nor felicity has part or lot in such brutishness.” He asks advice from one and another, and always runs counter to it. Someone tells him of a girl with money—she will want to rule the roost; of a poor girl—she will be a drag; a pretty girl—so much the better for his neighbours; a plain girl—ugh! that offends his susceptibilities. What does he want, then? A good manager, a strapping well-built wench: if he talks of consulting an expert, he is referred to Triboulet![32] He would much rather have to choose a cow.