At the risk of appearing rash in a matter wherein mathematical proofs are so difficult to produce, we think we are justified in asserting that the majority of married women (we are speaking of women of position) desired to render their physical subjection as light as possible, regarding this obligation almost as the seamy side of life, an error of Providence. And they had so much the better of the position that, as rumours of the little domestic dramas always got abroad sooner or later, the ladies were almost certain to have the laughers on their side, especially in France. The French refused all rights to the married woman, but they always took her part, even when she was in the wrong, precisely because, as they looked at marriage, the husband represented the government and the wife the opposition. Domestic squabbles fed the stage, furnishing certain types which were very popular—to wit, the man who married too young, or the man who married too old, the latter a special favourite since the time when good King Louis XII., sacrificing himself to a dynastic ambition, espoused the lady he called his “torment.” The husband’s part, then, is in truth difficult enough to play. If he is intellectual, platonic, there is no pity for him, people are all so busy finding excuses for his wife. In regard, also, to a husband who puffs and blows and is irritably jealous, the “new right” grants to the wife the fullest absolution. Everyone knows that a silk dress is not enough for happiness!—and because a husband is pleased to be deaf or blind, it is not to be expected that the whole world is to be blind and deaf too. On her side, a wife had the right to stand on her dignity and play the prude. In general, the average worthy man, a little vulgar perhaps, but a good father and an excellent man of business, is not a great success in his domestic relations, and in insisting on what he regards as his wife’s mission, the bearing of children, he wofully deceives himself. My lady’s mission is to be the lady of the house: as for him, let him go to his office and “think himself too much honoured that God has blessed him with such a wife.” If it is a question of receiving fine fashionable friends, people from Court, madam has incomparable graces; but any tender approaches on the good man’s part are sure to bring on a fit of the megrims.