It is as a husband that your conduct will have the greatest effect on your happiness. All in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and education, is, nine times out of ten, the work of her husband. First convince her of the necessity of moderation in expense; make her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption that there are children coming. The great danger of all is beginning with a servant. The wife is young, and why is she not to work as well as her husband? If the wife be not able to do all the work to be done in the house, she ought not to have been able to marry. The next thing to be attended to is your demeanour towards a young wife. The first frown that she receives from you is a dagger to her heart. Let nothing put you out of humour with her. Every husband who spends his leisure time in company other than that of his wife and family tells her and them that he takes more delight in other company than in theirs. Resolve from the very first never to spend an hour from home unless business or some necessary and rational purpose demand it. If you are called away your wife ought to be fully apprised of the probable duration of the absence and of the time of return. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day, how can a just man think anything a trifle that affects her happiness? Though these considerations may demand from us the kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful deportment at her hands. A husband under command is the most contemptible of God's creatures. Am I recommending tyranny? Am I recommending disregard of the wife's opinions and wishes? By no means. But the very nature of things prescribes that there must be a head of every house, and an undivided authority. The wife ought to be heard, and patiently heard; she ought to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; but if she remain opposed to the husband's opinion, his will must be obeyed. I now come to that great bane of families--jealousy. One thing every husband can do in the way of prevention, and that is to give no ground for it. Few characters are more despicable than that of a jealous-headed husband, and that, not because he has grounds, but because he has not grounds. If to be happy in the married state requires these precautions, you may ask: Is it not better to remain single? The cares and troubles of the married life are many, but are those of the single life few? Without wives men are poor, helpless mortals. As to the expense, I firmly believe that a farmer married at twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would be able to save more money during these years than a bachelor of the same age would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of time. The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely. To me, no being in this world appears so wretched as he. _V.--To a Father_