e
master, without much regard to similarity of tastes or parity of age; and
though a young man is mated to an old woman, they live comfortably
together. If he finds her guilty of any great offence, he brings her up
before the master or the alcalde, gets her a whipping, and then takes her
under his arm, and goes quietly home with her." This "whipping" the
unromantic author considers not at all derogatory to the character of a
kind husband, for he adds--"The Indian husband is rarely harsh to his wife,
and the devotion of the wife to her husband is always a subject of remark."
Some have made it a grave question whether marriages should not be made by
the magistrate, and be proclaimed by the town-crier. To imagine which is a
wrong and tyranny, and arises from the barbarous custom that no woman
shall be the first to tell her mind in matters of affection. Men have set
aside the privilege of Leap year; it is as great a nickname as the
church's "convocation." We tie her tongue upon the first subject on which
she would speak, then impudently call woman a babbler. There is no end,
Eusebius, to the _wrongs_ our tongues do the sex. We take up all old, and
invent new, proverbs against them. Ungenerous as we are, we learn other
languages out of spite, as it were, to abuse them with, and cry out, "One
tongue is enough for a woman." We _rate_ them for every thing and at
nothing--thus: "He that loseth his wife and a farthing, hath a great loss
of his farthing." There's not a natural evil but we contrive to couple
them with it. "Wedding and ill-wintering tame both man and beast." I heard
a witty invention the other day--it was by a lady, and a wife, and perhaps
in her pride. It was asked whence came the saying, that "March comes in
like a lion, and goes out like a lamb." "Because," said she, "he meets
with Lady Day, and gets his quietus." Whatever we say against them,
however, lacks the great essential--truth, and that is why we go on saying,
thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter.
Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a
man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in
a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a
smiling wife, pats them both in his delight, and calls them both jades--he
unbridles the one, and bridles the other. There is no end to it; when one
begins with the injustice we do the sex, we may go on for ever, and