e that you have made a _good choice_;
but a good young woman may be made, by a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, an
extravagant, or a profligate husband, a really bad wife and mother. All
in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and education is, nine
times out of ten, the work of her husband.

153. The first thing of all, be the rank in life what it may, is to
convince her of the necessity of _moderation in expense_; and to make
her clearly see the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption,
that there are _children coming_, that they are to be provided for, and
that she is to _assist_ in the making of that provision. Legally
speaking, we have a right to do what we please with our own property,
which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed our debts. And, morally
speaking, we, at the moment of our marriage, contract a debt with the
naturally to be expected fruit of it; and, therefore (reserving further
remarks upon this subject till I come to speak of the education of
children), the scale of expense should, at the beginning, be as low as
that of which a due attention to rank in life will admit.

154. The great danger of all is, beginning with _servants_, or a
_servant_. Where there are riches, or where the business is so great as
to demand _help_ in the carrying on of the affairs of a house, one or
more female servants must be kept; but, where the work of a house can be
done by one pair of hands, why should there be two; especially as you
cannot have the hands without having the _mouth_, and, which is
frequently not less costly, inconvenient and injurious, the _tongue_?
When children come, there must, at times, be some foreign aid; but,
until then, what need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even farmer
(unless the family be great) have of a servant? The wife is young, and
why is she not to work as well as the husband? What justice is there in
wanting you to keep two women instead of one? You have not married them
both in form; but, if they be inseparable, you have married them in
substance; and if you are free from the crime of bigamy, you have the
far most burthensome part of its consequences.

155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of this doctrine; well aware of
its hostility to prevalent habits; well aware that almost every
tradesman and every farmer, though with scarcely a shilling to call his
own; and that every clerk, and every such person, begins by keeping a
servant, and that the latter is ge