person; and, in
the eye of justice, the compact between them is dissolved.

174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of which I have been speaking
is _to begin well_: many a man has become a sottish husband, and brought
a family to ruin, without being sottishly _inclined_, and without
_liking_ the gossip of the ale or coffee house. It is by slow degrees
that the mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in time, he
really likes the thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is
incurable. Let him resolve, from the very first, _never to spend an hour
from home_, unless business, or, at least, some necessary and rational
purpose demand it. Where ought he to be, but with the person whom he
himself hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the mother of his
children? What _other company_ ought he to deem so good and so fitting
as this? With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his hours of leisure
and relaxation? Besides, if he quit her to seek company more agreeable,
is not she set at large by that act of his? What justice is there in
confining her at home without any company at all, while he rambles forth
in search of company more gay than he finds at home?

175. Let the young married man try the thing; let him resolve not to be
seduced from his home; let him never go, in one single instance,
unnecessarily from his own fire-side. _Habit_ is a powerful thing; and
if he begin right, the pleasure that he will derive from it will induce
him to continue right. This is not being '_tied to the apron-strings_,'
which means quite another matter, as I shall show by-and-by. It is being
at the husband's place, whether he have children or not. And is there
any want of matter for conversation between a man and his wife? Why not
talk of the daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body else; and
especially to a company of tippling and noisy men? If you excuse
yourself by saying that you go _to read the newspaper_, I answer, _buy
the newspaper_, if you must read it: the cost is not half of what you
spend per day at the pot-house; and then you have it your own, and may
read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as well as yourself,
if read it you must. And, in short, what must that man be made of, who
does not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and children,
reading to them, or hearing them read, to hearing the gabble and
balderdash of a club or a pot-house company!

176. Men must frequently be from home