rty. 'To be sure I did,'
said she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'

177. Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this
species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there
are. If men have appointments with _lords_, they never dream of breaking
them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect
as lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out
of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to
the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset,
to guard against it. For no man has a right to sport with the feelings
of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who
has committed her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men in
general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own;
and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as
nothing. But this is a great mistake: women feel more acutely than men;
their love is more ardent, more pure, more lasting, and they are more
frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They ought to be
treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and
all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected
ought to be deemed a _trifle_.

178. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day;
she makes a surrender, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for the
joint lives of the parties; she gives the husband the absolute right of
causing her to live in what place, and in what manner and what society,
he pleases; she gives him the power to take from her, and to use, for
his own purposes, all her goods, unless reserved by some legal
instrument; and, above all, she surrenders to him _her person_. Then,
when we consider the pains which they endure for us, and the large share
of all the anxious parental cares that fall to their lot; when we
consider their devotion to us, and how unshaken their affection remains
in our ailments, even though the most tedious and disgusting; when we
consider the offices that they perform, and cheerfully perform, for us,
when, were we left to one another, we should perish from neglect; when
we consider their devotion to their children, how evidently they love
them better, in numerous instances, than their own lives; when we
consider these things, how can a just man think any thing a trifle that
affects their happiness? I was on