d but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
pretty.' Now, though this was a very profligate fellow, he had
_philosophy_ in him; and certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of
the name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that
he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their very birth.

182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the
kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful
deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield
to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her
duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will
perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband,
a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be
recollected that _you_ are the party whose body must, if any do, lie in
jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your
own contracting. Over her _tongue_, too, you possess a clear right to
exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an
unjustifiable manner, it is against _you_, and not against her, that the
law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which
would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the _right_
which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife,
to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A
charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband,
if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts
and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct
he possessed no compulsory controul.

183. Of the _remedies_ in the case of _really bad_ wives, squanderers,
drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of
us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of
disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several
faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great
unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her
husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's
duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the
word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband
and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her
beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the