rs on the
same topic sometimes want. He is remarkably free from one peculiarity
of modern writers on such matters. Several considerate gentlemen are
extremely anxious for the "rights of woman"; they think that women will
benefit by removing the bulwarks which the misguided experience of ages
has erected for their protection. A migratory system of domestic
existence might suit Madame Dudevant, and a few cases of singular
exception; but we cannot fancy that it would be, after all, so much to
the taste of most ladies as the present more permanent system. We have
some reminiscence of the stories of the wolf and the lamb, when we hear
amiable men addressing a female auditory (in books, of course) on the
advantages of a freer "development." We are perhaps wrong, but we
cherish an indistinct suspicion that an indefinite extension of the
power of selection would rather tend to the advantage of the sex which
more usually chooses. But we have no occasion to avow such opinions
now. Milton had no such modern views: he is frankly and honestly
anxious for the rights of the man. Of the doctrine that divorce is
only permitted for the help of wives, he exclaims, "Palpably uxorious!
who can be ignorant that woman was created for man, and not man for
woman? . . . What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved!
what to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of house-rule
who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were
something reasonable, but out of female pride! 'I suffer not,' saith
St. Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the man.' If the Apostle
could not suffer it," he naturally remarks, "into what mold is he
mortified that can?" He had a sincere desire to preserve men from the
society of unsocial and unsympathizing women; and that was his
principal idea.

His theory, to a certain extent, partakes of the same notion. The
following passage contains a perspicuous exposition of it:--

"Moses, Deut. xxiv. i, established a grave and prudent law, full of
moral equity, full of due consideration towards nature, that cannot be
resisted, a law consenting with the wisest men and civilest nations:
that when a man hath married a wife, if it come to pass that he cannot
love her by reason of some displeasing natural quality or unfitness in
her, let him write her a bill of divorce. The intent of which law
undoubtedly was this: that if any good and peaceable man should
discover some helpless disag