nmarried, you will repent it.' The people who assert that
marriage is a failure seem to lose sight of the fact that the estate was
not ordained for the purpose of happiness, but to meet the necessities
of society, and so long as these necessities are fulfilled by marriage,
then the institution must be pronounced successful, however unhappy
married people may be.

If the reasons 'why we fell out, my wife and I,' were to be considered
exhaustively, the subject would overflow the bounds of this modest
volume and run into several hundred giant tomes; indeed I believe an
entire library could be filled with books on this matter alone. Ever
since Adam and Eve had a few words over their dessert, husbands and
wives have gone on quarrelling continuously and the humble philosopher
who said that certain people quarrelled 'bitter and reg'lar, like man
and wife,' was merely describing a condition that habit had made
familiar to him.

As with the rest of life, in matrimony it is the little things that
count, and the frail barque of married happiness founders principally on
the insignificant, half-perceived rocks--the little jealousies, little
denials, little irritations, little tempers, little biting words, which
by degrees wear so many little holes in the stern that at last an
irreparable leak is sprung and the ship goes down in the next storm. The
big obstacles make a worse crash when they _do_ get in the way, but they
can be seen from afar and steered clear of.

A miserable husband who had come to the parting of the ways (having
started in the madly-in-love section), once confided in me that the
bitter and terrible quarrels between him and his wife always began for
some utterly trivial reason, generally because he did not admire her
clothes! Could anything be more pitifully absurd? 'Then why,' I asked,
'as you're so anxious to keep the peace, do you volunteer any criticism
at all?' 'Oh, I never do,' was the answer. 'She asks me my opinion of a
new gown, say, and gets angry when it's unfavourable. Then of course I
get angry too, I'm no saint, and presently we come to curses and words
that sting like blows. Then I clear out for a couple of days, and of
course there's the devil to pay when I go back, and it begins all over
again. Why, this present row has lasted five weeks or so, and in the
beginning it was simply because I said I didn't like the ostrich feather
in her hat!'

Again: I once met at a race-meeting a school-friend, lo