, if not prevented by the fear of domestic
ruin, is evident both from reason and experience. In case therefore the
man tacitly imputes the causes to himself, and still the wife perseveres
in chaste favor towards him, there may thence result a friendship,
which, since it subsists between married partners, appears to resemble
conjugial love. That a friendship resembling the friendship of that
love, may subsist between married partners, when old, experience
testifies from the tranquillity, security, loveliness, and abundant
courtesy with which they live, communicate, and associate together.

291. XX. THERE ARE VARIOUS KINDS OF APPARENT LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN
MARRIED PARTNERS, ONE OF WHOM IS BROUGHT UNDER THE YOKE, AND THEREFORE
IS SUBJECT TO THE OTHER. It is no secret in the world at this day, that
as the first fervor of marriage begins to abate, there arises a
rivalship between the parties respecting right and power; respecting
right, in that according to the statutes of the covenant entered into,
there is an equality, and each has dignity in the offices of his or her
function; and respecting power, in that it is insisted on by the men,
that in all things relating to the house, superiority belongs to them,
because they are men, and inferiority to the women because they are
women. Such rivalships, at this day familiar, arise from no other source
than a want of conscience respecting love truly conjugial, and of
sensible perception respecting the blessedness of that love; in
consequence of which want, lust takes the place of that love, and
counterfeits it; and, on the removal of genuine love, there flows from
this lust a grasping for power, in which some are influenced by the
delight of the love of domineering, which in some is implanted by artful
women before marriage, and which to some is unknown. Where such grasping
prevails with the men, and the various turns of rivalship terminate in
the establishment of their sway, they reduce their wives either to
become their rightful property, or to comply with their arbitrary will,
or into a state of slavery, every one according to the degree and
qualified state of that grasping implanted and concealed in himself; but
where such grasping prevails with the wives, and the various turns of
rivalship terminate in establishing their sway, they reduce their
husbands either into a state of equality of right with themselves, or of
compliance with their arbitrary will, or into a state o