upon the majority of husbands is unfailing and whose
perfidies we will now reveal.

One of the greatest of human errors springs from the belief that our
honor and our reputation are founded upon our actions, or result from
the approbation which the general conscience bestows upon on conduct. A
man who lives in the world is born to be a slave to public opinion. Now
a private man in France has less opportunity of influencing the world
than his wife, although he has ample occasion for ridiculing it. Women
possess to a marvelous degree the art of giving color by specious
arguments to the recriminations in which they indulge. They never set
up any defence, excepting when they are in the wrong, and in this
proceeding they are pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose arguments by
precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain
victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable
penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she
herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a
husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards
are terror-stricken at the conflagration.

As a general thing, all women league themselves against a married man
who is accused of tyranny; for a secret tie unites them all, as it
unites all priests of the same religion. They hate each other, yet
shield each other. You can never gain over more than one of them; and
yet this act of seduction would be a triumph for your wife.

You are, therefore, outlawed from the feminine kingdom. You see ironical
smiles on every lip, you meet an epigram in every answer. These clever
creatures force their daggers and amuse themselves by sculpturing the
handle before dealing you a graceful blow.

The treacherous art of reservation, the tricks of silence, the malice
of suppositions, the pretended good nature of an inquiry, all these arts
are employed against you. A man who undertakes to subjugate his wife is
an example too dangerous to escape destruction from them, for will not
his conduct call up against them the satire of every husband? Moreover,
all of them will attack you, either by bitter witticisms, or by serious
arguments, or by the hackneyed maxims of gallantry. A swarm of celibates
will support all their sallies and you will be assailed and persecuted
as an original, a tyrant, a bad bed-fellow, an eccentric man, a man not
to be trusted.

Your wife will defend you like the bea