Hints and Helps For Married Partners - Page 2

discord, which probably has no existence whatsoever.

Some men, who are married to women of inferior fortune or connexion, will frequently have the meanness to upbraid them with the disparity. My good sir, allow me to ask what was your motive in marrying? Was it to oblige or please your wife? No, truly; it was to oblige and please yourself, your own dear self. Had she refused to marry you, you would have been (in lover's phrase) a very miserable man. Did you never tell her so? Therefore, really, instead of upbraiding her, you should be very grateful to her for rescuing you from such an unhappy fate.

It is particularly painful to a woman, whenever her husband is unkind enough to say a lessening or harsh word of any member of her family: invectives against herself are not half so wounding.

Should illness, or suffering of any kind, assail your wife, your tenderness and attention are then peculiarly called for; and if she be a woman of sensibility, believe me, a look of love, a word of pity or sympathy, will, at times, have a better effect than the prescriptions of her physicians.

Perhaps some calamity, peculiarly her own, may befall her. She may weep over the death of some dear relative or friend; or her spirits and feelings may be affected by various circumstances. Remember that your sympathy, tenderness, and attention, on such occasions, are particularly required.

A man would not, on any account, take up a whip, or a, stick, and beat his wife; but he will, without remorse, use to her language which strikes much deeper to her heart than the lash of any whip he could make use of. "He would not, for the world," says an ingenious writer, "cut her with a knife, but he will, without the least hesitation, cut her with his tongue."

I have known some unfeeling husbands, who have treated their luckless wives with unvaried and unremitting unkindness, till perhaps the arrival of their last illness, and who then became all assiduity and attention. Bat when that period approaches, their remorse, like the remorse of a murderer, is felt too late; the die is cast; and kindness or unkindness can be of little consequence to the poor victim, who only waits to have her eyes closed in the long sleep of death!

Perhaps your wife may be destitute of youth and beauty, or other superficial attractions, which distinguish many of her sex: should this be the case, remember many a plain face conceals a heart of exquisite sensibility and merit; and her consciousness of the defect makes her peculiarly awake to the slightest attention or inattention from you: and just for a moment reflect--

"What is the blooming tincture of the skin, To peace of mind and harmony within? What the bright sparkling of the finest eye, To the soft soothing of a calm reply? Can loveliness of form, or look, or air, With loveliness of words or deeds compare? No: those at first the unwary heart may