absence; and they regulate their proceedings accordingly. 'Like master
like man,' is an old and true proverb; and it is natural, if not just,
that it should be thus; for it would be unjust if the careless and
neglectful sot were served as faithfully as the vigilant, attentive and
sober man. Late hours, cards and dice, are amongst the consequences of
the master's absence; and why not, seeing that he is setting the
example? Fire, candle, profligate visitants, expences, losses, children
ruined in habits and morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to
be enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of the master spending
his leisure time from home. But beyond all the rest is the
_ill-treatment of the wife_. When left to ourselves we all seek the
company that we _like best_; the company in which we _take the most
delight_: and therefore every husband, be his state of life what it may,
who spends his leisure time, or who, at least, is in the habit of doing
it, in company other than that of his wife and family, tells her and
them, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly do by words, that he
_takes more delight in other company than in theirs_. Children repay
this with _disregard_ for their father; but to a wife of any
sensibility, it is either a dagger to her heart or an incitement to
revenge, and revenge, too, of a species which a young woman will seldom
be long in want of the means to gratify. In conclusion of these remarks
respecting _absentee husbands_, I would recommend all those who are
prone to, or likely to fall into, the practice, to remember the words of
Mrs. SULLEN, in the BEAUX' STRATAGEM: 'My husband,' says she, addressing
a footman whom she had taken as a paramour, 'comes reeling home at
midnight, tumbles in beside me as a salmon flounces in a net, oversets
the economy of my bed, belches the fumes of his drink in my face, then
twists himself round, leaving me half naked, and listening till morning
to that tuneful nightingale, his nose.' It is at least forty-three years
since I read the BEAUX' STRATAGEM, and I now quote from memory; but the
passage has always occurred to me whenever I have seen a sottish
husband; and though that species of revenge, for the taking of which the
lady made this apology, was carrying the thing too far, yet I am ready
to confess, that if I had to sit in judgment on her for taking even this
revenge, my sentence would be very lenient; for what right has such a
husband to expect _fidelity_? He has broken his vow; and by what rule of
right has she to be bound to hers? She thought that she was marrying _a
man_; and she finds that she was married to a beast. He has, indeed,
committed no offence that _the law of the land_ can reach; but he has
violated the vow by which he obtained possession of her person; and, in
the eye of justice, the compact between them is dissolved.
174. The way to avoid the sad consequences of which I have been speaking
is _to begin well_: many a man has become a sottish husband, and brought
a family to ruin, without being sottishly _inclined_, and without
_liking_ the gossip of the ale or coffee house. It is by slow degrees
that the mischief is done. He is first inveigled, and, in time, he
really likes the thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is
incurable. Let him resolve, from the very first, _never to spend an hour
from home_, unless business, or, at least, some necessary and rational
purpose demand it. Where ought he to be, but with the person whom he
himself hath chosen to be his partner for life, and the mother of his
children? What _other company_ ought he to deem so good and so fitting
as this? With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his hours of leisure
and relaxation? Besides, if he quit her to seek company more agreeable,
is not she set at large by that act of his? What justice is there in
confining her at home without any company at all, while he rambles forth
in search of company more gay than he finds at home?
175. Let the young married man try the thing; let him resolve not to be
seduced from his home; let him never go, in one single instance,
unnecessarily from his own fire-side. _Habit_ is a powerful thing; and
if he begin right, the pleasure that he will derive from it will induce
him to continue right. This is not being '_tied to the apron-strings_,'
which means quite another matter, as I shall show by-and-by. It is being
at the husband's place, whether he have children or not. And is there
any want of matter for conversation between a man and his wife? Why not
talk of the daily occurrences to her, as well as to any body else; and
especially to a company of tippling and noisy men? If you excuse
yourself by saying that you go _to read the newspaper_, I answer, _buy
the newspaper_, if you must read it: the cost is not half of what you
spend per day at the pot-house; and then you have it your own, and may
read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as well as yourself,
if read it you must. And, in short, what must that man be made of, who
does not prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and children,
reading to them, or hearing them read, to hearing the gabble and
balderdash of a club or a pot-house company!
176. Men must frequently be from home at all hours of the day and night.
Sailors, soldiers, merchants, all men out of the common track of labour,
and even some in the very lowest walks, are sometimes compelled by their
affairs, or by circumstances, to be from their homes. But what I protest
against is, the _habit_ of spending _leisure_ hours from home, and near
to it; and doing this without any necessity, and by _choice_: liking the
next door, or any house in the same street, better than your own. When
absent from _necessity_, there is no wound given to the heart of the
wife; she concludes that you would be with her if you could, and that
satisfies; she laments the absence, but submits to it without
complaining. Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted as
much as possible; she ought to be fully apprised of the probable
duration of the absence, and of the time of return; and if these be
dependent on circumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully
stated; for you have no right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you
have it in your power to put it in a state of ease. Few men have been
more frequently taken from home by business, or by a necessity of some
sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, that, as to my return, I
never once disappointed my wife in the whole course of our married life.
If the time of return was contingent, I never failed to keep her
informed _from day to day_: if the time was fixed, or when it became
fixed, my arrival was as sure as my life. Going from London to Botley,
once, with Mr. FINNERTY, whose name I can never pronounce without an
expression of my regard for his memory, we stopped at ALTON, to dine
with a friend, who, delighted with Finnerty's talk, as every body else
was, kept us till ten or eleven o'clock, and was proceeding to _the
other bottle_, when I put in my protest, saying, 'We must go, my wife
will be frightened.' 'Blood, man,' said Finnerty, 'you do not mean to go
home to-night!' I told him I did; and then sent my son, who was with us,
to order out the post-chaise. We had twenty-three miles to go, during
which we debated the question, whether Mrs. COBBETT would be up to
receive us, I contending for the affirmative, and he for the negative.
She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She had not
committed the matter to a servant: her servants and children were all in
bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and
his friend. 'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be sure I did,'
said she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'
177. Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this
species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there
are. If men have appointments with _lords_, they never dream of breaking
them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect
as lords. I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out
of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to
the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset,
to guard against it. For no man has a right to sport with the feelings
of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who
has committed her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men in
general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own;
and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as
nothing. But this is a great mistake: women feel more acutely than men;
their love is more ardent, more pure, more lasting, and they are more
frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They ought to be
treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and
all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected
ought to be deemed a _trifle_.
178. When we consider what a young woman gives up on her wedding day;
she makes a surrender, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, for the
joint lives of the parties; she gives the husband the absolute right of
causing her to live in what place, and in what manner and what society,
he pleases; she gives him the power to take from her, and to use, for
his own purposes, all her goods, unless reserved by some legal
instrument; and, above all, she surrenders to him _her person_. Then,
when we consider the pains which they endure for us, and the large share
of all the anxious parental cares that fall to their lot; when we
consider their devotion to us, and how unshaken their affection remains
in our ailments, even though the most tedious and disgusting; when we
consider the offices that they perform, and cheerfully perform, for us,
when, were we left to one another, we should perish from neglect; when
we consider their devotion to their children, how evidently they love
them better, in numerous instances, than their own lives; when we
consider these things, how can a just man think any thing a trifle that
affects their happiness? I was once going, in my gig, up the hill, in
the village of FRANKFORD, near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about
two years old, who had toddled away from a small house, was lying
basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. About two hundred yards
before I got to the child, the teams, five big horses in each, of three
wagons, the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a tavern on the
brow of the hill, started off, and came, nearly abreast, galloping down
the road. I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could; but expected
to see the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman
carpenter, who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, seeing the
child, and seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped
from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child,
from scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes, flung
it back, out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself by
rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who had,
apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
situation of the child, rushed out, and catching up the child, just as
the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, uttered _a
shriek_ such as I never heard before, never heard since, and, I hope,
shall never hear again; and then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead!
By the application of the usual means, she was restored, however, in a
little while; and I, being about to depart, asked the carpenter if he
were a married man, and whether he were a relation of the parents of the
child. He said he was neither: 'Well, then,' said I, 'you merit the
gratitude of every father and mother in the world, and I will show mine,
by giving you what I have,' pulling out the nine or ten dollars that I
had in my pocket. 'No; I thank you, Sir,' said he: 'I have only done
what it was my duty to do.'
179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing
these, it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in
amongst the feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the
wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of fear
for her own life; her _shriek_ was the sound of inexpressible joy; joy
too great for her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety-nine mothers
out of every hundred would have acted the same part, under similar
circumstances. There are, comparatively, very few women not replete with
maternal love; and, by-the-by, take you care, if you meet with a girl
who '_is not fond of children_,' not to marry her _by any means_. Some
few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear children,'
that is, cannot _endure_ them. I never knew a man that was good for
_much_ who had a dislike to little children; and I never knew a woman of
that taste who was good for any thing at all. I have seen a few such in
the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them a
second time.
180. Being fond of little children argues no _effeminacy_ in a man, but,
as far as my observation has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers
presents no bad school wherein to study character. Soldiers have
leisure, too, to play with children, as well as with 'women and dogs,'
for which the proverb has made them famed. And I have never observed
that effeminacy was at all the marked companion of fondness for little
children. This fondness manifestly arises from a compassionate feeling
towards creatures that are helpless, and that must be innocent. For my
own part, how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent
with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were
going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed
them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants
to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet, I have not been
effeminate; I have not been idle; I have not been a waster of time; but
I should have been all these if I had disliked babies, and had liked the
porter pot and the grog glass.
181. It is an old saying, 'Praise the child, and you make love to the
mother;' and it is surprising how far this will go. To a fond mother you
can do nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby, and, the younger it
is, the more she values the compliment. Say fine things to her, and take
no notice of her baby, and she will despise you. I have often beheld
this, in many women, with great admiration; and it is a thing that no
husband ought to overlook; for if the wife wish her child to be admired
by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to _his_
admiration. There was a drunken dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment,
who came from Thetford, I recollect, who used to say, that his wife
would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into
the bargain, 'if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was
pretty.' Now, though this was a very profligate fellow, he had
_philosophy_ in him; and certain it is, that there is nothing worthy of
the name of conjugal happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that
he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their very birth.
182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the
kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful
deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield
to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her
duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will
perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband,
a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be
recollected that _you_ are the party whose body must, if any do, lie in
jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your
own contracting. Over her _tongue_, too, you possess a clear right to
exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an
unjustifiable manner, it is against _you_, and not against her, that the
law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which
would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the _right_
which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife,
to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A
charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband,
if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts
and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct
he possessed no compulsory controul.
183. Of the _remedies_ in the case of _really bad_ wives, squanderers,
drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of
us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of
disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several
faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great
unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her
husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's
duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the
word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband
and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her
beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the
influence of her natural disposition, and partly encouraged by the great
and constant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, too, on the pain
with which she knows her will would be thwarted; she may, with all her
virtues, be thus led to _a bold interference in the affairs of her
husband_; may attempt to dictate to him in matters quite out of her own
sphere; and, in the pursuit of the gratification of her love of power
and command, may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice which
she would induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, the
contemptible thing that she is making the man whom it is her duty to
honour and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take place without
some portion of degradation falling upon herself. At the time when 'THE
BOOK' came out, relative to the late ill-treated QUEEN CAROLINE, I was
talking upon the subject, one day, with _a parson_, who had not read the
Book, but who, as was the fashion with all those who were looking up to
the government, condemned the Queen unheard. 'Now,' said I, 'be not so
shamefully unjust; but _get the book_, _read_ it, _and then_ give your
judgment.'--'Indeed,' said his wife, who was sitting by, 'but HE
SHA'N'T,' pronouncing the words _sha'n't_ with an emphasis and a voice
tremendously masculine. 'Oh!' said I, 'if he SHA'N'T, that is another
matter; but, if he sha'n't read, if he sha'n't hear the evidence, he
sha'n't be looked upon, by me, as a just judge; and I sha'n't regard
him, in future, as having any opinion of his own in any thing.' All
which the husband, the poor henpecked thing, heard without a word
escaping his lips.
184. A husband thus under command, is the most contemptible of God's
creatures. Nobody can place reliance on him for any thing; whether in
the capacity of employer or employed, you are never sure of him. No
bargain is firm, no engagement sacred, with such a man. Feeble as a reed
before the boisterous she-commander, he is bold in injustice towards
those whom it pleases her caprice to mark out for vengeance. In the eyes
of neighbours, for _friends_ such a man cannot have, in the eyes of
servants, in the eyes of even the beggars at his door, such a man is a
mean and despicable creature, though he may roll in wealth and possess
great talents into the bargain. Such a man has, in fact, no property; he
has nothing that he can rightly call _his own_; he is a beggarly
dependent under his own roof; and if he have any thing of the man left
in him, and if there be rope or river near, the sooner he betakes him to
the one or the other the better. How many men, how many families, have I
known brought to utter ruin only by the husband suffering himself to be
subdued, to be cowed down, to be held in fear, of even a virtuous wife!
What, then, must be the lot of him who submits to a commander who, at
the same time, sets all virtue at defiance!
185. Women are a _sisterhood_. They make _common cause_ in behalf of the
_sex_; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast
power that the _law_ gives us over them. The law is for us, and they
combine, wherever they can, to mitigate its effects. This is perfectly
natural, and, to a certain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and
public spirit: but when carried to the length of '_he sha'n't_,' it is
despotism on the one side and slavery on the other. Watch, therefore,
the incipient steps of encroachment; and they come on so slowly, so
softly, that you must be sharp-sighted if you perceive them; but the
moment you _do perceive them_: your love will blind for too long a time;
but the moment you do perceive them, put at once an effectual stop to
their progress. Never mind the pain that it may give you: a day of pain
at this time will spare you years of pain in time to come. Many a man
has been miserable, and made his wife miserable too, for a score or two
of years, only for want of resolution to bear one day of pain: and it is
a great deal to bear; it is a great deal to do to thwart the desire of
one whom you so dearly love, and whose virtues daily render her more and
more dear to you. But (and this is one of the most admirable of the
mother's traits) as she herself will, while the tears stream from her
eyes, force the nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, whose
every cry is a dagger to her heart; as she herself has the courage to do
this for the sake of her child, why should you flinch from the
performance of a still more important and more sacred duty towards
herself, as well as towards you and your children?
186. Am I recommending _tyranny_? Am I recommending _disregard_ of the
wife's opinions and wishes? Am I recommending a _reserve_ towards her
that would seem to say that she was not trust-worthy, or not a party
interested in her husband's affairs? By no means: on the contrary,
though I would keep any thing disagreeable from her, I should not enjoy
the prospect of good without making her a participator. But reason says,
and God has said, that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their
husbands; and the very nature of things prescribes that there must be _a
head_ of every house, and an _undivided_ authority. And then it is so
clearly _just_ that the authority should rest with him on whose head
rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, when patiently reasoned
with on the subject, must be a virago in her very nature not to submit
with docility to the terms of her marriage vow.
187. There are, in almost every considerable neighbourhood, a little
squadron of she-commanders, generally the youngish wives of old or
weak-minded men, and generally without children. These are the
tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage; they, in virtue of their
experience, not only school the wives, but scold the husbands; they
teach the former how to encroach and the latter how to yield: so that if
you suffer this to go quietly on, you are soon under the care of a
_comité_ as completely as if you were insane. You want no _comité_:
reason, law, religion, the marriage vow; all these have made you head,
have given you full power to rule your family, and if you give up your
right, you deserve the contempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the
ruin that is, in all probability, your doom.
188. Taking it for granted that you will not suffer more than a second
or third session of the female _comité_, let me say a word or two about
the conduct of men in deciding between the conflicting opinions of
husbands and wives. When a wife has _a point to carry_, and finds
herself hard pushed, or when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid
all the force she can possibly muster, one of her resources is, the vote
on her side of all her husband's visiting friends. 'My husband thinks so
and so, and I think so and so; now, Mr. Tomkins, don't you think _I am
right_?' To be sure he does; and so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does
Wilkins, and so does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they were all
her _kins_. Now this is very foolish, to say the least of it. None of
these complaisant _kins_ would like this in their own case. It is the
fashion to say _aye_ to all that a woman asserts, or contends for,
especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious
fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of
acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no
sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal.
This fashion, however, foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is
attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the
opinions of her husband's friends, the wife returns to the charge with
redoubled vigour and obstinacy; and if you do not yield, ten to one but
a _quarrel_ is the result; or, at least, something approaching towards
it. A gentleman at whose house I was, about five years ago, was about to
take a farm for his eldest son, who was a very fine young man, about
eighteen years old. The mother, who was as virtuous and as sensible a
woman as I have ever known, wished him to be 'in the law.' There were
six or eight intimate friends present, and all unhesitatingly joined the
lady, thinking it a pity that HARRY, who had had 'such a good
education,' should be _buried_ in a farm-house. 'And don't _you_ think
so too, Mr. Cobbett,' said the lady, with great earnestness. 'Indeed,
Ma'am,' said I, 'I should think it very great presumption in me to offer
any opinion at all, and especially in opposition to the known decision
of the father, who is the best judge, and the only rightful judge, in
such a case.' This was a very sensible and well-behaved woman, and I
still respect her very highly; but I could perceive that I instantly
dropped out of her good graces. Harry, however, I was glad to hear, went
'to be _buried_ in the farm-house.'