On the other hand, we have all seen the bonds of marriage vilely abused
by people who are never classed with shrews and wife-beaters: they are
indeed sometimes held up as models of domesticity because they do
not drink nor gamble nor neglect their children nor tolerate dirt and
untidiness, and because they are not amiable enough to have what
are called amiable weaknesses. These terrors conceive marriage as a
dispensation from all the common civilities and delicacies which they
have to observe among strangers, or, as they put it, "before company."
And here the effects of indissoluble marriage-for-better-for-worse are
very plainly and disagreeably seen. If such people took their domestic
manners into general society, they would very soon find themselves
without a friend or even an acquaintance in the world. There are women
who, through total disuse, have lost the power of kindly human speech
and can only scold and complain: there are men who grumble and nag from
inveterate habit even when they are comfortable. But their unfortunate
spouses and children cannot escape from them.