Of all the miseries that civil war can bring upon a country the greatest
lies in the appeal which one of the contestants always ends by making to
some foreign government.
Unhappily we are compelled to confess that all women make this great
mistake, for the lover is only the first of their soldiers. It may be
a member of their family or at least a distant cousin. This Meditation,
then, is intended to answer the inquiry, what assistance can each of the
different powers which influence human life give to your wife? or better
than that, what artifices will she resort to to arm them against you?
Two beings united by marriage are subject to the laws of religion and
society; to those of private life, and, from considerations of health,
to those of medicine. We will therefore divide this important Meditation
into six paragraphs:
1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION
WITH MARRIAGE.
2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.
3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS.
4. OF THE LOVER’S ALLIES.
5. OF THE MAID.
6. OF THE DOCTOR.
1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH
MARRIAGE.
La Bruyere has very wittily said, “It is too much for a husband to have
ranged against him both devotion and gallantry; a woman ought to choose
but one of them for her ally.”
The author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken.