allowed for by the world, and which the world will agree with her
in thinking a folly, if it thinks no worse ! The dilemma is hardest
upon that very meritorious class of men, who, without possessing
talents which qualify them to make a figure among those with whom
they agree in opinion, hold their opinion from conviction, and feel
bound in honour and conscience to serve it, by making profession of
their belief, and giving their time, labour, and means, to anything
undertaken in its behalf. The worst case of all is when such men
happen to be of a rank and position which of itself neither gives
them, nor excludes them from, what is considered the best society;
when their admission to it depends mainly on what is thought of
them personally--and however unexceptionable their breeding and
habits, their being identified with opinions and public conduct
unacceptable to those who give the tone to society would operate as
an effectual exclusion. Many a woman flatters herself (nine times
out of ten quite erroneously) that nothing prevents her and her
husband from moving in the highest society of her
neighbourhood--society in which others well known to her, and in
the same class of life, mix freely--except that her husband is
unfortunately a Dissenter, or has the reputation of mingling in low
radical politics. That it is, she thinks, which hinders George from
getting a commission or a place, Caroline from making an
advantageous match, and prevents her and her husband from obtaining
invitations, perhaps honours, which, for aught she sees, they are
as well entitled to as some folks. With such an influence in every
house, either exerted actively, or operating all the more
powerfully for not being asserted, is it any wonder that people in
\general are kept down in that mediocrity of respectability which
is becoming a marked characteristic of modern times?  There is
another very injurious aspect in which the effect, not of women's
disabilities directly, but of the broad line of difference which
those disabilities create between the education and character of a
woman and that of a man, requires to be considered. Nothing can be
more unfavourable to that union of thoughts and inclinations which
is the ideal of married life. Intimate society between people
radically dissimilar to one another, is an idle dream. .Unlikeness
may attract, but it is likeness which retains; and in proportion to
the likeness is the suitability of the individuals to give each
other a happy life. While women are so unlike men, it is not
wonderful that selfish men should feel the need of arbitrary power
in their own hands, to arrest in limine the life-long conflict of
inclinations, by deciding every question on the side of their own
preference. When people are extremely unlike, there can be no real
identity of interest. Very often there is conscientious difference
of opinion between married people, on the highest points of duty.
Is there any reality in the marriage union where this takes place?
Yet it is not uncommon anywhere, when the woman has any earnestness
of character; and it is a very general case indeed in Catholic
countries, when she is supported in her dissent by the only other
authority to which she is taught to bow, the priest. With the usual
barefacedness of power not accustomed to find itself disputed, the
influence of priests over women is attacked by Protestant and
Liberal writers, less for being bad in itself, than because it is
a rival authority to the husband, and raises up a revolt against
his infallibility. In England, similar differences occasionally
exist when an Evangelical wife has allied herself with a husband of
a different quality; but in general this source at least of
dissension is got rid of, by reducing the minds of women to such a
nullity, that they have no opinions but those of Mrs. Grundy, or
those which the husband tells them to have. When there is no
difference of opinion, differences merely of taste may be
sufficient to detract greatly from the happiness of married life.
And though it may stimulate the amatory propensities of men, it
does not conduce to married happiness, to exaggerate by differences
of education whatever may be the native differences of the sexes.
If the married pair are well-bred and well-behaved people, they
tolerate each other's tastes; but is mutual toleration what people
look forward to, when they enter into marriage? These differences
of inclination will naturally make their wishes different, if not
restrained by affection or duty, as to almost all domestic
questions which arise. What a difference there must be in the
society which the two persons will wish to frequent, or be
frequented by ! Each will desire associates who share their own
tastes: the persons agreeable to one, will be indifferent or
positively disagreeable to the other; yet there can be none who are
not common to both, for married people do not now live in different
parts of the house and have totally different visiting lists, as in
the reign of Louis XV. They cannot help having different wishes as
to the bringing up of the children: each wi]l wish to see
reproduced in them their own tastes and sentiments: and there is
either a compromise, and only a half satisfaction to either, or the
wife has to yield--often with bitter suffering; and, with or
without intention, her occult influence continues to counterwork
the husband's purposes.   It would of course be extreme folly to
suppose that these differences of feeling and inclination only
exist because women are brought up differently from men, and that
there would not be differences of taste under any imaginable
circumstances. But there is nothing beyond the mark in saying that
the distinction in bringing up immensely aggravates those
differences, and renders them wholly inevitable. While women are
brought up as they are, a man and a woman will but rarely find in
one another real agreement of tastes and wishes as to daily life.
They will generally have to give it up as hopeless, and renounce
the attempt to have, in the intimate associate of their daily
life, that idem velle, idem nolle, which is the recognised bond of
any society that is really such: or if the man succeeds in
obtaining it, he does so by choosing a woman who is so complete a
nullity that she has no velle or nolle at all, and is as ready to
comply with one thing as another if anybody tells her to do so.
Even this calculation is apt to fail; dullness and want of spirit