"Ah, wasteful woman!--she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing he cannot choose but pay -
How has she cheapen'd Paradise!
How given for nought her priceless gift,
How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,
Which, spent with due respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine!" {24}


Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I believe you
will accept. But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the
continuance of such a relation throughout the whole of human life.
We think it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and
wife. That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty is
due to one whose affection we still doubt, and whose character we as
yet do but partially and distantly discern; and that this reverence
and duty are to be withdrawn when the affection has become wholly
and limitlessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and
tried that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness of our
lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as how
unreasonable? Do you not feel that marriage,--when it is marriage
at all,--is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of
temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love?

But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the
woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it
is a GUIDING, not a determining, function. Let me try to show you