and stamped upon the spirit of each an irresistible tendency towards
conjunction.

The many evils resulting from marriage do not arise from a failure
in our sex to recognise the equality of man and woman, or the rights
of the latter; but from hasty, ill-judged and discordant alliances,
entered into in so many cases, from motives of a mere external
nature, and with no perception of internal qualities tending to a
true spiritual conjunction. Oppression and wrong cannot flow from
true affection, for love seeks to bless its object.--If, therefore,
man and woman are not happy in marriage, the fault lies in an
improper union, and no remedy can be found in outward constraints or
appliances. Let each, under such circumstances, remove from himself
or herself a spirit of selfish opposition; let forbearance,
gentleness, and a humane consideration, the one for the other, find
its way into the heart, and soon a better and a brighter day will
dawn upon them; for then will begin that true interior conjunction
which only can be called marriage. Happily, we have the intellectual
ability to see what is true, and the power to compel ourselves to do
what reason shows us to be right. And here lies the power of all to
rise above those ills of life which flow from causes in themselves.
To aid in this work, so far as discordant marriage relations are
concerned, and to bind in closer bonds those whose union is
internal, is the present volume prepared. That it will tend to unite
rather than separate, where discord unhappily exists, and to warn
those about forming alliances against the wrong of improper ones,
the author is well assured.

This book is the second in the series of "ARTHUR'S LIBRARY FOR THE
HOUSEHOLD." The third in the series will be "THE TWO WIVES; OR, LOST