First;--The household partnership. In our country, the woman looks for
a "smart but kind" husband; the man for a "capable, sweet-tempered"
wife. The man furnishes the house; the woman regulates it. Their
relation is one of mutual esteem, mutual dependence. Their talk is of
business; their affection shows itself by practical kindness. They
know that life goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the
other's aid; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her
husband as a "good provider;" the husband, in return, compliments her
as a "capital housekeeper." This relation is good so far as it goes.

Next comes a closer tie, which takes the form either of mutual
idolatry or of intellectual companionship. The first, we suppose, is
to no one a pleasing subject of contemplation. The parties weaken and
narrow one another; they lock the gate against all the glories of the
universe, that they may live in a cell together. To themselves they
seem the only wise; to all others, steeped in infatuation; the gods
smile as they look forward to the crisis of cure; to men, the woman
seems an unlovely syren; to women, the man an effeminate boy.

The other form, of intellectual companionship, has become more and
more frequent. Men engaged in public life, literary men, and artists,
have often found in their wives companions and confidants in thought
no less than in feeling. And, as the intellectual development of Woman
has spread wider and risen higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared
the same employment; as in the case of Roland and his wife, who were
friends in the household and in the nation's councils, read, regulated
home affairs, or prepared public documents together, indifferently. It
is very pleasant, in letters begun by Roland and finished by his wife,
to see the harmony of mind, and the difference of nature; one thought,