the soldier, sailor, slave, who had run away. I pass all this by: I will
run the parallel between the slave and wife.

Do you say, The slave is held to _involuntary service?_ So is the wife.
Her relation to her husband, in the immense majority of cases, is made for
her, and not by her. And when she makes it for herself, how often, and how
soon, does it become involuntary! How often, and how soon, would she
throw off the yoke if she could! O ye wives, I know how superior you are
to your husbands in many respects,--not only in personal attraction,
(although in that particular, comparison is out of place,) in grace, in
refined thought, in passive fortitude, in enduring love, and in a heart to
be filled with the spirit of heaven. Oh, I know all this. Nay, I know you
may surpass him in his own sphere of boasted prudence and worldly wisdom
about dollars and cents. Nevertheless, he has authority, from God, to rule
over you. You are under service to him. You are bound to obey him _in all
things_. Your service is very, very, very often involuntary from the
first, and, if voluntary at first, becomes hopeless necessity afterwards.
I know God has laid upon the husband to love you as Christ loved the
church, and in that sublime obligation has placed you in the light and
under the shadow of a love infinitely higher, and purer, and holier than
all talked about in the romances of chivalry. But the husband may not so
love you. He may rule you with the rod of iron. What can you do? Be
divorced? God forbids it, save for crime. Will you say that you are
free,--that you will go where you please, do as you please? Why, ye dear
wives, your husbands may forbid. And listen, you cannot leave New York,
nor your palaces, any more than your shanties. No; you cannot leave your
parlor, nor your bedchamber, nor your couch, if your husband commands you
to stay there! What can you do? Will you run away, with your stick and
your bundle? He can advertise you!! What can you do? You can, and I fear
some of you do, wish him, from the bottom of your hearts, at the bottom of