182. But though all the aforementioned considerations demand from us the kindest possible treatment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful deportment at her hands. He is not to be her slave; he is not to yield to her against the dictates of his own reason and judgment; it is her duty to obey all his lawful commands; and, if she have sense, she will perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to acknowledge, as a husband, a thing over which she has an absolute controul. It should always be recollected that _you_ are the party whose body must, if any do, lie in jail for debt, and for debts of her contracting, too, as well as of your own contracting. Over her _tongue_, too, you possess a clear right to exercise, if necessary, some controul; for if she use it in an unjustifiable manner, it is against _you_, and not against her, that the law enables, and justly enables, the slandered party to proceed; which would be monstrously unjust, if the law were not founded on the _right_ which the husband has to control, if necessary, the tongue of the wife, to compel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the law. A charming, a most enchanting, life, indeed, would be that of a husband, if he were bound to cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and over whose conduct he possessed no compulsory controul.
183. Of the _remedies_ in the case of _really bad_ wives, squanderers, drunkards, adultresses, I shall speak further on; it being the habit of us all to put off to the last possible moment the performance of disagreeable duties. But, far short of these vices, there are several faults in a wife that may, if not cured in time, lead to great unhappiness, great injury to the interests as well as character of her husband and children; and which faults it is, therefore, the husband's duty to correct. A wife may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the word, industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to her husband and her children to a degree so enchanting as to make them all love her beyond the power of words to express. And yet she may, partly under the influence of her natural disposition, and partly encouraged by the great and constant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, too, on the pain with which she knows her will would be thwarted; she may, with all her virtues, be thus led to _a bold interference in the affairs of her husband_; may attempt to dictate to him in matters quite out of her own sphere; and, in the pursuit of the gratification of her love of power and command, may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice which she would induce her husband to commit, and overlook, too, the contemptible thing that she is making the man whom it is her duty to honour and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take place without some portion of degradation falling upon herself. At the time when 'THE BOOK' came out, relative to the late ill-treated QUEEN CAROLINE, I was talking upon the subject, one day, with _a parson_, who had not read the Book, but who, as was the fashion with all those who were looking up to the government, condemned the Queen unheard. 'Now,' said I, 'be not so shamefully unjust; but _get the book_, _read_ it, _and then_ give your judgment.'--'Indeed,' said his wife, who was sitting by, 'but HE SHA'N'T,' pronouncing the words _sha'n't_ with an emphasis and a voice tremendously masculine. 'Oh!' said I, 'if he SHA'N'T, that is another matter; but, if he sha'n't read, if he sha'n't hear the evidence, he sha'n't be looked upon, by me, as a just judge; and I sha'n't regard him, in future, as having any opinion of his own in any thing.' All which the husband, the poor henpecked thing, heard without a word escaping his lips.