Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/139

Rh idealism. It is the truth. A man and his wife, truly so, are one. Now, how can two things, precisely alike, become one? A man and a man are alike, and so are a woman and a woman; but they cannot become one. There needs to be a uniting difference; and this we have in the preponderance of intellect in man, and affection in woman; and their union, mystical and holy, is needed to make one truly perfect, effective man.

Of the nature of this mystical union we had thought of speaking here at some length; but the subject is rather difficult of comprehension, and hardly in place in a work like this.

It follows, from what has been said, that marriage is essential to human perfection. This we firmly believe; and we also believe that where marriage is opposed from principle, (it never is from any other than a selfish principle,) the mind becomes perverted from its true order, and the intellect weakened.

It may seem to some, that to say equality of the sexes is not the true mode of speaking, as a denial of this equality, leaves on the mind an idea of inferiority of one to the other. To some, the terms used will doubtless convey this meaning. The difficulty of choosing terms that express with perfect exactness what we desire to