Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/195

Rh wife, and do it at the sacrifice of feeling and inclination.

Another source of unhappiness will arise from this fact: During the period of courtship, the young man consults the tastes, wishes, inclinations, and preferences of the young lady, and makes them his own. In every thing, he defers to her. It is his highest delight to make her happy, and to effect this he is ready for almost any sacrifice. After marriage, the bride still expects this entire devotion to her, and the same deference. But erelong she finds that the husband is less assiduous than the lover, and is unreasonable enough to have a will of his own, tastes of his own, inclinations and preferences of his own, and, what is worse, disposed to consult them where they differ from hers, instead of yielding all, as before. It may be, that, in the first excitement of the moment, on discovering this, she will set her will in opposition to her husband’s, and endeavor to put him down. Usually, this experiment proves a difficult one, and causes her to shed many bitter tears. She may become angry, and bring accusations of want of affection, and selfishness, and all that, against her husband; and he, surprised and confounded at this unexpected turn of affairs, may act and speak in a very unreasonable, and perhaps unkind manner.