Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/197

Rh sets her will against that of her husband; but it almost always happens that she finds him much more disposed to consult his own tastes and inclinations than he was previous to marriage; and she will, very naturally, feel disappointed at this, and be led to think that he does not love her as much as she was led to believe that he did.

The perfections with which young lovers are apt to invest the objects of their choice are usually about as much in imagination as reality. Faultlessness appertains to no human being. All have defects, and all are born in evils. These evils, or the tendencies to them, cannot, as has before been said, be removed, except by each individual for himself, after he reaches the age of rationality and freedom. At the time when marriage takes place, but little has been done towards the removal of these evils, and their existence must therefore affect, in some measure, all who come into the very intimate relationship of man and wife. If, instead of being surprised and made unhappy, on feeling these effects, every young wife would seek to correct what was selfish and evil in her own heart, she would so far enable her husband to do the same, and so far really help to make him what, in the fond idolatry of her young heart, she at first was inclined to believe him.