Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/201

Rh thoughtlessness and pride on the part of the wife.

After marriage, the interests of a young couple become one, and the feeling of delicacy that prevents the wife from inquiring into her husband’s affairs, and becoming thoroughly acquainted with them, should be laid aside. All reserve on this subject ought now to cease, and the fullest confidence begin. The style of living adopted should be that which the judgments of both determine to be right, after clearly understanding the real or probable amount of their income; and it should be a matter of fixed principle never to go beyond, but always to keep within, this income. It will be much easier to begin right than to get right after having made a wrong beginning.

The error of young married persons beginning the world in the style of those who have been ten, twenty, or thirty years in acquiring the means whereby to live in elegance or luxury, is a very common one. In order to support this style, they often expend every dollar of income, and too frequently are tempted to go beyond this, involving themselves in debt, and creating embarrassments that are never entirely got over.

It will almost always be in the power of a young wife to prevent this. By assuming a modest style