both scriptural and rational.  It would be very inconvenient to call in a third person as an umpire upon every slight difference of opinion between a young couple, besides being very humiliating.  But if each maintain, with pertinacity, their opinion, what can be done?  It does seem to me that every sensible woman, who feels any good degree of confidence in her husband, will perceive the propriety of yielding her opinion to his in such cases, where the matter is of such a nature that it cannot be delayed.

“But there are a thousand things occurring, in which there is no necessity of forming an immediate opinion, or decision, except from conviction.  I should never like the idea of a woman’s conforming to her husband’s views to please him, merely, without considering whether they are correct or not.  It seems to me a sort of treason against the God who gave her a mind of her own, with an intention that she should use it.  But it would be higher treason still, in male or female, not to yield, when actually convinced.

“Without the knowledge and the love of domestic concerns, even the wife of a peer is but a poor affair.  It was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal about these things, and it would be very hard to make me believe that it did not tend to promote the interests and honor of their husbands.

“The concerns of a great family never can be well managed, if left wholly to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in which it would be unseemly for husbands to meddle.  Surely, no lady can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted with the character and general demeanor of all the female servants.  To receive and give character is too much to be left to a servant, however good, whose service has been ever so long, or acceptable.

“Much of the ease and happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by whom they are assisted.  They live under the same roof with them; they are frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbors; the conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more weight there must be in one word from them, than in ten thousand word from a person who, call her what you like, is still fellow servant, it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this at once important and pleasing part of their duty.

“I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the middle ranks of life; and here a knowledge of domestic affairs is so necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in his eye.  Not only a knowledge of these affairs—­not only to know how things ought to be done, but how to do them; not only to know what ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able to make the pie or the pudding.