established, which are rare, will be found to have resulted in misery to both. Let this principle and fact effectually warn all against persuading or being persuaded to marry against their feelings. Ardent love in one can never compensate for the loss of it in the other, but only increases the disparity. Warmth in one and coldness in the other, is as ice is to fire. Reciprocity is indispensab.e. Those who love each other well enough to marry will need no urging, but will literally rush into each other's arms. Then let all beware how they marry unless both Love and are BELOVED; because love in one and not in the other is a breach of love's cardinal requisitions, and therefore can never render either happy, but must, in the very nature of things, torment both for life. And let those who are married put forth their, utrnost endeavors to reinstate, as far as possible, reciprocity in this vital requisition of matrimonial felicity. A few facts:

From the very hour that Nero's "wanton dalliance"* and desired incest with his mother was interrupted, he plotted her death, and consummated that most revolting matricide with impatient haste and the most infamous cruelty. Potipher's wife hated Joseph as cordially after he refused her this indulgence, as she loved him before, and solely in CONSEQUENCE of such refusal. This alone converted the frenzy of her love into revenge equally frantic. The story of Amnon and Tamar, (ii. Sam. xiii.) also establishes and illustrates our posiAn enamored widow in New-York, similarly refused by an amorous man, because of his filial regard for her ve nerated husband, from that hour to this has pursued him with all the artful vengeance of a human fiend. The details of this case are full of thrilling interest. One of the recent cases of crim. con. in New-York, grew out of a husband's conscientious refusal to gratify his wife in this respect, while fulfilling her maternal relations. This roused her worst passions, and she sought with a paramour what she was denied in wedlock. In short, does this kw of love, and law of mind,

* Sallust.

that refused indulgence engenders hatred, require farther proof, however similar in other respects, or that reciprocity here is the olive-branch of connubial peace, however illy matched in other respects? Need we prove that coldness in the one and ardor in the other, is "hope deferred" to the former, and repulsiveness to the latter, which necessarily blasts their mutual happiness, and of course their love? Is not this SETTLED TRUTH—the very summing up of this whole matter?

Forbearing reader! Condemn not our freedom; because our subject is fraught with the very life and death of all matrimonial felicity. It is one of MIGHTY moment—the great sandbanks of matrimonial shipwreck-yet rarely developed. Its chagrined victims rarely tell the fatal secret. It remains to be disclosed by SCIENCE. Besides, reader, you yourself may require to know what you can learn probably no where else. Accept, then, as you prize domestic happiness, the following matrimonial life-preservers, in the form of preparatory advice to all whom it may concern:

First, to the reluctant wife! For you to yield, is to conquer. By showing a desire to do all you can to oblige a beseeching husband, you throw yourself on his generosity, and thereby quell that desire which coldness or refusal would only aggravate. Your cheerful submission to what he knows to be disagreeable, at once excites his pity and gratitude, and thus awakens his higher faculties in your behalf. and subdues desire ; because, how can he who dotes on you take pleasure in what occasions you pain? He takes your will for the deed, and loves you therefore too well to 'nsist on so delicate a matter unless agreeable to you also, or to feast himself at your expense. Compliance is a sovereign remedy for his importunity because it kills his desires. Remember, you must always yield cheerfully, and with a view to please him, or else the whole effect will be lost. Never prove remiss, but do all you can to conform. Thereby you will lay your husband under the highest possible obligations of love and gratitude; where as the unkind refusal begets increased importunity, and makes

him insist on his rights, and threaten you with vengeance if you dare refuse. Abundant excuse, such as the most unrea sonable demand on his part, and utter inability on yours, alone should warrant your refusal.

Husbands! It is now your turn. To promote desire is your only plan. To excite those feelings which alone can render your wishes acceptable to the partner of your love, will obviate present repugnance, and render both happy in what otherwise would be a torment to both. Cultivate the defective faculty. Apply those perpetual stimulants which you alone can employ, and your wife, if a true woman, will necessarily respond. This element is of right, at least always ought to be, comparatively. dormant at marriage, and therefore requires to be cultivated before its full activity can reasonably be expected. This, and this alone, can secure your desired boon-alone can obviate the difficulty. It is not for her, but for you, to excite her to willingness. Nor need you pride yourself on your manhood, unless you can call forth the desires you so much wish. Her coldness is your fault mainly. Almost any wife whose husband is not repugnant, can be persuaded to all the intensity of emotion necessary or desirable.

But, mark this can never be done by blaming her. By soft words and tender manners only. And yet many husbands think to drive their wives to this tender repast by blaming them for delays. This is the very last thing that should be done; because this produces disaffection, and disaffection weakens the remaining fragment of love. By thus provoking desire, he can frequently obviate barrenness, which is often caused by want of interest in her. Excite this interest, and you thereby secure offspring-the one object of marriage and end effected by love. In short, "provoke her to love."

After having done all that can be done to draw out her feelings permanently, let forbearance do the rest. What but her reciprocity can render this repast agreeable to your own feelings? You are not a man, but a brute, if you can insist at her expense. Where are your higher feelings? Where is

your love? Its only tost is the sacrifice of personal interest on the altar of her happiness. The wife, too, who truly loves, will most cheerfully make an equal sacrifice, and this spirit of mutual sacrifice and mutual desire to oblige, will nearly or quite control all constitutional differences, and render your union happy to both.

It, however, deserves remark, that ninety-nine cases in the hundred of tameness on the part of wives arec. used by disease, in one or another form, of the organs of their sex. Such disease sometimes in flames desire, but usually annuls it by enfee. bling and debilitating those organs on the healthy action of which desire depends. And the fact, that a large proportion of our women are diseased, explains the repugnance of many wives to that which their husbands so earnestly desire; and this disparity-the sole product of disease-is the great breeder of connubial discord. Husbands, whose wives are thus afflicted, should attribute their wives' tameness, perhaps reluctance, not to constitutional apathy, or disobliging unwillingness, but to actual incapacity, induced by the prostration of health-by a disease very likely induced by the husbands themselves, as explained in Amativeness, p. 43. And the remedy will be found in the restoration of these organs of their partners from the prostrating influence of disease to the vigorous action of health, directions for doing which are given in Chapter V. of our Supplement. Do not blame when you should doctor. The torpor of which husbands complain is mainly their own fault.

Yet, sometimes, that sluggishness which tends to mutual dislike is on the husband's side, and possibly the penalty of premature indulgence in some form. But the advice alread given applies here also, and need not be repeated.

The vast importance of this matter alone induced its inser tion. Some will affect to scorn it, but even they may derive invaluable benefit therefrom, while those whom it more espe cially concerns will rejoice in the day that disclosed the se cret cause of matrimonial discord, and brought again the olive branch of concord.

128

SECTION X.

FREQUENCY.

'Ts natural boundaries. All our faculties should be exercised only when their results are required. Appetite, Combativeness, Hoard ing, Benevolen ?, Conscientiousness, Language, &c. Offspring the result of this faculty. Analogical inference furnished by the brute creation. Objection. Woman the final umpire. To follow nature our highest happiness. Nature never tempts. The hus banding principle applied here. Love restrains animal desire. Ar egregious error. Repose. Propensity soon cloys. Prospect An infallible guide. Influence of sensual indulgence on love. Do indulgence to secure offspring. Precaution. Appeal. Conclusion

It remains to define nature's boundaries in this important respect, thereby to restrain exorbitant demand on the one hand, and to prevent excessive taxation on the other. Such bounds exist, and to practise them is the very acme of hymeneal bliss. That a most ruinous excess is now indulged is certain. What, then, are the dictates of infallible na ture?

That no faculty of body or mind should ever be exercised except when the results are required, and for the express purpose of securing such results, is a law of nature. Not tc dwell on the folly of exercising the voice, muscles, eyes. &c, when we do not require the products of these respective functions, we should never indulge Alimentiveness for the mere gustatory pleasure it affords, but only when we require nourishment, or the legitimate product of eating; and in eating thus, we experience the greatest possible gustatory pleasure. We should never exercise Comba tiveness for the mere sake of opposition, but only waɛn its constitutional results-opposition to evil, defence of right, the accomplishment of good-are required. All our op position is sinful in character, and painful in effect. gitimate end alone sanctifies its exercise. So, to cas

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