291. XX. THAT THERE ARE VARIOUS KINDS OF APPARENT LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN MARRIED PARTNERS, OF WHOM THE ONE IS SUBJUGATED AND HENCE IS SUBJECT TO THE OTHER. It is among things known in the world at this day, that after the first period of marriage, rivalries spring up between the partners in respect to right and authority--in respect to right, because according to the conditions of the contracted covenant there is equality, and dignity belongs to each of the partners in the duties of his function; and in respect to authority, because it is insisted on by men, that superiority in all affairs of the house belongs to them because they are men, and that inferiority belongs to women because they are women. Such rivalries, familiar at this day, flow from no other source than the absence of any knowledge concerning love truly conjugial, and the absence of any perception of sensation in respect to the blessings of that love. Owing to the absence of this knowledge and perception, instead of that love is a lust which counterfeits the love. With genuine love removed, then from this lust, there issues an ambition for power. With some men, this ambition is within them from the delight of domineering; with some it has been implanted before the wedding by artful women; and to some it is unknown. [2] Men who have this ambition, and after alternations of rivalry obtain the dominion, reduce their wives to being their possession by right, or to abject obedience to their will, or to bondage, each according to the degree of his ambition and to the qualified nature of the state inseated and latent within him. If wives have this ambition, and after alternations of rivalry obtain the dominion, they reduce their husbands either to equality of right with themselves or to obedience to their decisions, or to bondage. But since, after obtaining from them the badge of dominion, the lust which remains with wives counterfeits conjugial love, because restrained by reason of the law and from fear of legal separation should they stretch their power beyond what is lawful to what is unlawful, therefore they lead a life in consociation with their husbands.
[3] As to the nature of the love and friendship between a dominant wife and a servant husband, or a dominant husband and a servant wife, this cannot be described in a few words. Indeed, were the differences between them compared in detail, and the differences themselves enumerated, pages would not suffice; for they are various and diverse. With the men they are various according to the nature of their ambition, being in like manner various with the wives; and those of men are diverse from those which are with women. Such men are in none but a fatuous friendship of love, and such women from lust are in the friendship of a spurious love. By what art wives acquire power over their men shall be told in the article now following.
