Hence, in their fits of fury, they remember no claims and recognize
no distinctions. I have actually known a case where a Woman
has exterminated her whole household, and half an hour afterwards,
when her rage was over and the fragments swept away,
has asked what has become of her husband and children.
Obviously then a Woman is not to be irritated as long as she
is in a position where she can turn round. When you have them
in their apartments--which are constructed with a view
to denying them that power--you can say and do what you like;
for they are then wholly impotent for mischief, and will
not remember a few minutes hence the incident for which
they may be at this moment threatening you with death,
nor the promises which you may have found it necessary
to make in order to pacify their fury.
On the whole we got on pretty smoothly in our domestic relations,
except in the lower strata of the Military Classes. There the want
of tact and discretion on the part of the husbands produces at times
indescribable disasters. Relying too much on the offensive weapons
of their acute angles instead of the defensive organs of good sense
and seasonable simulations, these reckless creatures too often neglect
the prescribed construction of the women's apartments, or irritate
their wives by ill-advised expressions out of doors, which they
refuse immediately to retract.
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