ABSTRACT
Strange as it may appear, a husband, unless his eyes are opened by the confession of his guilty partner, is the last to believe in her misconduct; and when the world has justly stamped disgrace upon her name, he shares in his wife’s dishonour, for he is supposed by all to know, and to connive at her crime. But though this be a painful truth, experience every day confirms, that a noble and confiding husband is too often, and too easily deceived. In the marriage state there is little love,a and much habitual confidence. We see neglect and severity on the part of the man; and all the petty arts and cunning wiles on the side of his more frail and cowardly partner. Indifference first occasions this blindness; infatuation increases it; and in proportion as all interest / is lost for the object who so deceives, such husband lives the dupe of the wife, who despises him for his blindness and dies in the same happy illusion, in whch he has so long passed away his life. He even presses to his heart, as he leaves them his possessions, the children of some deceitful friend, who, under the pleab of amity to himself, has fed upon his fortunes, and seduced the affections of his wife.
