Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 283

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283. (12) They are adopted to preserve order in the couple's domestic affairs and to maintain their assistance to each other. Every household that includes children, their tutors and other domestic help is a miniature society resembling the larger one. The larger one, indeed, consists of these smaller units, as a whole formed of its parts; and as the welfare of the larger society depends on the presence of order, so also does the welfare of this smaller society. Consequently, as it is important for civil officers to keep watch and see to it that order exists and is preserved in the collective society, so it is important for married partners to do the same in their individual society. This order, however, is not possible if husband and wife differ in spirit; for their offerings of mutual counsel and aid are drawn by these differences in divergent directions and become as divided as the partners are in spirit, on which account the form of a little society is rent asunder. To preserve order, therefore, and by this means to protect themselves and at the same time their household, or their household and at the same time themselves, so that they do not go to ruin and collapse in disaster, necessity requires that master and mistress agree and act in harmony. Even if they cannot do this owing to their difference of minds, still for all to be well it is both fitting and proper that they achieve it by a representative show of conjugial friendship. People know that agreements in household matters are thus patched together for reasons that are necessary and therefore useful.


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