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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: where obstacles no longer exist, where the wife submits to love
instead of permitting it, and frequently repulses pleasure instead of
desiring it. Then, the whole aspect of a man's life changes. The
bachelor, who is free and without a care, need never fear repulsion;
in marriage, repulsion is almost certain and irreparable. It may be
possible for a lover to make a woman reverse an unfavorable decision,
but such a change, my dear Paul, is the Waterloo of husbands. Like
Napoleon, the husband is thenceforth condemned to victories which, in
spite of their number, do not prevent the first defeat from crushing
him. The woman, so flattered by the perseverance, so delighted with
the ardor of a lover, calls the same things brutality in a husband.
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