On account of this conformity of notions it is, that equality of condition is chiefly eligible; for as friendship, so marriage either finds or makes an equality. No disadvantage of birth or fortune ought to impede the exaltation of virtue and of wisdom; for with marriage begins union, and union obliterates all distinctions. It may, indeed, become the person who received the benefit, to remember it, that gratitude may heighten affection; but the person that conferred it ought to forget it, because, if it was deserved, it cannot be mentioned without injustice, nor, if undeserved, without imprudence. All reproaches of this kind must be either retractions of a good action, or proclamations of our own weakness.
Friends, says the proverbial observation, have every thing in common. This is likewise implied in the marriage covenant. Matrimony admits of no separate possessions, no incommunicable interests. This rule, like all others, has been often broken by low views and sordid stipulations; but, like all other precepts, founded on reason and in truth, it has received a new confirmation from almost every branch of it; and those parents, whose age has had no better effects upon their understanding, than to fill them with avarice and stratagem, have brought misery and ruin upon their children, by the means which they weakly imagined conducive to their happiness.
There is yet another precept equally relating to friendship and to marriage, a precept which, in either case, can never be too strongly inculcated, or too scrupulously observed; Contract friendship only with the good. Virtue is the first quality to be considered in the choice of a friend, and yet more in a fixed and irrevocable choice. This maxim surely requires no comment, nor any vindication; it is equally clear and certain, obvious to the superficial, and incontestable by the most accurate examiner. To dwell upon it is, therefore, superfluous; for, though often neglected, it never was denied. Every man will, without hesitation, confess, that it is absurd to trust a known deceiver, or voluntarily to depend for quiet and for happiness
