After my wife had been settled in my house a few days, and after her first pangs of longing for her mother and family had begun to fade, I took her by the hand and showed her around the whole house. At the end there were no household goods of which my wife had not learned both the place and the purpose…. Only my books and records and those of my ancestors did I determine to keep well sealed. These my wife not only could not read, she could not even lay hands on them. I kept my records at all times locked up and arranged in order in my study, almost like sacred and religious objects. I never gave my wife permission to enter that place, with me or alone. [Husbands] who take counsel with their wives…are madmen if they think true prudence or good counsel lies in the female brain….For this reason I have always tried carefully not to let any secret of mine be known to a woman. I did not doubt that my wife was most loving, and more discreet and modest in her ways than any, but I still considered it safer to have her unable, and not merely unwilling, to harm me….Furthermore, I made it a rule never to speak with her of anything but household matters or questions of conduct, or of the children.