In stature, in healthfulness, they were equals, perhaps: not morally or intellectually.

And she could claim headship of him on one little point confided to her by his mother, who was bearing him, and startled by the boom of guns under her pillow, when her husband fronted the enemy: Matthew Weyburn, the fencer, boxer, cricketer, hunter, all things manly, rather shrank from firearms--at least, one saw him put on a screw to manipulate them.

In danger--among brigands or mutineers, for example--she could stand by him and prove herself his mate.
Intellectually, morally, she had to bow humbly.

Nor had she, nor could she do more than lean on and catch example from his prompt spiritual valiancy.

It shone out from him, and a crisis fulfilled the promise.