Don't you wish you could get it?
But didn't she promise to obey?
Didn't she?
Of course.

Then why is it that I must be all the while yielding points, and she never?
Well, sir, that is for you to settle.

The marriage service gives you authority; so does the law of the land.

John could lock up Mrs.Lillie till she learned her lessons; he could do any of twenty other things that no gentleman would ever think of doing, and the law would support him in it.

But, because John is a gentleman, and not Paddy from Cork, he strokes his wife's head, and submits.
We understand that our brethren, the Methodists, have recently decided to leave the word "obey" out of the marriage-service.