I assure you I will lay down all the state of living, as well as the expense of it; and, first, I will keep no visiting days; secondly, I'll drop the greatest part of the acquaintance I have; thirdly, I will lay down our treats and entertainments, and the like needless occasions of expense, and then I shall have no occasion for so many maids.
_Husb_ .-- But this, my dear, I say, will make as much noise almost, as if I were actually broke.
_Wife_ .-- No, no; leave that part to me.
_Husb_ .-- But you may tell me how you will manage it then.
_Wife_ .-- Why, I'll go into the country.
_Husb_ .-- That will but bring them after you, as it used to do.
_Wife_ .-- But I'll put off our usual lodgings at Hampstead, and give out that I am gone to spend the summer in Bedfordshire, at my aunt's, where every body knows I used to go sometimes; they can't come after me thither.
_Husb_ .-- But when you return, they will all visit you.
_Wife_ .-- Yes, and I will make no return to all those I have a mind to drop, and there's an end of all their acquaintance at once.
_Husb_ .-- And what must I do?
_Wife_ .-- Nay, my dear, it is not for me to direct that part; you know how to cure the evil which you sensibly feel the mischief of.

If I do my part, I don't doubt you know how to do yours.
_Husb_ .-- Yes, I know, but it is hard, very hard.
_Wife_ .-- Nay, I hope it is no harder for you than it is for your wife.
_Husb_ .-- That is true, indeed, but I'll see.
_Wife_ .-- The question to me is not whether it is hard, but whether it is necessary.
_Husb_ .-- Nay, it is necessary, that is certain.
_Wife_ .-- Then I hope it is as necessary to you as to your wife.
_Husb_ .-- I know not where to begin.
_Wife_ .-- Why, you keep two horses and a groom, you keep rich high company, and you sit long at the Fleece every evening.

I need say no more; you know where to begin well enough.
_Husb_ .-- It is very hard; I have not your spirit, my dear.
_Wife_ .-- I hope you are not more ashamed to retrench, than you would be to have your name in the Gazette.
_Husb_ .-- It is sad work to come down hill thus.
_Wife_ .-- It would be worse to fall down at one blow from the top; better slide gently and voluntarily down the smooth part, than to be pushed down the precipice, and be dashed all in pieces.
There was more of this dialogue, but I give the part which I think most to the present purpose; and as I strive to shorten the doctrine, so I will abridge the application also; the substance of the case lies in a few particulars, thus:-- I.The man was melancholy, and oppressed with the thoughts of his declining circumstances, and yet had not any thought of letting his wife know it, whose way of living was high and expensive, and more than he could support; but though it must have ended in ruin, he would rather let it have gone on till she was surprised in it, than to tell her the danger that was before her.
His wife very well argues the injustice and unkindness of such usage, and how hard it was to a wife, who, being of necessity to suffer in the fall, ought certainly to have the most early notice of it--that, if possible, she might prevent it, or, at least, that she might not be overwhelmed with the suddenness and the terror of it.
II.

Upon discovering it to his wife, or rather her drawing the discovery from him by her importunity, she immediately, and most readily and cheerfully, enters into measures to retrench her expenses, and, as far as she was able, to prevent the blow, which was otherwise apparent and unavoidable.
Hence it is apparent, that the expensive living of most tradesmen in their families, is for want of a serious acquainting their wives with their circumstances, and acquainting them also in time; for there are very few ladies so unreasonable, who, if their husbands seriously informed them how things stood with them, and that they could not support their way of living, would not willingly come into measures to prevent their own destruction.
III.

That it is in vain, as well as unequal, for a tradesman to preach frugality to his wife, and to bring his wife to a retrenching of her expenses, and not at the same time to retrench his own; seeing that keeping horses and high company is every way as great and expensive, and as necessary to be abated, as any of the family extravagances, let them be which they will.
All this relates to the duty of a tradesman in preventing his family expenses being ruinous to his business; but the true method to prevent all this, and never to let it come so far, is still, as I said before, not to marry too soon; not to marry, till by a frugal industrious management of his trade in the beginning, he has laid a foundation for maintaining a wife, and bringing up a family, and has made an essay by which he knows what he can and cannot do, and also before he has laid up and increased his stock, that he may not cripple his fortune at first, and be ruined before he has begun to thrive.
FOOTNOTES: [22] [Defoe's views on the subject of the too early marrying of young tradesmen, are in every particular sound.