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THE AUTHOR NOTES THAT THE INTERPRETATION OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE AS A THEORETICAL SKEPTIC BUT A PRACTICAL CONSERVATIVE DERIVES SUPPORT FROM MANY PASSAGES IN THE "ESSAYS" IN WHICH THE AUTHOR EXPRESSES AN ABHORRENCE OF INNOVATION. THE STUDY OF MONTAIGNE'S THOUGHT HELPS TO UNDERSTAND BOTH THE PRINCIPLES OUT OF WHICH LIBERALISM AROSE, AND THE ROOTS OF ITS SUBSEQUENT CRISIS.

The force behind the egalitarian impulse to create a society of equals is a basic human desire for justice, "for a temporal order of things that 'makes sense.'" So Irving Kristol said in a recent essay. He is, of course, right. However, this isi where the true problem, the puzzle, begins. For our ingrained sense of justice produces identical "gut ' reactions," such as feelings of indignation, in regard to very different, indeed sometimes even diametrically opposed, alternatives.

It is paradoxical that an author whose thought is widely recognized to have had a profound influence on such revolutionary thinkers as Locke, Bayle, and Rousseau should be regarded as having himself been an extreme conservative in questions of political practice. Yet such is the almost unanimous judgment of contemporary scholars on Michel de Montaigne. While Montaigne endeavored in the Essays to question radically the grounds of all accepted beliefs and practices, and specifically denounced the unreasonableness and unjustness of many laws and customs practiced in his time, it is believed that he nonetheless opposed all attempts at political innovation or reform, fearing that any such change would only make matters worse.

The concept of equality between spouses is analyzed and its relationship to physical violence is examined among couples in three contrasting settings in the U.S., Ireland and India. It is found that a focus on relative conjugal authority does not reveal the sources of marital violence as adequately as does the analysis of shared authority in marital relationship. The higher rates of conjugal discord and interspousal violence in the American context contrast the rates that obtain in the Irish and Indian cases. Their varying relationship with egalitarian marital styles, however, cannot be explained without a reference to the prevailing cultural dictates in each case. The congruence or disjunctive of cultural precepts with marital behavior seems best to predict the incidence of conjugal violence in the three cases.