Included in Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Quotations is the following poem:
Time was my spouse and I could not agree,
Striving about superiority:
The text which saith that man and wife are one,
Was the chief argument we stood upon:
She held, they both one woman should become;
I held they should be man, and both but one.
Thus we contended daily, but the strife
Could not be ended, till both were one Wife.
Here is my understanding which I am not quite sure. It seems to me Franklin was analogizing the relationship between one and time to that between a husband and a wife, trying to say that one should not strive for superiority but coherence.
Actually I did not quite get "I could not agree, striving about superiority". I understand it by substituting "help" for "agree". Is that correct?
In addtion, I do not get the end "but the strife could not be ended, till both were one Wife". So the wife wins?