… Husband, who gaining scarcely more, than his own necessities demand, must have been accustomed to regard his wife and children, not as the Soothers of finished labour, but as Rivals for the insufficient meal!’ 5 5 . John Morrow (ed.), … Coleridge was appalled by the selfishness which characterized human relationships: the exploitation of workers and children for factory production, that of women through marriage, of slaves through the plantation system, of children through consumerism. As the nation was writing itself at the dawn of the eighteenth century, he insisted, in his …