That's a great analogy! Fanny does chip away at her husband's resolve incrementally. I think it was pretty generous for someone as self-serving as John Dashwood was described as being to decide on giving each of his sisters 1,000 pounds - then his wife talked him right out of giving them anything at all - step by baby step. She even had the nerve to say his sisters would better be able to afford to give him something; meanwhile, he was already wealthy from the money he inherited from his mother when she died and the money he got when he married Fanny. Of course, John Dashwood probably wouldn't have been so easily led by his wife were he not already so selfish.