How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage
by E. J. Hardy · English · Gutenberg #35534 · 529,426 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage
Author: E. J. Hardy
Release date: March 9, 2011 [eBook #35534]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35534
Credits: Produced by Colin Bell, Christine P. Travers and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED: BEING A HANDBOOK TO MARRIAGE ***
Produced by Colin Bell, Christine P. Travers and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
[Transcriber's note: The author's spelling has been maintained.
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In the word "Puranic", the "a" is overlined in the book.]
_HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED._
PRESS NOTICES ON THE FIRST EDITION.
"_If wholesome advice you can brook,
When single too long you have tarried;
If comfort you'd gain from a book,
When very much wedded and harried;
No doubt you should speedily look,
In 'How to be Happy though Married!'_"--PUNCH.
"We strongly recommend this book as one of the best of wedding presents.
It is a complete handbook to an earthly Paradise, and its author may be
regarded as the Murray of Matrimony and the Baedeker of Bliss."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._
"The author has successfully accomplished a difficult task in writing a
clever and practical book on the important subject of matrimony.... This
book, which is at once entertaining and full of wise precepts, deserves
to be widely read."--_Morning Post._
"An entertaining volume.... The new guide to matrimonial
felicity."--_Standard_, Leader.
"A clever, readable, and entertaining book.... This delicious
book."--_Literary Churchman._
"This most elucidatory treatise.... As a 'companion to the honeymoon,'
this orange blossom, true-love-knot ornamented volume should no doubt be
highly esteemed."--_Whitehall Review._
"The book is tastefully got up, and its contents adapt it very well for
a present to a young bride."--_Queen._
"One of the cleverest, best written books on the subject we have read at
any time. To girls contemplating marriage, the volume should be
presented as a wedding gift.... Grave and gay, but never for a moment
dull or tiresome. Each page sparkles with anecdote or suggestive
illustration."--_Ladies' Treasury._
"A highly ornamental yet handy, well printed, and admirably written
volume."--_The Lady._
"A rich store of entertaining anecdote, and full of thoughts beautiful,
pious, and wise. Has a tasteful binding."--_Bookseller._
HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED
BEING A
Handbook to Marriage
BY
_A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY._
"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
Though few now taste thee, unimpaired and pure,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitters, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup."--_Cowper._
"It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the festival
goblet, and, after the Egyptian manner, serve up a dead man's bones at a
feast: I will only show it, and take it away again; it will make the
wine bitter, but wholesome."--_Jeremy Taylor._
_SEVENTH AND POPULAR EDITION._
LONDON
T FISHER UNWIN
26 Paternoster Square
1887
TO THOSE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE VENTURED, OR WHO INTEND TO
VENTURE, INTO THAT STATE WHICH IS "A BLESSING TO A FEW, A CURSE
TO MANY, AND A GREAT UNCERTAINTY TO ALL," THIS BOOK IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN ADMIRATION OF THEIR COURAGE.
PREFACE.
Most of the books intended to give "counsel and ghostly strength" to
newly-married people are so like a collection of sermons that they are
given away rather than read. When writing the following pages I have
remembered that the only kind of vice all people agree to shun
is--advice, and have endeavoured to hide the pill. This is my excuse if
at times I seem to fall into anecdotage.
One day two birds were busy building their nest in Luther's garden.
Observing that they were often scared while committing their petty
thefts by the passers to and fro, the Doctor exclaimed, "Oh, poor little
birds! fly not away; I wish you well with all my heart, if you would
only believe me!" If any birds of Paradise, or, to speak plainly,
newly-married people, are a little scared by the title of this book or
by any of its contents, I assure them that, while trying to place before
them the responsibilities they have undertaken, I wish them well with
all my heart, and take great interest in their nest-building.
To ask critics to be merciful at a time when new books are so numerous
that our eyes ache with reading and our fingers with turning the pages,
would be to ask them not to do their duty. They are the policemen of
literature, and they are bound to make bad and worthless books "move on"
out of the way of their betters. I can only hope that if any notice this
little venture they may not feel obliged to "crush" it "among the
stoure," as the Ayrshire ploughman had to crush the "wee, modest,
crimson-tipped flower."
I take this opportunity of thanking M. H., my best friend, without whose
help and sympathy this book would be a worse one than it is, and my life
much more unsatisfactory.
Part of the first chapter was published in _Chambers's Journal_, and I
am indebted to _Cassell's Saturday Journal_ for two anecdotes. I now
tender my best thanks to the proprietors of those periodicals for
permission to reprint the passages.
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," as I called this book when it
first made its appearance, has not been crushed with the ploughshare of
criticism "among the stoure." On the contrary, it has been so well
received that I am full of gratitude to the reviewers who recommended it
and to the public who bought it. One critic suggested that to make the
work complete a chapter on second marriages should be added. My reason
for not writing such a chapter is that, not having myself been as yet
often married, I did not presume to give advice to widows and widowers
who have their own experience to guide them.
Taking up the book in a lending library a friend read aloud the title to
a lady who accompanied her--"How to be Happy though Married." _Lady_:
"Oh, bother the happiness; does it tell how to be married?" I hope that
I may be pardoned if I cannot always do this.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. Page
HOW TO BE HAPPY _THOUGH_ MARRIED 1
CHAPTER II.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE--MARRIED? 9
CHAPTER III.
MARRIAGE-MADE MEN 20
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE 33
CHAPTER V.
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND 45
CHAPTER VI.
ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL BARGAIN 52
CHAPTER VII.
MARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS A DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER 65
CHAPTER VIII.
BEING MARRIED 71
CHAPTER IX.
HONEYMOONING 80
CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE VOWS 87
CHAPTER XI.
"DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES!" 101
CHAPTER XII.
FURNISHING 113
CHAPTER XIII.
MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY 119
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS 129
CHAPTER XV.
PREPARATION FOR PARENTHOOD 140
CHAPTER XVI.
"WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD?" 146
CHAPTER XVII.
THE EDUCATION OF PARENTS 155
CHAPTER XVIII.
WANTED!--MOTHERS 162
CHAPTER XIX.
"NURSING FATHERS" 172
CHAPTER XX.
POLITENESS AT HOME 184
CHAPTER XXI.
SUNSHINE 192
CHAPTER XXII.
THEY HAD A FEW WORDS 201
CHAPTER XXIII.
PULLING TOGETHER 211
CHAPTER XXIV.
NETS AND CAGES 221
CHAPTER XXV.
HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO 235
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY 244
CHAPTER XXVII.
LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE 254
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US, WE HAVE BEEN SO
HAPPY" 260
CHAPTER I.
HOW TO BE HAPPY _THOUGH_ MARRIED.
"How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!"--_T. Campbell._
"Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married
state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will
give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free
from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill Olympus,
wholly clear, without clouds."--_Fuller._
"How to be happy _though_ married." This was the quaint title of one of
Skelton's sermons, which would certainly cause a momentary cloud of
indignation, not to say of alarm, to pass over the minds of a
newly-married couple, should they discover it when skimming through a
collection of old volumes on the first wet day of their honeymoon.
"Two young persons thrown together by chance, or brought together by
artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, and go home to dream
of each other. Finding themselves rather uncomfortable apart, they
think they necessarily must be happy together." But there is no such
necessity. In marriage the measure of our happiness is usually in
proportion to our deserts.
"No man e'er gained a happy life by chance,
Or yawned it into being with a wish."
This, however, is just what many novices think they can do in reference
to matrimony. They fancy that it has a magic power of conferring
happiness almost in spite of themselves, and are quite surprised when
experience teaches them that domestic felicity, like everything else
worth having, must be worked for--must be earned by patient endurance,
self-restraint, and loving consideration for the tastes, and even for
the faults, of him or her with whom life is to be lived.
And yet before the first year of married life has ended, most people
discover that Skelton's subject, "How to be happy though married," was
not an unpractical one. Then they know that the path upon which they
have entered may be strewn with thorns instead of with roses, unless
mutual forbearance and mutual respect guard the way. The old bachelor
who said that marriage was "a very harmless amusement" would not have
pronounced such an unconditional judgment had he known more about it.
Matrimony is a harmless and a happy state only when careful precaution
is taken to defend the domain of the affections from harshness and
petulance, and to avoid certain moral and physical pitfalls.
Like government, marriage must be a series of compromises; and however
warm the love of both parties may be, it will very soon cool unless they
learn the golden rule of married life, "To bear and to forbear." In
matrimony, as in so many other things, a good beginning is half the
battle. But how easily may good beginnings be frustrated through
infirmity of temper and other causes, and then we must "tread those
steps with sorrow which we might have trod with joy."
"I often think," says Archdeacon Farrar, "that most of us in life are
like many of those sight-seers who saunter through this (Westminster)
Abbey. Their listless look upon its grandeur and its memorials furnishes
an illustration of the aspect which we present to higher powers as we
wander restlessly through the solemn minster-aisles of life.... We talk
of human misery; how many of us derive from life one-tenth part of what
God meant to be its natural blessedness? Sit out in the open air on a
summer day, and how many of us have trained ourselves to notice the
sweetness and the multiplicity of the influences which are combining for
our delight--the song of birds; the breeze beating balm upon the
forehead; the genial warmth; the delicate odour of ten thousand
flowers?"
What is said here of life in general is also true of married life. We go
through the temple of Hymen without noticing, much less appreciating,
its beauty. Certainly few people gain as much happiness from their
marriage as they might. They expect to find happiness without taking any
trouble to make it, or they are so selfishly preoccupied that they
cannot enjoy. In this way many a husband and wife only begin to value
each other when death is at hand to separate them.
In married life sacrifices must be ever going on if we would be happy.
It is the power to make another glad which lights up our own face with
joy. It is the power to bear another's burden which lifts the load from
our own heart. To foster with vigilant, self-denying care the
development of another's life is the surest way to bring into our own
joyous, stimulating energy. Bestow nothing, receive nothing; sow
nothing, reap nothing; bear no burden of others, be crushed under your
own. If many people are miserable though married, it is because they
ignore the great law of self-sacrifice that runs through all nature, and
expect blessedness from receiving rather than from giving. They reckon
that they have a right to so much service, care, and tenderness from
those who love them, instead of asking how much service, care, and
tenderness they can give.
No knowledge is so well worth acquiring as the science of living
harmoniously for the most part of a life with another, which we might
take as a definition of matrimony. This science teaches us to avoid
fault-finding, bothering, boring, and other tormenting habits. "These
are only trifling faults," you say. Yes, but trifles produce domestic
misery, and domestic misery is no trifle.
"Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from those trifles springs,
Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence,
A _small_ unkindness is a _great_ offence.
To give rich gifts perhaps we wish in vain,
But all may shun the guilt of giving pain."
Husband and wife should burn up in the bonfire of first-love all hobbies
and "little ways" that could possibly prevent home from being sweet. How
happy people are, though married, when they can say of each other what
Mrs. Hare says of her husband in "Memorials of a Quiet Life": "I never
saw anybody so easy to live with, by whom the daily petty things of
life were passed over so lightly; and then there is a charm in the
_refinement_ of feeling which is not to be told in its influence upon
trifles."
A married pair should be all the world to each other. Sydney Smith's
definition of marriage is well known: "It resembles a pair of shears, so
joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite
directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them."
Certainly those who go between deserve to be punished; and in whatever
else they may differ, married people should agree to defend themselves
from the well-meant, perhaps, but irritating interference of friends.
Above all, they should remember the proverb about the home-washing of
soiled linen, for, as old Fuller said, "Jars concealed are half
reconciled; while, if generally known, 'tis a double task to stop the
breach at home and men's mouths abroad."
Why should love-making end with courtship, and of what use are conquests
if they are not guarded? If the love of a life-partner is of far more
value than our perverse fancies, it is the part of wisdom to restrain
these in order to keep that. A suggestion was recently made from an
American pulpit that there was room for a new society which should teach
husband and wife their duty to each other. "The first article of the
constitution should be that any person applying for membership should
solemnly covenant and agree that throughout married life he or she would
carefully observe and practise all courtesy, thoughtfulness, and
unselfishness that belong to what is known as the 'engagement' period.
The second article should be that neither member of a conjugal
partnership should listen to a single word of criticism of the other
member from any relative whatever, even should the words of wisdom drop
from the lips of father, mother, brother, or sister. The rules of the
new society need not extend beyond these two, for there would be nothing
in the conduct of members in good standing to require other special
attention."
The wife, on her part, ought not to be less desirous than she was in the
days of courtship of winning her husband's admiration, merely because
she now wears upon her finger a golden pledge of his love. Why should
she give up those pretty wiles to seem fair and pleasant in his eyes,
that were suggested in love-dreams? Instead of lessening her charms, she
should endeavour to double them, in order that home may be to him who
has paid her the greatest compliment in his power, the dearest and
brightest spot upon earth--one to which he may turn for comfort when
sick of business and the weary ways of men generally.
George Eliot tells us that marriage must be a relation either of
sympathy or of conquest; and it is undoubtedly true that much of the
matrimonial discord that exists arises from the mutual struggle for
supremacy. They go to church and say "I will," and then, perhaps, on the
way home, one or other says "I won't," and that begins it. "What is the
reason," said one Irishman to another, "that you and your wife are
always disagreeing?" "Because," replied Pat, "we are both of one
mind--she wants to be master and so do I." How shall a man retain his
wife's affections? Is it by not returning them? Certainly not. The
secret of conjugal felicity is contained in this formula: demonstrative
affection and self-sacrifice. A man should not only love his wife
dearly, but he should tell her that he loves her, and tell her very
often, and each should be willing to yield, not once or twice, but
constantly, and as a practice to the other. Selfishness crushes out
love, and most of the couples who are living without affection for each
other, with cold and dead hearts, with ashes where there should be a
bright and holy flame, have destroyed themselves by caring too much for
themselves and too little for each other.
Each young couple that begins housekeeping on the right basis brings the
Garden of Eden before man once more. There are they, two, alone; love
raises a wall between them and the outer world. There is no serpent
there--and, indeed, he need never come, nor does he, so long as Adam and
Eve keep him at bay; but too often the hedge of love is broken, just a
little, by small discourtesies, little inattentions, small incivilities,
that gradually but surely become wider and wider holes, until there is
no hedge at all, and all sorts of monsters enter in and riot there.
"Out of the very ripeness of life's core,
A worm was bred."
The only real preservative against this worm is true religion. Unhappily
for themselves the healthy and young sometimes fancy that _they_ need
not think of this. They forget that religion is required to ennoble and
sanctify this present life, and are too liable to associate it
exclusively with the contemplation of death. "So 'a cried out--God, God,
God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not
think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such
thoughts yet." This advice, which Mrs. Quickly gave to Falstaff on his
deathbed, reflects the thoughts of many people, but it was not sound
advice. Certainly it would be cruel rather than kind to advise a young
pair who have leaped into the dark of married life not to think of God.
He is a Saviour from trouble rather than a troubler, and the husband and
wife who never try to serve Him will not be likely to serve each other
or to gain much real happiness from their marriage.
The following is related in the memoirs of Mary Somerville. When a girl
she and her brother had coaxed their timid mother to accompany them for
a sail. The day was sunny, but a stiff breeze was blowing, and presently
the boat began to toss and roll. "George," Mrs. Fairfax called to the
man in charge, "this is an awful storm! I fear we are in great danger;
mind how you steer; remember I trust in you!" He replied, "Dinna trust
in me, leddy; trust in God Almighty." In terror the lady exclaimed,
"Dear me, is it come to that!" To _that_ it ought to come on the day of
marriage quite as much as on the day of death. It is not only in times
of danger and distress that we want God's presence, but in the time of
our well-being, when all goes merry as a marriage bell. Live away from
Him, and the happiness you enjoy to-day may become your misery
to-morrow.
CHAPTER II.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE--MARRIED?
"A bitter and perplexed 'What shall I do?'"--_Coleridge._
"Then, why pause with indecision
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?"--_Longfellow._
To be or not to be--married? That is the question that may occur to
readers of the last chapter. If so much precaution and preparation are
necessary to ensure a harmless, not to say a happy marriage, is the game
worth the candle? Is it not better for the unmarried to cultivate the
contented state of mind of that old Scotch lady who said, "I wadna gie
my single life for a' the double anes I ever saw"?
The controversy as to whether celibacy or wedlock be the happier state
is a very old one, perhaps as old as what may be called the previous
question--whether life itself be worth living. Some people are very
ingenious in making themselves miserable, no matter in what condition
of life they find themselves; and there are a sufficient number of
querulous celibates as well as over-anxious married people in the world
to make us see the wisdom of the sage's words: "Whichever you do,
whether you marry or abstain, you will repent." If matrimony has more
pleasures and celibacy fewer pains, if loving be "a painful thrill, and
not to love more painful still," it is impossible exactly to balance the
happiness of these two states, containing respectively more pleasure and
more pain, and less pleasure and less pain. "If hopes are dupes, fears
may be liars."
It has been said of the state of matrimony that those who are in desire
to get out, and those who are out, wish to enter. The more one thinks on
the matter in this spirit, the more one becomes convinced that the
Scotch minister was by no means an alarmist who thus began an extempore
marriage service: "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse
to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" After a pause,
he repeated with great emphasis, "Do ye venture?" No objection being
made to the venture, he then said, "Let's proceed."
With the opinion of this Scotch minister we may compare that of Lord
Beaconsfield: "I have often thought that all women should marry, and no
men." The Admiral of Castile said, that "he who marries a wife and he
who goes to war must necessarily submit to everything that may happen."
There will, however, always be young men and maidens who believe that
nothing can happen in matrimony that is worse than never to be married
at all.
When Joseph Alleine, who was a great student, married, he received a
letter of congratulation from an old college friend, who said that he
had some thoughts of following his example, but wished to be wary, and
would therefore take the freedom of asking him to describe the
inconveniences of a married life. Alleine replied, "Thou would'st know
the inconveniences of a wife, and I will tell thee. First of all,
whereas thou risest constantly at four in the morning, or before, she
will keep thee till six; secondly, whereas thou usest to study fourteen
hours in the day, she will bring thee to eight or nine; thirdly, whereas
thou art wont to forbear one meal at least in the day for thy studies,
she will bring thee to thy meat. If these are not mischief enough to
affright thee, I know not what thou art." Most people will think that
such "inconveniences of a wife" are the strongest arguments in her
favour. Nearly all men, but especially bookish men, require the healthy
common-sense influence of women to guide and sweetly order their lives.
If we make fools of ourselves with them, we are even greater fools
without them.
With whatever luxuries a bachelor may be surrounded, he will always find
his happiness incomplete unless he has a wife and children to share it.
Who does not sympathize with Leigh Hunt? When in prison he wrote to the
governor requesting that "his wife and children might be allowed to be
with him in the daytime: that his happiness was bound up in them, and
that a separation in respect of abode would be almost as bad to him as
tearing his body asunder."
To be, or not to be--married? This is one of those questions in
reference to which the speculative reason comes to no certain
conclusion. _Solvitur ambulando._ It has nearly distracted some men,
whose minds were sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. They have
almost died of indecision, like the donkey between two exactly similar
bundles of hay. An individual of this description, who was well known to
the writer, after dropping into a letter-pillar a proposal to a young
lady, was seen a few moments afterwards endeavouring to extract with a
stick the precious document. Failing in his attempt, the wretched mortal
walked round and round the pillar, tortured with the recurrence of
reasons against matrimony which he had lately argued away. Fortunately
for both parties the lady refused the tempting offer.
And yet this hesitating lover was, perhaps, but a type of many young men
of the age. Nowadays, it is often said they are giving up matrimony as
if it were some silly old habit suited only to their grandfathers and
grandmothers. The complaint is an old one. It was brought against pagan
youths more than eighteen hundred years ago, and yet the world has got
along. But can all the blame be justly thrown upon the one sex to the
exclusion of the other? Have thoughtless extravagance and ignorance of
household economy on the part of the ladies no share in deterring the
men from making so perilous a venture?
It is said that years ago in Burmah the ladies of the Court met in
formal parliament to decide what should be done to cure the increasing
aversion of young men to marriage. Their decision was a wise one. They
altered, by an order from the palace, the style of dress to be worn by
all honest women, reduced the ornaments to be assumed by wives to the
fewest and simplest possible, and ordained that at a certain age women
should withdraw from the frivolities of fashion and of the fashionable
world. Success was the result, and young Burmah went up in a body to the
altar.
Robert Burton, in his very quaint and interesting "Anatomy of
Melancholy," gives an abstract of all that may be said "to mitigate the
miseries of marriage," by Jacobus de Voragine. "Hast thou means? thou
hast none to keep and increase it. Hast none? thou hast one to help to
get it. Art in prosperity? thine happiness is doubled. Art in adversity?
she'll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden to make it more
tolerable. Art at home? she'll drive away melancholy. Art abroad? she
looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and
joyfully welcomes thy return. There's nothing delightsome without
society, no society so sweet as matrimony. The band of conjugal love is
adamantine. The sweet company of kinsmen increaseth, the number of
parents is doubled, of brothers, sisters, nephews. Thou art made a
father by a fair and happy issue. Moses curseth the barrenness of
matrimony--how much more a single life!" "All this," says Burton, "is
true; but how easy a mater is it to answer quite opposite! To exercise
myself I will essay. Hast thou means? thou hast one to spend it. Hast
none? thy beggary is increased. Art in prosperity? thy happiness is
ended. Art in adversity? like Job's wife, she'll aggravate thy misery,
vex thy soul, make thy burden intolerable. Art at home? she'll scold
thee out of doors. Art abroad? If thou be wise, keep thee so; she'll
perhaps graft horns in thine absence, scowl on thee coming home.
Nothing gives more content than solitariness, no solitariness like this
of a single life. The band of marriage is adamantine--no hope of loosing
it; thou art undone. Thy number increaseth; thou shalt be devoured by
thy wife's friends. Paul commends marriage, yet he prefers a single
life. Is marriage honourable? What an immortal crown belongs to
virginity! 'Tis a hazard both ways, I confess, to live single, or to
marry; it may be bad, it may be good; as it is a cross and calamity on
the one side, so 'tis a sweet delight, an incomparable happiness, a
blessed estate, a most unspeakable benefit, a sole content, on the
other--'tis all in the proof."
In balancing this question Lord Bacon takes higher ground, and thinks of
the effect of marriage and celibacy on a man in his public capacity. "He
that hath wife and children hath given hostages to Fortune, for they are
impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Certainly the best works, and of the greatest merit for the public, have
proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which, both in affection
and means, have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason
that those that have children should have greatest care of future times,
unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some
there are who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end
with themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are
some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay
more, there are some foolish, rich, covetous men that take a pride in
having no children because they may be thought so much the richer. For
perhaps they have heard some talk: 'Such an one is a great rich man;'
and another except to it: 'Yea, but he hath a great charge of children,'
as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause
of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and
humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will
go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles.
Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not
always best subjects, for they are light to run away, and almost all
fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with church
men, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a
pool."
After all, these enumerations of the comparative advantages of marriage
and celibacy are of little use, for a single glance of a pair of bright
eyes will cause antimatrimonial arguments to go down like ninepins. The
greatest misogamists have been most severely wounded when least
expecting it by the darts of Cupid. Such a mishap, according to the
anatomist of melancholy already quoted, had "Stratocles the physician,
that blear-eyed old man. He was a severe woman's-hater all his life, a
bitter persecutor of the whole sex; he foreswore them all still, and
mocked them wheresoever he came in such vile terms, that if thou hadst
heard him thou wouldst have loathed thine own mother and sisters for his
word's sake. Yet this old doting fool was taken at last with that
celestial and divine look of Myrilla, the daughter of Anticles the
gardener, that smirking wench, that he shaved off his bushy beard,
painted his face, curled his hair, wore a laurel crown to cover his bald
pate, and for her love besides was ready to run mad."
If it be true that "nothing is certain but death and taxes," we must not
seek for mathematical demonstration that the road we propose to travel
on is the right one when we come to crossroads in life. A certain amount
of probability ought to make us take either one or the other, for not to
resolve is to resolve. In reference to such questions as marriage
_versus_ celibacy, the choice of a wife, the choice of a profession, and
many others, there must be a certain venture of faith, and in this
unintelligible world there is a rashness which is not always folly.
There are, of course, many persons who, if they married, would be guilty
of great imprudence, not to say of downright crime. When, however, two
_lovers_--we emphasise the word--have sufficient means, are of a
suitable age, and are conscious of no moral, intellectual, or physical
impediment, let them marry. It is the advice of some very wise men.
Benjamin Franklin wrote to a young friend upon his marriage: "I am glad
you are married, and congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are
now in the way of becoming a useful citizen, and you have escaped the
unnatural state of celibacy for life--the fate of many here who never
intended it, but who, having too long postponed the change of their
condition, find at length that it is too late to think of it, and so
live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value.
An old volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to
the set. What think you of the odd half of a pair of scissors? It can't
well cut anything--it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher!"
Dr. Johnson says: "Marriage is the best state for man in general; and
every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married
state." Of marriage Luther observed: "The utmost blessing that God can
confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom he
may live in peace and tranquillity, to whom he may confide his whole
possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he said: "To rise
betimes and to marry young are what no man ever repents of doing."
Shakespeare would not "admit impediments to the marriage of true minds."
The cares and troubles of married life are many, but are those of single
life few? The bachelor has no one on whom in all cases he can rely. As a
rule his expenses are as great as those of a married man, his life less
useful, and certainly it is less cheerful. "What a life to lead!"
exclaims Cobbett. "No one to talk to without going from home, or without
getting some one to come to you; no friend to sit and talk to, pleasant
evenings to pass! Nobody to share with you your sorrows or your
pleasures; no soul having a common interest with you; all around you
taking care of themselves and no care of you! Then as to gratifications,
from which you will hardly abstain altogether--are they generally of
little expense? and are they attended with no trouble, no vexation, no
disappointment, no _jealousy_ even? and are they never followed by shame
and remorse? To me no being in this world appears so wretched as an _old
bachelor_. Those circumstances, those changes in his person and in his
mind, which in the husband increase rather than diminish the attentions
to him, produce all the want of feeling attendant on disgust; and he
beholds in the conduct of the mercenary crowd that surround him little
besides an eager desire to profit from that event the approach of which
nature makes a subject of sorrow with him."
And yet it would be very wrong to hasten young men in this matter, for
however miserable an old bachelor may be, he is far more happy than
either a bad husband or the husband of a bad wife. What is one man's
meat may be another man's poison. To some persons we might say, "If you
marry you do well, but if you marry not you do better." In the case of
others marriage may have decidedly the advantage. Like most other things
marriage is good or bad according to the use or abuse we make of it. The
applause that is usually given to persons on entering the matrimonial
stage is, to say the least, premature. Let us wait to see how they will
play their parts.
And here we must protest against the foolish and cowardly ridicule that
is sometimes bestowed upon elderly men and women who, using the liberty
of a free country, have abstained from marrying. Certainly some of them
could give reasons for spending their lives outside the temple of Hymen
that are far more honourable than the motives which induced their
foolish detractors to rush in. Some have never found their other selves,
or circumstances prevented the junction of these selves. And which is
more honourable--a life of loneliness or a loveless marriage? There are
others who have laid down their hopes of wedded bliss for the sake of
accomplishing some good work, or for the sake of a father, mother,
sister, or brother. In such cases celibacy is an honourable and may be a
praiseworthy state.
To make "old maid" a term of reproach has mischievous results, and
causes many an ill-assorted marriage. Girls have been hurried into
marriage by the dread of being so stigmatized who have repented the step
to their dying day. The sacredness of marriage and the serious
responsibilities it brings are either ignored altogether or but lightly
considered when marriage is represented as the only profession for
women. There is no truth in Brigham Young's doctrine that only a woman
_sealed_ to a man in marriage can possibly be saved.
Let mothers teach their daughters that although a well-assorted marriage
based upon mutual love and esteem may be the happiest calling for a
woman, yet that marriage brings its peculiar trials as well as special
joys, and that it is quite possible for a woman to be both useful and
happy, although youth be fled, and the crowning joys of life--wife and
motherhood--have passed her by or been voluntarily surrendered.
But this fact that celibacy has many consolations need not prevent the
conclusion that as a rule married life is to be preferred.
"Jeanie," said an old Cameronian to his daughter, who was asking his
permission to marry--"Jeanie, it's a very solemn thing to get married."
"I ken that, father," said the sensible lassie, "but it's a great deal
solemner to be single."
Marriages are made in heaven: matrimony in itself is good, but there are
fools who turn every blessing into a curse, like the man who said, "This
is a good rope, I'll hang myself with it."
CHAPTER III.
MARRIAGE-MADE MEN.
"A wife's a man's best peace, who, till he marries,
Wants making up....
She is the good man's paradise, and the bad's
First step to heaven."--_Shirley._
"Th' ever womanly
Draweth us onward!"--_Goethe._
"This is well,
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
And keeps us tight."--_Tennyson._
If there be any _man_--women are seldom anti-matrimonial bigots--who
seriously doubts that the _pros_ in favour of marriage more than
counterbalance the _cons_, we commend to his consideration a few
historical instances in which men have been made men in the highest
sense of the word by marriage.
We do not endorse the exaggerated statement of Richter that "no man can
live piously or die righteously without a wife," but we think that the
chances of his doing so are considerably lessened. It is not good for a
man to live alone with his evil thoughts. The checks and active duties
of marriage are the best antidote, not only to an impure life, but to
the dreaming and droning of a useless and purposeless one.
Certainly there are some men and women who without wives or husbands are
marriage-made in the sense of having their love and powers drawn out by
interesting work. They are married to some art or utility, or instead of
loving one they love all. When this last is the case they go down into
the haunts of evil, seek out the wretched, and spare neither themselves
nor their money in their Christ-like enthusiasm for humanity. But the
luxury of doing good is by no means confined to the celibate. On the
contrary, the man with a wife and children in whose goodness and
happiness he rejoices may be much better prepared to aid and sympathize
with the erring and the suffering. The flood-gates of his affections may
have been opened, and he may have become receptive to influences which
had upon him beforetime little or no effect.
Not a few good and great men have confessed that they were marriage-made
to a very considerable extent. The following testimony was given by De
Tocqueville in a letter to a friend: "I cannot describe to you the
happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman, in
whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even
improved. When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly
right, I read immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud
satisfaction which elevates me; and so when my conscience reproaches me
her face instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her
mind, I see with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as
I do now I am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into
anything that is wrong."
Many a man has been shown the pathway to heaven by his wife's practice
of piety. "My mercy," says Bunyan, "was to light upon a wife whose
father and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came
together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as
a dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part 'The Plain
Man's Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father
had left her when he died." By reading these and other good books,
helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually
reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the way of
righteousness.
Nor does this companionship of good wives, which enables men to gain "in
sweetness and in moral height," cause them in the least degree to lose
"the wrestling thews which throw the world." Quite the reverse. Weak men
have displayed real public virtue, and strong men have been made
stronger, because they had by their side a woman of noble character, who
exercised a fortifying influence on their conduct. Lady Rachel Russell
is one of the many celebrated women who have encouraged their husbands
to suffer and be strong. She sat beside her husband day after day during
his public trial, taking notes and doing everything to help him.
In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the
magistrates for holding a conventicle, and was sentenced to be confined
in Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who
affectionately nursed him during his imprisonment. "She was never so
cheerful a companion to me," he says, "as in prison, and was very much
against me seeking to be released."
There is a sort of would-be wit which consists in jesting at the
supposed bondage of the married state. The best answer to this plentiful
lack of wit is the fact that some of the best of men have kissed the
shackles which a wife imposes, and have either thought or said, "If this
be slavery, who'd be free?" Luther, speaking of his wife, said, "I would
not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without
her." In more recent times the French statesman, M. Guizot, says in his
"Memoires": "What I know to-day, at the end of my race, I have felt when
it began, and during its continuance. Even in the midst of great
undertakings domestic affections form the basis of life, and the most
brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete enjoyments if a
stranger to the happy ties of family and friendship." Not long ago, when
speaking of his wife, Prince Bismarck said, "She it is who has made me
what I am."
And there have been English statesmen who could say quite as much. Burke
was sustained amid the anxiety and agitation of public life by domestic
felicity. "Every care vanishes," he said, "the moment I enter under my
own roof!" Of his wife he said that she was "not made to be the
admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one." A writer in a recent
number of _Leisure Hour_ relates the following of Lord Beaconsfield:
"The grateful affection which he entertained for his wife, whom he
always esteemed as the founder of his fortunes, is well known. She was
in the habit of travelling with him on almost all occasions. A friend
of the earl and of the narrator of the incident was dining with him,
when one of the party--a Member of the House for many years, of a noble
family, but rather remarkable for raising a laugh at his buffoonery than
any admiration for his wisdom--had no better taste or grace than to
expostulate with Disraeli for always taking the viscountess with him. 'I
cannot understand it,' said the graceless man, 'for, you know, you make
yourself a perfect laughing-stock wherever your wife goes with you.'
Disraeli fixed his eyes upon him very expressively and said, 'I don't
suppose you can understand it, B.--I don't suppose you can understand
it, for no one could ever in the last and wildest excursions of an
insane imagination suppose you to be guilty of gratitude!'"
It is true that there have been memorable celibates, but in the main the
world's work has been done by the married. Fame and reward are powerful
incentives, but they bear no comparison to the influence exercised by
affection.
A man's wife and family often compel him to do his best; and, when on
the point of despairing, they force him to fight like a hero, not for
himself, but for them. Curran confessed that when he addressed a court
for the first time, if he had not felt his wife and children tugging at
his gown, he would have thrown up his brief and relinquished the
profession of a lawyer.
"It is often the case when you see a great man, like a ship, sailing
proudly along the current of renown, that there is a little tug--his
wife--whom you cannot see, but who is directing his movements and
supplying the motive power." This truth is well illustrated by the
anecdote told of Lord Eldon, who, when he had received the Great Seal at
the hands of the king, being about to retire, was addressed by his
majesty with the words, "Give my remembrance to Lady Eldon." The
Chancellor, in acknowledging the condescension, intimated his ignorance
of Lady Eldon's claim to such a notice. "Yes, yes," the king answered;
"I know how much I owe to Lady Eldon. I know that you would have made
yourself a country curate, and that she has made you my Lord
Chancellor." Sir Walter Scott and Daniel O'Connell, at a late period of
their lives, ascribed their success in the world principally to their
wives.
When Sir Joshua Reynolds--himself a bachelor--met the sculptor Flaxman
shortly after his marriage, he said to him, "So, Flaxman, I am told you
are married; if so, sir, I tell you you are ruined for an artist."
Flaxman went home, sat down beside his wife, took her hand in his, and
said, "Ann, I am ruined for an artist." "How so, John? How has it
happened? and who has done it?" "It happened," he replied, "in the
church, and Ann Denman has done it." He then told her of Sir Joshua's
remark--whose opinion was well known, and had often been expressed, that
if students would excel they must bring the whole powers of their mind
to bear upon their art, from the moment they rose until they went to
bed; and also, that no man could be a _great_ artist unless he studied
the grand works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and others, at Rome and
Florence. "And I," said Flaxman, drawing up his little figure to its
full height, "_I_ would be a great artist." "And a great artist you
shall be," said his wife, "and visit Rome, too, if that be really
necessary to make you great." "But how?" asked Flaxman. "_Work and
economize_," rejoined the brave wife; "I will never have it said that
Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an artist." And so it was determined
by the pair that the journey to Rome was to be made when their means
would admit. "I will go to Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President
that wedlock is for a man's good rather than his harm; and you, Ann,
shall accompany me."
After working for five years, aided by the untiring economy of his wife,
Flaxman actually did accomplish his journey. On returning from Rome,
where he spent seven years, conscious of his indebtedness to his wife,
he devised an original gift as a memorial of his domestic happiness. He
caused a little quarto book to be made, containing some score or so of
leaves, and with pen and pencil proceeded to fill and embellish it. On
the first page is drawn a dove with an olive branch in her mouth; an
angel is on the right and an angel on the left, and between is written,
"To Ann Flaxman"; below, two hands are clasped as at an altar, two
cherubs bear a garland, and there follows an inscription to his wife
introducing the subject. Instead of finding his genius maimed by his
alliance with Ann Denman, this eminent sculptor was ever ready to
acknowledge that his subsequent success was in a great part
marriage-made.
It was through the eyes of his wife that Huber, the great authority on
bees, who was blind from his seventeenth year, conducted his
observations and studies. He even went so far as to declare that he
should be miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know,"
he said, "to what extent a person in my situation could be beloved;
besides, to me my wife is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no
light matter."
Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh found his wife scarcely less helpful,
especially after he had been stricken by paralysis through overwork.
When he was elected Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and had no
lectures on stock, his wife sat up with him night after night to write
out a fair copy of the lectures from the rough sheets which he had
drafted in the adjoining room. "The number of pages in her handwriting
still preserved is," says Sir William's biographer, "perfectly
marvellous."
Equally effective as a literary helper was Lady Napier, the wife of Sir
William Napier, historian of the Peninsular War. She translated and
epitomized the immense mass of original documents, many of them in
cipher, on which it was in a great measure founded. When Wellington was
told of the art and industry she had displayed in deciphering King
Joseph's portfolios, and the immense mass of correspondence taken at
Vittoria, he at first would hardly believe it, adding: "I would have
given L20,000 to any person who could have done this for me in the
Peninsula." Sir William Napier's handwriting being almost illegible,
Lady Napier made out his rough interlined manuscript, which he himself
could scarcely read, and wrote out a fair copy for the printer; and all
this vast labour she undertook and accomplished, according to the
testimony of her husband, without having for a moment neglected the care
and education of a large family.
The help and consolation that Hood received from his wife during a life
that was a prolonged illness is one of the most affecting things in
biography. He had such confidence in her judgment that he read and
re-read and corrected with her assistance all that he wrote. He used to
trust to her ready memory for references and quotations. Many wives
deserve, but few receive, such an I.O.U. as that which the grateful
humorist gave to his wife in one of his letters when absent from her
side. "I never was anything, Dearest, till I knew you, and I have been a
better, happier, and more prosperous man ever since. Lay by that truth
in lavender, Sweetest, and remind me of it when I fail. I am writing
warmly and fondly, but not without good cause.... Perhaps there is an
afterthought that, whatever may befall me, the wife of my bosom will
have the acknowledgment of her tenderness, worth, excellence--all that
is wifely or womanly--from my pen."
Mr. Froude says of Carlyle's wife that "her hardest work was a delight
to her when she could spare her husband's mind an anxiety or his stomach
an indigestion. While he was absorbed in his work and extremely
irritable as to every ailment or discomfort, her life was devoted to
shield him in every possible way." In the inscription upon her tombstone
Carlyle bore testimony that he owed to his wife a debt immense of
gratitude. "In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are
common, but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a
noble loyalty of heart which are rare. For forty years she was the true
and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly
forwarded him as none else could in all of worthy that he did or
attempted. She died at London, April 21st, 1866, suddenly snatched away
from him, and the light of his life as if gone out."
What an influence women have exercised upon teachers of religion and
philosophy! When no one else would encourage Mahomet, his wife Kadijah
listened to him with wonder, with doubt. At length she answered: "Yes,
it was true this that he said." We can fancy, as does Carlyle, the
boundless gratitude of Mahomet, and how, of all the kindnesses she had
done him, this of believing the earnest struggling word he now spoke was
the greatest. "It is certain," says Novalis, "my conviction gains
infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it." It is a
boundless favour. He never forgot this good Kadijah. Long afterwards,
Ayesha, his young favourite wife, a woman who indeed distinguished
herself among the Moslem by all manner of qualities, through her whole
long life, this young brilliant Ayesha was one day questioning him: "Now
am I not better than Kadijah? she was a widow; old, and had lost her
looks: you love me better than you did her?" "No, by Allah!" answered
Mahomet: "No, by Allah! She believed in me when none else would believe.
In the whole world I had but one friend, and she was that!"
It will suffice to hint at the scientific value of the little that has
been disclosed respecting Madame Clothilde de Vaux in elucidating the
position of Auguste Comte as a teacher. Some may think that John Stuart
Mill first taught his wife and then admired his own wisdom in her. His
own account of the matter is very different, as we learn from the
dedication of his essay "On Liberty":
"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
part the author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife
whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
whose approbation was my chief reward--I dedicate this volume. Like all
that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me;
but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the
inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important
portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which
they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of
interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings
which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater
benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can
write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom."
In a speech upon woman's rights, a lady orator is said to have
exclaimed, "It is well known that Solomon owed his wisdom to the number
of his wives!" This is too much; nevertheless, Sir Samuel Romilly gave
the experience of many successful men when he said that there was
nothing by which through life he had more profited than by the just
observations and the good opinion of his wife.
Most people are acquainted with husbands who have lost almost all
self-reliance and self-help because their wives have been only too
helpful to them. Trollope and George Eliot faithfully portrayed real
life in their stories when they put the reins into the hands of good
wives and made them drive the domestic coach, to the immense advantage
and comfort of the husbands, who never suspected the real state of the
case. No man has so thoroughly as Trollope brought into literature the
idea which women have of men--creatures that have to be looked after as
grown-up little boys; interesting, piquant, indispensable, but
shiftless, headstrong, and at bottom absurd.
But this consciousness which good wives have of the helplessness of
husbands renders them all the more valuable in their eyes. Before
Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked
permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission was
granted, and shortly after the women were seen issuing from the gates
carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Indeed it would be
impossible to relate a tenth part of the many ways in which good wives
have shown affection for and actively assisted their wedded lords.
Knowing this to be the case, we were not surprised to read some time
since the following piece of Irish news: "An inquiry was held at
Mullingar on Wednesday respecting Mr. H. Smythe's claim of L10,000 as
compensation for the loss of his wife, who was shot whilst returning
from church. The claim was made under the nineteenth section of the
Crime Preservation Act, Ireland." The result of the inquiry we do not
know, but for ourselves we think that L10,000 would barely compensate
for the loss of a really good article in wives.
Some one told an old bachelor that a friend had gone blind. "Let him
marry, then," was the crusty reply; "let him marry, and if that doesn't
open his eyes, then his case is indeed hopeless." But this, we must
remember, was not the experience of a married man.
A friend was talking to Wordsworth of De Quincey's articles about him.
Wordsworth begged him to stop; he hadn't read them, and did not wish to
ruffle himself about them. "Well," said the friend, "I'll tell you only
one thing he says, and then we'll talk of other things. He says your
wife is too good for you." The old poet's dim eyes lighted up, and he
started from his chair, crying with enthusiasm, "And that's true! There
he's right!" his disgust and contempt visibly moderating. Many a man
whose faith in womankind was weak before marriage can a few years
afterwards sympathize most fully with this pathetic confession of the
old poet.
A Scotch dealer, when exhorting his son to practise honesty on the
ground of its being the "best policy," quietly added, "I hae tried
_baith_." So is it in reference to matrimony and celibacy. The majority
of those who have "tried baith" are of opinion that the former is the
best policy.
It would be absurd to assert that the marriage state is free from care
and anxiety; but what of that? Is not care and trouble the condition of
any and every state of life? He that will avoid trouble must avoid the
world. "Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, "is not commonly unhappy, but as
life is unhappy." And the summing up, so to speak, of this great
authority is well known--"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no
pleasures."
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE.
"Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover
The several caskets to this noble prince:--
Now make your choice."--_Shakespeare._
"If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat _modium salis_, a bushel
of salt, with him before he choose his friend, what care should
be had in choosing a wife--his second self! How solicitous should
he be to know her qualities and behaviour! and, when he is
assured of them, not to prefer birth, fortune, beauty, before
bringing up and good conditions."--_Robert Burton._
Whether a man shall be made or marred by marriage greatly depends upon
the choice he makes of a wife. Nothing is better than a good woman, nor
anything worse than a bad one. The idea of the great electrician
Edison's marrying was first suggested by an intimate friend, who made
the point that he needed a mistress to preside over his large house,
which was being managed by a housekeeper and several servants. Although
a very shy man, he seemed pleased with the proposition, and timidly
inquired whom he should marry The friend somewhat testily replied, "Any
one;" that a man who had so little sentiment in his soul as to ask such
a question ought to be satisfied with anything that wore a petticoat and
was decent.
Woe to the man who follows such careless advice as this, and marries
"any one," for what was said by the fox to the sick lion might be said
with equal truth to Hymen: "I notice that there are many prints of feet
entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning." Before taking
the irrevocable step choose well, for your choice though brief is yet
endless. And, first, we make the obvious suggestion that it is useless
to seek perfection in a wife, even though you may fancy yourself capable
of giving an adequate return as did the author of the following
advertisement: "Wanted by a Young Gentleman just beginning Housekeeping,
a Lady between Eighteen and Twenty-five Years of Age, with a good
Education, and a Fortune not less than Five Thousand Pounds; Sound Wind
and Limb, Five Feet Four Inches without her shoes; Not Fat, nor yet too
lean; Good Set of Teeth; No Pride nor Affectation; Not very Talkative,
nor one that is deemed a Scold; but of a Spirit to Resent an Affront; of
a Charitable Disposition; not Over-fond of Dress, though always Decent
and Clean; that will Entertain her Husband's Friends with Affability and
Cheerfulness, and Prefer his Company to Public Diversions and gadding
about; one who can keep his secrets, that he may open his Heart to her
without reserve on all Occasions; that can extend domestic Expenses with
Economy, as Prosperity advances, without Ostentation; and Retrench them
with Cheerfulness, if occasion should require. Any Lady disposed to
Matrimony, answering this Description, is desired to direct for Y. Z.,
at the Baptist's Head Coffee-house, Aldermanbury. _N.B._--The Gentleman
can make adequate Return, and is, in every Respect, deserving a Lady
with the above Qualifications."
This reminds us of the old lady who told her steward she wished him to
attend a neighbouring fair in order to buy her a cow. She explained to
him that it must be young, well-bred, fine in the skin, a strawberry in
colour, straight in the back, and not given to breaking through fences
when it smelt clover on the other side; above all, it was not to cost
more than ten pounds. The steward, who was a Scotchman, and a privileged
old servant, bowed his head and replied reverently, "Then, my lady, I
think ye had better kneel down and pray for her, for ye'll get her nae
other way, I'm thinkin'."
While the possession of a little money is by no means a drawback, those
do not well consult their happiness who marry for money alone.
"In many a marriage made for gold,
The bride is bought--and the bridegroom sold."
Though Cupid is said to be blind, he is a better guide than the rules of
arithmetic. We have false ideas of happiness. What will make me
happy--contented? "Oh, if I were rich, I should be happy!" A gentleman
who was enjoying the hospitalities of the great millionaire and king of
finance, Rothschild, as he looked at the superb appointments of the
mansion, said to his host, "You must be a happy man!" "Happy!" said he,
"happy! I happy--happy!" "Aye, happy!" "Let us change the subject." John
Jacob Astor of America, was also told that he must be a very happy man,
being so rich. "Why," said he, "would you take care of my property for
your board and clothes? That's all I get for it." In taking a dowry with
a wife "thou losest thy liberty," says an old writer: "she will ride
upon thee, domineer as she list, wear the breeches in her oligarchical
government, and beggar thee besides."
Better to have a fortune _in_ your wife than _with_ her. "My wife has
made my fortune," said a gentleman of great possessions, "by her thrift,
prudence, and cheerfulness, when I was just beginning." "And mine has
lost my fortune," answered his companion, bitterly, "by useless
extravagance, and repining when I was doing well." The girl who brings
to her husband a large dowry may also bring habits of luxury learned in
a rich home. She may be almost as incapable of understanding straitened
circumstances as was the lady of the court of Louis XVI., who, on
hearing of people starving, exclaimed, "Poor creatures! No bread to eat!
Then let them eat cakes!"
Nor is it wise to marry for beauty alone: as even the finest landscape,
seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless
a beautiful nature shine through it. The beauty of to-day becomes
commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most
ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty
improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. No man is so
much to be pitied as the husband of a "professional beauty." Yet beauty,
when it betokens health, or when it is the outward and visible sign of
an inward and spiritual grace, is valuable, and has a great power of
winning affection.
Above all things do not marry a fool who will shame you and reveal your
secrets. For ourselves we do not believe the first part at least of
Archbishop Whately's definition of woman: "A creature that does not
reason, and that pokes the fire from the top." The wife who does not and
cannot make use of reason to overcome the daily difficulties of domestic
life, and who can in no sense be called the companion of her husband, is
a mate who hinders rather than helps. Sooner or later a household must
fall into the hands of its women, and sink or swim according to their
capacities. It is hard enough for a man to be married to a bad woman;
but for a man who marries a foolish woman there is no hope.
"One must love their friends with all their failings, but it is a great
failing to be ill," and therefore unless you are one of those rare men
who would never lose patience with a wife always in pain, when choosing
you should think more of a healthy hue than of a hectic hue, and far
more of good lungs than of a tightly-laced waist "See that she chews her
food well, and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks,
and you're all right."
As regards the marriageable age of women we may quote the following
little conversation: "No woman is worth looking at after thirty," said
young Mrs. A., a bride with all the arrogant youthfulness of twenty-one
summers. "Quite true, my dear," answered Lady D., a very pretty woman
some ten or fifteen years older; "nor worth listening to before."
Please yourself, good sir! only do not marry either a child or an old
woman. Certainly a man should marry to obtain a friend and companion
rather than a cook and housekeeper; but yet that girl is a prize indeed
who has so well prepared herself for the business of wifehood as to be
able to keep not only her husband company, but her house in good order.
"If that man is to be regarded as a benefactor of his species who makes
two stalks of corn to grow where only one grew before, not less is she
to be regarded as a public benefactor who economizes and turns to the
best practical account the food products of human skill and labour."
Formerly a woman's library was limited to the Bible and a cookery-book.
This curriculum has now been considerably extended, and it is everywhere
acknowledged that "chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and
geography enough to know the different rooms in her house," is _not_
science enough for women. It is surely not impossible, however, for an
intending husband to find a girl who can make her higher education
compatible with his comforts, who can when necessary bring her
philosophy down to the kitchen. Why should literature unfit women for
the everyday business of life? It is not so with men. You see those of
the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time and attention
to the most homely objects.
The other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably, a person said of
a woman, whom he knew but slightly, "She disappoints me utterly. How
could her husband have married her? She is commonplace and stupid."
"Yes," said a friend, reflectively, "it is strange. She is not a
brilliant woman, she is not even an intellectual one; but there is such
a thing as a genius for affection, and she has it. It has been good for
her husband that he married her." In the sphere of home the graces of
gentleness, of patience, of generosity, are far more valuable than any
personal attractions or mental gifts and accomplishments. They
contribute more to happiness and are the source of sympathy and
spiritual discernment. For does not the woman who can love see more and
understand more than the most intellectual woman who has no heart?
A vacancy in the floor sweeping department of a public institution
having been advertised, the testimonials to the intellectual and moral
eminence of an old woman were overwhelming; but after the election it
appeared she had only one arm! Not less unfitted to be a wife is the
woman who, with every other qualification, has no genius for affection.
Dress is one of the little things that indicate character. A refined
woman will always look neat; but, on the other hand, she will not
bedizen and bedeck herself with a view to display. Again, there is no
condition of life in which industry in a wife is not necessary to the
happiness of a family. A lazy mistress makes lazy servants, and, what is
worse, a lazy mother makes lazy children.
"But how," asks Cobbett, "is the purblind lover to ascertain whether
she, whose smiles have bereft him of his senses--how is he to judge
whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy?" In answer to
this question several outward and visible signs are suggested, such as
early rising, a lively, distinct utterance, a quick step, "the labours
of the teeth; for these correspond with those of the other members of
the body, and with the operations of the mind."
Then we are told of a young man in Philadelphia, who, courting one of
three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were
present, and when one said to the others, "I _wonder_ where _our_ needle
is." Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with politeness,
resolved never to think more of a girl who possessed a needle only in
partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well informed as to the
place where even that share was deposited.
It would be impossible even to allude to every point of character that
should be observed in choosing a wife. Frugality, or the power to
abstain from unnecessary expenditure, is very important, so is
punctuality. As to good temper, it is a most difficult thing to
ascertain beforehand; smiles are so easily put on for the _lover's_
visits. We know the old conundrum--why are ladies like bells? Because
you never know what metal they are made of until you _ring_ them. An
ingenuous girl thus alluded to the change that is frequently perceptible
after marriage. "Your future husband seems very exacting: he has been
stipulating for all sorts of things," said her mother to her. "Never
mind, Mamma," said the affectionate girl, who was already dressed for
the wedding; "these are his last wishes."
There is, however, one way of roughly guessing the qualifications of a
girl for the most responsible position of a wife. Find out the character
of her mother, and whether the daughter has been a good one and a good
sister. Ask yourself, if you respect as well as admire her, and remember
the words of Fichte: "No true and enduring love can exist without
esteem; every other draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble
soul."
Thackeray said of women: "What we (men) want for the most part is a
humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, tea-making being, who laughs
at our jokes however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in our
humours, and fondly lies to us through life." And he says of a wife:
"She ought to be able to make your house pleasant to your friends; she
ought to attract them to it by her grace. Let it be said of her, 'What
an uncommonly nice woman Mrs. Brown is!' Let her be, if not clever, an
appreciator of cleverness. Above all, let her have a sense of humour,
for a woman without a laugh in her is the greatest bore in existence."
It is, we think, only very weak men who would wish their wives to
"fondly lie" to them in this way. Better to be occasionally wound up
like an eight-day clock by one's wife and made to go right. There is no
one who gives such wise and brave advice as a good wife. She is another,
a calmer and a better self. The heart of her husband doth safely trust
in her, for he knows that when her criticism is most severe it is spoken
in love and for his own good. Lord Beaconsfield described his wife as
"the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife."
Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good wife, divided
them into ten parts. Four of these he gave to good temper, two to good
sense, one to wit, one to beauty--such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes, a
fine person, a graceful carriage; and the other two parts he divided
amongst the other qualities belonging to or attending on a wife--such as
fortune, connections, education (that is, of a higher standard than
ordinary), family blood, &c.; but he said, "Divide those two degrees as
you please, only remember that all these minor proportions must be
expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them that is
entitled to the dignity of an integer."
Let us add the famous advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son: "When it
shall please God," said he, "to bring thee to man's estate, use great
providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife, for from thence will
spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an action of thy life,
like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once.... Inquire
diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in
their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous (well-born) soever; for a
man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and
uncomely creature altogether for wealth, for it will cause contempt in
others, and loathing in thee. Neither make choice of a dwarf or a fool,
for by the one thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, while the other will
be thy continual disgrace, and it will yirke (irk) thee to hear her
talk. For thou shalt find it to thy great grief that there is nothing
more fulsome than a she-fool."
The ideal wife is either what Crashaw calls an "impossible she," or--
"Somewhere in the world must be
She that I have prayed to see,
She that Love assigns to me."
But then--
"Shall we ever, ever meet?
Shall I find in thee, my sweet,
Visions true and life complete?"
To the old question, "Who can _find_?" it may too often be replied, Who
_seeks_ "a virtuous woman"? Is she wealthy? is she pretty? is she
talented? are questions asked more frequently than Is she good,
sensible, industrious, affectionate? And yet that man takes to himself
one of the bitterest of earth's curses who marries carelessly instead of
seeking with all diligence for those qualities in a wife that are the
foundation of lasting happiness.
A minister's wife falling asleep in church, her husband thus addressed
her: "Mrs. B., a' body kens that when I got ye for my wife I got nae
beauty; yer frien's ken that I got nae siller; and if I dinna get God's
grace I shall hae a puir bargain indeed." If men would seek for wives
women with the grace of God, if they would choose them as they do their
clothes, for qualities that will last, they would get much better
bargains.
One reason for this carelessness about the character of a wife may be
found in the prevailing opinion that there is little or no room for
choice in matters matrimonial. Sir John More (father of the Chancellor,
Sir Thomas) was often heard to say, "I would compare the multitude of
women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having
among them a single eel. Now, if a man should put his hand into this
bag, he may chance to light on the eel; but it is a hundred to one he
shall be stung by a snake."
Perhaps the lottery theory of marriage was never stated more strongly or
with greater cynicism; but is it true? If it were, to expend care and
attention in choosing a wife would be to labour in vain. If, however,
marriage is by no means such an affair of chance, a prudent choice may
prevent a man from being stung by a snake, and may give him a goodly eel
as his marriage portion. The important thing to do is to keep well in
mind the fact that a man's prospect of domestic felicity does not
depend upon the face, the fortune, or the accomplishments of his wife,
but upon her character. The son of Sirach says that he would rather
dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman.
"He that hath hold of her is as though he held a scorpion. A loud crying
woman and a scold shall be sought out to drive away the enemies." On the
other hand, "the grace of a wife delighteth her husband, and her
discretion will fatten his bones. A silent and loving woman is a gift of
the Lord; and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed."
CHAPTER V
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.
"How shall I know if I do choose the right?"--_Shakespeare._
"God, the best maker of marriages, bless you!"--_Ibid._
"And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because
he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these fellows of
infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours,
they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is
but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a
straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled
pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or,
rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright, and
never changes, but keeps his course truly."--_Ibid._
They that enter into the state of marriage cast a die of the greatest
contingency, and yet of the greatest interest in the world, next to the
last throw for eternity. Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow,
are in the power of marriage. A woman, indeed, ventures most, for she
hath no sanctuary to retire to from an evil husband; she must dwell
upon her sorrow and hatch the eggs which her own folly or infelicity
hath produced; and she is more under it, because her tormentor hath a
warrant of prerogative, and the woman may complain to God, as subjects
do of tyrant princes; but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of
unkindness. And though the man can run from many hours of his sadness,
yet he must return to it again; and when he sits among his neighbours he
remembers the objection that is in his bosom, and he sighs deeply. "The
boys and the pedlars and the fruiterers shall tell of this man when he
is carried to his grave that he lived and died a poor, wretched person."
In these words Jeremy Taylor puts before men and women the issues of
choice in matrimony. What, however, concerns us in this chapter is that
"a woman ventures most." "Love is of man's life a thing apart, 'tis
woman's whole existence." How important that a treasure which is dear as
life itself should be placed in safe keeping! And yet so blind is love
that defects often seem to be virtues, deformity assumes the style of
beauty, and even hideous vices have appeared under an attractive form.
In Shakespeare's play Cleopatra speaks of an old attachment which she
had lived to despise as having arisen in her "salad days," when she was
green in judgment. In extreme youth love is especially blind, and for
this, as well as for other reasons, girls, who are yet at school, do not
consult their best interests when they allow love to occupy their too
youthful minds. It prevents the enjoyment of happy years of maidenhood,
and sometimes leads to marriage before the girl is fit, either
physically, mentally, or domestically, for the cares of married life.
"I believe," says R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, "in falling in love. The
imagination should be kindled and the heart touched; there should be
enthusiasm and even romance in the happy months that precede marriage,
and something of the enthusiasm and romance should remain to the very
end of life, or else the home is wanting in its perfect happiness and
grace. But take my word for it, solid virtues are indispensable to the
security and happiness of a home."
You would not like to live with a liar, with a thief, with a drunkard,
for twenty or thirty years. A lazy man will make but a weak band or
support for his and your house; so will one deficient in fortitude--that
is, the power to bear pain and trouble without whining. Beware of the
selfish man, for though he may be drawn out of selfishness in the early
weeks of courtship, he will settle back into it again when the wear and
worry of life come on. And remember that a man may have the roots of
some of these vices in him and yet be extremely agreeable and
good-looking, dress well, and say very pretty and charming things. "How
easy is it for the proper-false in women's waxen hearts to set their
forms!"
In their haste to be married many women are too easily satisfied with
the characters of men who may offer themselves as husbands. They aim at
matrimony in the abstract; not _the_ man, but any man. They would not
engage a servant if all they knew of her were that she had, as a
housemaid lately advertised, "a fortnight's character from her last
place;" but with even less information as to their characters they will
accept husbands and vow to love, honour, and obey them! In comparison
how much more honourable and how much less unloved and unloving is the
spinster's lot! Women marry simply for a home because they have not been
trained to fight the battle of life for themselves, and because their
lives are so dull and stagnant that they think any change must be for
the better.
A friend--let us say Barlow--was describing to Jerrold the story of his
courtship and marriage: how his wife had been brought up in a convent,
and was on the point of taking the veil, when his presence burst upon
her enraptured sight. Jerrold listened to the end of the story, and by
way of comment said, "Ah! she evidently thought Barlow better than nun."
When girls have been given work in the world they do not think that any
husband is better than none, and they have not time to imagine
themselves in love with the first man who proposes. How often is it the
case that people think themselves in love when in fact they are only
idle!
There are hearts all the better for keeping; they become mellower and
more worth a woman's acceptance than the crude, unripe things that are
sometimes gathered--as children gather green fruit--to the discomfort of
those who obtain them. A husband may be too young to properly appreciate
and take care of a wife. And yet perhaps the majority of girls would
rather be a young man's slave than an old man's darling. "My dear," said
a father to his daughter, "I intend that you should be married, but not
that you should throw yourself away on any wild, worthless boy: you must
marry a man of sober and mature age. What do you think of a fine,
intelligent husband of fifty?" "I think two of twenty-five would be
better, papa."
Prophecies as to the probable result of a marriage are as a rule little
to be trusted. It was so in the case of the celebrated Madame Necker.
She had been taken to Paris to live with a young widow, to whom
Necker--a financier from Geneva--came to pay his addresses. The story
goes that the widow, in order to rid herself of her admirer, got him to
transfer his addresses to her young companion, saying to herself, "they
will bore each other to death, that will give them something to do." The
happy pair, however, had no such foreboding. "I am marrying a man,"
wrote the lady, "whom I should believe to be an angel, if his great love
for me did not show his weakness." In his way the husband was equally
satisfied. "I account myself as happy as it is possible for a man to
be," he wrote to a mutual friend; and to the end of the chapter there
was no flaw in that matrimonial life.
Never to marry a genius was the advice of Mrs. Carlyle. "I married for
ambition. Carlyle has exceeded all that my wildest hopes ever imagined
of him, and I am miserable." As the supply of geniuses is very limited,
this advice may seem superfluous. It is not so, however, for there is
enough and to spare of men who think that they are geniuses, and take
liberties accordingly. These are very often only sons of fond but
foolish mothers, who have persuaded them that they are not made of
common clay, and that the girls who get them will be blessed. From such
a blessing young women should pray to be delivered.
Perhaps it may be said that though it is easy to write about choosing a
husband, for the majority of English girls, at least, there is but
little choice in the matter. Dickens certainly told an American
story--very American--of a young lady on a voyage, who, being intensely
loved by five young men, was advised to "jump overboard and marry the
man who jumped in after her." Accordingly, next morning the five lovers
being on deck, and looking very devotedly at the young lady, she plunged
into the sea. Four of the lovers immediately jumped in after her. When
the young lady and four lovers were out again, she said to the captain,
"What am I to do with them now, they are so wet?" "Take the dry one."
And the young lady did, and married him. How different is the state of
affairs on this side of the Atlantic, where, if a young woman is to be
married, she must take not whom she will, but whom she can. "Oh me, the
word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I
dislike." But is it necessary to marry? Far better to have no husband
than a bad one.
There is a great deal of human nature in the account which Artemus Ward
gives of the many affecting ties which made him hanker after Betsy Jane.
"Her father's farm jined our'n; their cows and our'n squencht their
thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their
forrerds; the measles broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same
period; our parients (Betsy's and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in
the same meetin-house, and the nabers used to obsarve, 'How thick the
Wards and Peasleys air!' It was a surblime site, in the spring of the
year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy's and mine) with their gowns
pin'd up so thay couldn't sile 'em affecshunitly bilin sope together and
aboozin the nabers."
In this matter more than in most others "we do not will according to our
reason, we reason according to our will." True desire, the monition of
nature, is much to be attended to. But always we are to discriminate
carefully between _true_ desire and false. The medical men tell us we
should eat what we _truly_ have an appetite for; but what we only
_falsely_ have an appetite for we should resolutely avoid. Ought not
choice in matrimony to be guided by the same principle?
Above all things young ladies should ask God, the best maker of
marriages, to direct their choice aright.
CHAPTER VI.
ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL BARGAIN.
"How poor are they who have not patience!
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?"--_Shakespeare._
"E'en now, in passing through the garden walks,
Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest,
Ruined and full of ruin; and over it,
Behold, the uncomplaining birds, already
Busy in building a new habitation."--_Longfellow._
But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley." We are none
of us infallible, "not even the youngest." When the greatest care has
been taken in choosing, people get bad matrimonial bargains. From the
nature of the case this must often happen. If not one man in a thousand
is a judge of the points of a horse, not one in a million understands
human nature. And even if a young man or woman did understand human
nature, there are before marriage, as a rule, opportunities of gaining
only the slightest knowledge of the character of one who is to be the
weal or woe of a new home. It is related in ancient history, or fable,
that when Rhodope, a fashionable Egyptian beauty, was engaged bathing,
an eagle stole away one of her shoes, and let it fall near Psammetichus
the king. Struck with the pretty shoe, he fell in love with the foot,
and finally married the owner of both. Very little more acquaintance
with each other have the majority of the Innocents who go abroad into
the unknown country of Matrimony to seek their fortunes or misfortunes.
And then the temper and manner of people when making love are so
different from what these become afterwards! "One would think the whole
endeavour of both parties during the time of courtship is to hinder
themselves from being known--to disguise their natural temper and real
desires in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued
affectation. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the
other but in a mask; and the cheat is often managed on both sides with
so much art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that
each has reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the
wedding-night, and that by a strange imposture, as in the case of Jacob,
one has been courted and another married."
Our conventional state of society curtails the limits of choice in
matrimony and hinders the natural law of the marriage of the fittest. We
knew a young gentleman living in a London suburb who bore an excellent
character, had sufficient income, and was in every respect marriageable.
He wished to try the experiment of two against the world, but--as he
told the clergyman of his parish--he was in the city all day, and never
had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with a young lady whom he
could ask to be his wife.
We have heard of the stiff Englishman who would not attempt to save a
fellow-creature from drowning because he had never been introduced to
him. In the same way unmarried ladies are allowed to remain in the
Slough of Despond because the valiant young gentlemen who would rescue
them, though they may be almost, are not altogether in their social set.
Every one knows Plato's theory about marriage. He taught that men and
women were hemispheres, so to speak, of an original sphere; that
ill-assorted marriages were the result of the wrong hemispheres getting
together; that, if the true halves met, the man became complete, and the
consequence was the "happy-ever-after" of childhood's stories. There is
much truth in this doctrine, that for every man there is _one_ woman
somewhere in the world, and for every woman _one_ man. They seldom meet
in time. If they did, what would become of the sensational novelists?
But are there not in reality too many artificial obstacles to happy
marriages? Why do the right men and women so seldom meet? Because
mammon, ambition, envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness step between
and keep apart those whom God would join together.
It is true that newly-married people when going through the process of
being disillusioned are liable to conclude much too quickly that they
have got bad matrimonial bargains. In a letter which Mrs. Thrale, the
friend of Dr. Johnson, wrote to a young gentleman on his marriage, she
says: "When your present violence of passion subsides, and a more cool
and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure
yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy. You have lost
that only which it was impossible to retain; and it were graceless amid
the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a
transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity, till
you have reflected that no object however sublime, no sounds however
charming, can continue to transport us with delight, when they no longer
strike us with novelty."
Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession. A little boy of
four years of age told me the other day that he wished to die. "Why?"
"Oh, just for a change!" There are children of a larger growth who
require continual change and variety to keep them interested.
We expect too much from life in general, and from married life in
particular. When castle-building before marriage we imagine a condition
never experienced on this side of heaven; and when real life comes with
its troubles and cares, the tower of romance falls with a crash, leaving
us in the mud-hut of every-day reality. Better to enter the marriage
state in the frame of mind of that company of American settlers, who, in
naming their new town, called it Dictionary, "because," as they said,
"that's the only place where peace, prosperity, and happiness are always
to be found."
It would be contrary to the nature of constitutional grumblers to be
satisfied with their matrimonial bargains, no matter how much too good
for them they may be. They don't want to be satisfied in this or in any
other respect, for, as the Irishman said, they are never happy unless
they are miserable. They may have drawn a prize in the matrimonial
lottery, but they grumble if it be not the highest prize. They are
cursed with dispositions like that of the Jew, who, very early one
morning, picked up a roll of bank-notes on Newmarket Heath, which had
been dropped by some inebriated betting-man the night before. "What have
you got there?" exclaimed a fellow Israelite. "Lucky as usual!" "Lucky
you call it?" grumbled the man in reply, rapidly turning over the notes.
"Lucky is it! all fivers--not a tenner among them!"
Even a perfect matrimonial bargain would not please some people. They
are as prone to grumble as the poor woman who, being asked if she were
satisfied when a pure water supply had been introduced into Edinburgh,
said: "Aye, not so well as I might; it's not like the water we had
before--it neither smells nor tastes."
There is a story told of a rustic swain who, when asked whether he would
take his partner to be his wedded wife, replied, with shameful
indecision, "Yes, I'm willin'; but I'd a much sight rather have her
sister." The sort of people who are represented by this vacillating
bridegroom are no sooner married than they begin to cast fond, lingering
looks behind upon the state of single blessedness they have abandoned,
or else upon some lost ideal which they prefer to the living, breathing
reality of which they have become possessed. They don't know, and never
did know, their own minds.
Let us suppose, however, that a bad matrimonial bargain has been
obtained, not in imagination, but in sad earnest--How is the best to be
made of it? We must do as Old Mother Hubbard did when she found the
cupboard empty--"accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness." It may
even be politic to dissemble a little, and pretend we rather enjoy it
than otherwise. Above all, do not appeal to the girl's friends for
comfort or consolation. They will only laugh at you. Take warning from
the unfortunate young man who, every time he met the father of his wife,
complained to him of the bad temper and disposition of his daughter. At
last, upon one occasion, the old gentleman, becoming weary of the
grumbling of his son-in-law, exclaimed: "You are right, sir; she is an
impertinent jade; and if I hear any more complaints of her I will
disinherit her."
A writer in _Chambers' Journal_ gives some instances of matrimonial
tribulation that were brought to light in the last census returns.
Several husbands returned their wives as the heads of the families; and
one described himself as an idiot for having married his literal
better-half. "Married, and I'm heartily sorry for it," was returned in
two cases; and in quite a number of instances "Temper" was entered under
the head of infirmities opposite the name of the wife.
Confessions of this sort, besides being, as we have already hinted,
somewhat indiscreet, are often also supererogatory; for conjugal
dissension, like murder, will out; and that sometimes in the most
provoking and untimely manner. It would be much better to call in the
assistance of proper pride than to whine in this cowardly fashion. "We
mortals," says George Eliot, "men and women, devour many a
disappointment between breakfast and dinner time; keep back the tears
and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say,
'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only
urges us to hide our own hurts--not to hurt others." "To feel the
chains, but take especial care the world shall not hear them clank. 'Tis
a prudence that often passes for happiness. It is one of the decencies
of matrimony."
"Biddy," said Dean Swift one day to his cook, "this leg of mutton is
over-done; take it down and do it less." "Plaze, your Riverence,"
replied Biddy, "the thing is impossible." "Well, then," rejoined her
master, "let this be a lesson to you, that if you must commit mistakes
they, at all events, shall not be of such gravity as to preclude
correction." Well would it be if people never made mistakes that
preclude correction in reference to more important matters! Yet, for all
this, it is a good thing that we have no "fatal facility" of divorce in
this country, and that a marriage once made is generally regarded as a
world-without-end bargain.
A story has been told of a graceless scamp who gained access to the
Clarendon printing-office in Oxford, when a new edition of the
Prayer-book was ready for the press. In that part of the "forme" already
set up which contained the marriage service, he substituted the letter
_k_ for the letter _v_ in the word live; and thus the vow "to love,
honour, comfort, &c., so long as ye both shall live," was made to read
"so long as ye both shall like!" The change was not discovered until the
whole of the edition was printed off. If the sheets are still preserved
it would be a good speculation to send them to some of the States in
America, where people are "exceedingly divorced." May they long remain
useless in Great Britain! For nothing is more dangerous than to unite
two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns as man and
wife, without rendering the union entire and total.
In that very interesting Bible story of Nabal and Abigail, a noble woman
is seen making the best of an extremely bad matrimonial bargain. If her
marriage with Nabal, who was a churlish, ill-tempered, drunken fool, was
one of the worst possible, does not her conduct teach the lesson that
something may be done to mitigate the miseries of even the most
frightful state of marriage? Who shall say how many heroines unknown to
fame there are who imitate her? Their husbands are weak-willed, foolish,
idle, extravagant, dissipated, and generally ne'er-do-weel; but instead
of helplessly sitting down to regret their marriage-day, they take the
management of everything into their own hands, and make the best of the
inevitable by patient endurance in well-doing. It is sometimes said that
"any husband is better than none." Perhaps so; in the sense of his being
a sort of domestic Attila, a "scourge of God" to "whip the offending
Adam" out of a woman and turn her into an angel, as the wives of some
bad husbands seem to become.
"I will do anything," says Portia, in the "Merchant of Venice," "ere I
will be married to a sponge;" and in answer to the question--"How like
you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?" she answers: "Very
vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the
afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best he is a little worse than a
man; and when he is worst he is little better than a beast: an the worst
fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him."
When a poor girl has not had Portia's discernment to discover such
faults before marriage, what can she do? She can do her best.
"What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?"
Endeavouring to do this, you will not only have the answer of a good
conscience, but will have taken the best precaution against falling
yourself, so that it never can be truly said of you--
"As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down."
It has been said that to have loved and lost--either by that total
disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love
which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let
go day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love, namely,
reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing
left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness--this lot is probably
the hardest any woman can have to bear.
"What is good for a bootless bane?--
And she made answer, 'Endless sorrow.'"
This answer should never have been made, for none but the guilty can be
long and completely miserable. The effect and duration of sorrow greatly
depends upon ourselves. "If thou hast a bundle of thorns in thy lot, at
least thou need'st not insist on sitting down on them." Nor must we
forget that there is a "wondrous alchemy in time and the power of God"
to transmute our sorrows, as well as our faults and errors, into golden
blessings.
It is an old maxim that if one will not, two cannot quarrel. If one of
the heads of a house has a bad temper, there is all the more reason for
the other to be cool and collected, and capable of keeping domestic
peace. Think of Socrates, who, when his wife Zanthippe concluded a fit
of scolding by throwing at him a bucket of water, quietly remarked,
"After the thunder comes the rain." And when she struck him, to some
friends who would have had him strike her again, he replied, that he
would not make them sport, nor that they should stand by and say, "_Eia
Socrates, eia Zanthippe!_" as boys do when dogs fight, animate them more
by clapping hands.
If we would learn how to make the worst instead of the best of a
matrimonial bargain, Adam, the first husband, will teach us. He allowed
himself to be tempted by Eve, and then like a true coward tried to put
all the blame upon her. This little bit of history repeats itself every
day. "In the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack
Falstaff do in the days of villainy?"
There is another way in which people make the worst instead of the best
of their bad matrimonial bargains. "Faults are thick where love is
thin," and love having become thin they exaggerate the badness of their
bargains. A man, having one well-formed and one crooked leg, was wont to
test the disposition of his friends, by observing which leg they looked
at first or most. Surely the last people we should draw with their worst
leg foremost are our life partners. The best of men are only _men_ at
the best. They are, as Sterne said, "a strange compound of contradictory
qualities; and were the accidental oversights and folly of the wisest
man--the failings and imperfections of a religious man--the hasty acts
and passionate words of a meek man--were they to rise up in judgment
against them, and an ill-natured judge to be suffered to mark in this
manner what has been done amiss, what character so unexceptionable as
to be able to stand before him?" Ought husbands and wives to be
ill-natured judges of what is amiss?
"Let a man," says Seneca, "consider his own vices, reflect upon his own
follies, and he will see that he has the greatest reason to be angry
with himself." The best advice to give husband and wife is to ask them
to resolve in the words of Shakespeare, "I will chide no breather in the
world but myself, against whom I know most faults." Why beholdest thou
the mote that is in the eye of thy matrimonial bargain, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye?
When you find yourself complaining of your matrimonial bargain, think
sometimes whether you deserve a better one. What right and title has thy
greedy soul to domestic happiness or to any other kind of happiness?
"Fancy," says Carlyle, "thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely),
thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot." We may imagine that we
deserve a perfect matrimonial bargain, but a less partial observer like
Lord Braxfield might make a correction in our estimate. This Scotch
judge once said to an eloquent culprit at the bar, "Ye're a verra clever
chiel, mon, but I'm thinkin' ye wad be nane the waur o' a hangin'."
Equally instructive is the story of a magistrate, who, when a thief
remonstrated, "But, sir, I must live," replied, "I don't recognize the
necessity." It is only when we cease to believe that we must have
supreme domestic and other kinds of felicity, that we are able with a
contented mind to bear our share of the "weary weight of all this
unintelligible world."
In reference to marriage and to everything else in life, we should
sometimes reflect how much worse off we might be instead of how much
better. Perhaps you are like the man who said, "I must put up with it,"
when he had only turkey and plum pudding for dinner. If, as it has often
been said, all men brought their grievances of mind, body, and
estate--their lunacies, epilepsies, cancers, bereavement, beggary,
imprisonment--and laid them on a heap to be equally divided, would you
share alike and take your portion, or be as you are? Without question
you would be as you are. And perhaps if all matrimonial bargains were to
be again distributed, it would be better for you to keep what you have
than to run the chance of getting worse. A man who grumbled at the
badness of his shoes felt ashamed on meeting with one who had no feet.
"Consider the pains which martyrs have endured, and think how even now
many people are bearing afflictions beyond all measure greater than
yours, and say, 'Of a truth my trouble is comfort, my torments are but
roses as compared to those whose life is a continual death, without
solace, or aid, or consolation, borne down with a weight of grief
tenfold greater than mine.'"
"Oft in life's stillest shade reclining,
In desolation unrepining,
Without a hope on earth to find
A mirror in an answering mind,
Meek souls there are, who little dream
Their daily strife an angel's theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in Heaven a martyr's palm."
One of these "meek souls" is reported to have said to a friend, "You
know not the joy of an accepted sorrow." And of every disappointment, we
may truly say that people know not how well it may be borne until they
have tried to bear it. This, which is true of disappointment in general,
is no less true of the disappointments of a married pair. Those who have
not found in marriage all that they fondly, and perhaps over sanguinely,
anticipated, may, after some time, become to a certain extent happy
though married, if they resolve to do their best under the
circumstances.
CHAPTER VII.
MARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS A DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER.
"Certainly wife and children are a kind of Discipline of
Humanity."--_Bacon._
"I well remember the bright assenting laugh which she (Mrs.
Carlyle) once responded to some words of mine, when the propriety
was being discussed of relaxing the marriage laws. I had said
that the true way to look at marriage was as a discipline of
character."--_Froude._
"Did you ever see anything so absurd as a horse sprawling like that?"
This was the hasty exclamation of a connoisseur on taking up a small
cabinet picture. "Excuse me," replied the owner, "you hold it the wrong
way: it is a horse galloping." So much depends upon the way we look at
things. In the preceding chapter we spoke of making the best of bad
matrimonial bargains. Perhaps it would help some people to do this if
they looked at marriage from a different point of view--if they
considered it as a discipline of character rather than as a short cut
to the highest heaven of happiness. Certainly this is a practical point
of view, and it may be that those who marry in this spirit are more
likely to use their matrimony rightly than those who start with
happiness as their only goal. That people get happiness by being willing
to pass it by and do without it rather than by directly pursuing it, is
as true of domestic felicity as of other kinds.
"Ven you're a married man, Samivel," says Mr. Weller to his son Sam,
"you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but
vether it's worth while going through so much to learn so little, as the
charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o'
taste: I rayther think it isn't." Strange that a philosopher of the
senior Mr. Weller's profundity should underestimate in this way the
value of matrimony as a teacher. We have it on the authority of a
widower who was thrice married, that his first wife cured his romance,
the second taught him humility, and the third made him a philosopher.
Another veteran believes that five or six years of married life will
often reduce a naturally irascible man to so angelic a condition that it
would hardly be safe to trust him with a pair of wings.
Webster asks--
"What do you think of marriage?
I think, as those do who deny purgatory,
It locally contains either heaven or hell,
There is no third place in it."
Is this true? We think not, for we know many married people who live in
a third place, the existence of which is here denied. They are neither
intensely happy nor intensely miserable; but they lose many faults, and
are greatly developed in character by passing through a purgatorial
existence. Nor is this an argument against matrimony, except to those
who deny that "it is better to be seven times in the furnace than to
come out unpurified."
Sweet are the uses of this and every other adversity when these words of
Sir Arthur Helps are applicable to its victims or rather victors: "That
man is very strong and powerful who has no more hopes for himself, who
looks not to be loved any more, to be admired any more, to have any more
honour or dignity, and who cares not for gratitude; but whose sole
thought is for others, and who only lives on for them."
The young husband may imagine that he only takes a wife to add to his
own felicity; taking no account of the possibility of meeting a
disposition and temper which may, without caution, mar and blight his
own. Women are not angels, although in their ministrations they make a
near approach to them. Women, no more than men, are free from human
infirmities; the newly-married man must therefore calculate upon the
necessity of amendment in his wife as well as of that necessity in
himself. The process, however, as well as the result of the process,
will yield a rich reward. At a minister's festival meeting "Our Wives"
was one of the toasts. One of the brethren, whose wife had a temper of
her own, on being sportively asked if he would drink it, exclaimed,
"Aye, heartily; Mine brings me to my knees in prayer a dizzen times a
day, an' nane o' you can say the same o' yours."
If even bad matrimonial bargains have so much influence in disciplining
character, how much more may be learned from a happy marriage! Without
it a man or woman is "Scarce half made up." The enjoyments of celibacy,
whatever they may be, are narrow in their range, and belong to only a
portion of our nature; and whatever the excellences of the bachelor's
character, he can never attain to a perfected manhood so long as such a
large and important part of his nature as the affections for the
gratification of which marriage provides, is unexercised and
undeveloped. There are in his nature latent capabilities, both of
enjoyment and affection, which find no expression. He is lacking in
moral symmetry. The motives from which he keeps himself free from
marriage responsibilities may be worthy of the highest respect, but this
does not hinder his character from being less disciplined than it might
have been.
"For indeed I know
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thoughts and amiable words,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man."
On both sides marriage brings into play some of the purest and loftiest
feelings of which our nature is capable. The feeling of identity of
interest implied in the marriage relation--the mutual confidence which
is the natural result--the tender, chivalrous regard of the husband for
his wife as one who has given herself to him--the devotion and respect
of the wife for the husband as one to whom she has given herself--their
mutual love attracted first by the qualities seen or imagined by each in
the other, and afterwards strengthened by the consciousness of being
that object's best beloved--these feelings exert a purifying, refining,
elevating influence, and are more akin to the religious than any other
feelings. Love, like all things here, is education. It renders us wise
by expanding the soul and stimulating the mental powers.
"Yes, love indeed is light from heaven:
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given,
To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A ray of Him who formed the whole;
A glory circling round the soul!"
It has been well said, "The first condition of human goodness is
something to love; the second, something to reverence." Both these
conditions meet in a well-chosen alliance.
Married people may so abuse matrimony as to make it a very school for
scandal; but it may and ought to be what Sir Thomas More's home was said
to be, "a school and exercise of the Christian religion." "No wrangling,
no angry word, was heard in it; no one was idle; every one did his duty
with alacrity and not without a temperate cheerfulness." This atmosphere
of love and duty which pervaded his home must have been owing in a great
measure to the household goodness of Sir Thomas himself. For though his
first wife was all that he could have desired, his second was
ill-tempered and little capable of appreciating the lofty principles
that actuated her husband. "I have lived--I have laboured--I have loved.
I have lived in them I loved, laboured for them I loved, loved them for
whom I laboured." Well might Sir Thomas add after this reflection, "My
labour hath not been in vain;" for to say nothing of its effect upon
others, how it must have disciplined his own character!
"There is nothing," you say, "in the drudgery of domestic life to
soften." No; but, as Robertson of Brighton says, "a great deal to
strengthen with the sense of duty done, self-control, and power. Besides
you cannot calculate how much corroding rust is kept off, how much of
disconsolate, dull despondency is hindered. Daily use is not the
jeweller's mercurial polish, but it will keep your little silver pencil
from tarnishing."
"Family life," says Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of thorns and cares; but
they are fruitful: all others are dry thorns." And again: "If a man's
home at a certain period of life does not contain children, it will
probably be found filled with follies or with vices."
Even if it were a misfortune to be married, which we emphatically deny,
has not the old Roman moralist taught us that, "to escape misfortune is
to want instruction, and that to live at ease is to live in ignorance"?
Misfortune to be married? Rather not.
"Life with all it yields of joy and woe
And hope and fear....
Is just our chance o' the prize of the learning love--
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."
CHAPTER VIII.
BEING MARRIED.
"If ever one is to pray--if ever one is to feel grave and
anxious--if ever one is to shrink from vain show and vain babble,
surely it is just on the occasion of two human beings binding
themselves to one another, for better and for worse till death
part them."--_Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle._
An elderly unmarried lady of Scotland, after reading aloud to her two
sisters, also unmarried, the births, marriages, and deaths in the
ladies' corner of a newspaper, thus moralized: "Weel, weel, these are
solemn events--death and marriage; but ye ken they're what we must all
come to." "Eh, Miss Jeanny, but ye have been lang spared!" was the reply
of the youngest sister. Those who in our thoughts were represented as
being only in prospect of marriage are spared no longer. They have now
come to what they had to come to--a day "so full of gladness, and so
full of pain"--a day only second in importance to the day of birth; in
a word, to their wedding day.
"Are [they] sad or merry?
Like to the time o' the year between the extremes
Of hot and cold: [they are] nor sad nor merry."
And yet few on such a day are as collected as the late Duke of
Sutherland is said to have been. Just two hours before the time fixed
for his marriage with one of the most beautiful women in England, a
friend came upon him in St. James's Park, leaning carelessly over the
railings at the edge of the water, throwing crumbs to the waterfowl.
"What! you here to-day! I thought you were going to be married this
morning?" "Yes," replied the duke, without moving an inch or stopping
his crumb-throwing, "I believe I am."
To men of a shyer and more nervous temperament, to be married without
chloroform is a very painful operation. They find it difficult to screw
their courage to the marrying place. On one occasion a bridegroom so far
forgot what was due to himself and his bride as to render himself unfit
to take the vows through too frequent recourse on the wedding morn to
the cup that cheers--and inebriates. The minister was obliged to refuse
to proceed with the marriage. A few days later, the same thing occurred
with the same couple; whereupon the minister gravely remonstrated with
the bride, and said they must not again present themselves with the
bridegroom in such a state. "But, sir, he--_he winna come when he's
sober_," was the candid rejoinder. It is possible that this bridegroom,
whose courage was so very Dutch, might have been deterred by the
impending fuss and publicity of a marriage ceremony, rather than by any
fear of or want of affection for her who was to become his wife. Even in
the best assorted marriages there is always more or less anxiety felt
upon the wedding-day.
The possibility of a hitch arising from a sudden change of inclination
on the part of the principals is ludicrously illustrated by the case of
two couples who on one occasion presented themselves at the Mayoralty,
in a suburb of Paris, to carry out the civil portion of their marriage
contract. During the ceremony one of the bridegrooms saw, or fancied he
saw, his partner making "sheep's-eyes" at the bridegroom opposite. Being
of a jealous temperament, he laid his hand roughly on her arm, and said
sharply: "Mademoiselle, which of the two brides are you? You are mine, I
believe: then oblige me by confining your glances to me." The bride was
a young woman of spirit, and resenting the tone in which the reprimand
was made, retorted: "Ah, Monsieur, if you are jealous already, I am
likely to lead a pleasant life with you!" The jealous bridegroom made an
angry reply; and then the other bridegroom must needs put his oar in.
This led to a general dispute, which the Mayor in vain endeavoured to
quell. The bridegrooms stormed at each other; and the brides, between
their hysterical sobs, mutually accused each other of perfidy. At length
the Mayor, as a last resource, adjourned the ceremony for half an hour,
to admit of an amicable understanding being arrived at, both brides
having refused to proceed with the celebration of the nuptials. When, at
the expiration of the half-hour, the parties were summoned to reappear,
they did so, to the amazement of the bewildered Mayor, in an altogether
different order from that in which they had originally entered. The
bridegrooms had literally effected an exchange of brides--the jealous
bridegroom taking the jealous bride; and the other, the lady whose
fickle glances had led to the rupture. All four adhering to the new
arrangement, the Mayor, it is recorded, had no alternative but to
proceed with the ceremony.
The ruling passion is not more strongly felt in death than in marriage.
Dr. Johnson displayed the sturdiness of his character as he journeyed
with the lady of his choice from Birmingham to Derby, at which last
place they were to be married. Their ride thither, which we give in the
bridegroom's own words, is an amusing bit of literary history. "Sir, she
had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical
notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir,
at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up
with me: and when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained
that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I
resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till
I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was
sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up
with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears."
On the wedding-day of the celebrated M. Pasteur, who has made such
extraordinary discoveries about germs, the hour appointed for the
ceremony had arrived, but the bridegroom was not there. Some friends
rushed off to the laboratory and found him very busy with his apron on.
He was excessively cross at being disturbed, and declared that marriage
might wait, but his experiments could not do so.
He would indeed be a busy man who could not make time for a marriage
ceremony as brief as that which was employed in the celebration of a
marriage in Iowa, United States. The bride and bridegroom were told to
join their hands, and then asked: "Do you want one another?" Both
replied: "Yes." "Well, then, have one another;" and the couple were man
and wife. Most people, however, desire a more reverent solemnization of
marriage, which may be viewed in two aspects--as a natural institution,
and as a religious ordinance. In the Old Testament we see it as a
natural institution; in the New, it is brought before us in a religious
light. It is there likened to the union of Christ and the Church. The
union of Christ and the Church is not illustrated by marriage, but
marriage by this spiritual union; that is, the natural is based upon the
spiritual. And this is what is wanted; it gives marriage a religious
signification, and it thus becomes a kind of semi-sacrament. The
illustration teaches that in order to be happy though married the
principle of sacrifice must rule the conduct of the married. As no love
between man and wife can be true which does not issue in a sacrifice of
each for the other, so Christ gave Himself for His Church and the Church
sacrifices itself to His service. The only true love is self-devotion,
and the every-day affairs of married life must fail without this
principle of self-sacrifice or the cross of Christ.
"Would to God that His dear Son were bidden to all weddings as to that
of Cana! Truly then the wine of consolation and blessing would never be
lacking. He who desires that the young of his flock should be like
Jacob's, fair and ring-straked, must set fair objects before their eyes;
and he who would find a blessing in his marriage, must ponder the
holiness and dignity of this mystery, instead of which too often
weddings become a season of mere feasting and disorder."
A new home is being formed in reference to which the bride and groom
should think, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the
gate of heaven. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The
parish church is called "God's House;" but if all the parishioners
rightly used their matrimony, every house in the parish might be called
the same. Home is the place of the highest joys; religion should
sanctify it. Home is the sphere of the deepest sorrows; the highest
consolation of religion should assuage its griefs. Home is the place of
the greatest intimacy of heart with heart; religion should sweeten it
with the joy of confidence. Home discovers all faults; religion should
bless it with the abundance of charity. Home is the place for
impressions, for instruction and culture; there should religion open her
treasures of wisdom and pronounce her heavenly benediction.
An old minister previous to the meeting of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland used to pray that the assembly might be so guided as
"_no to do ony harm_." We have often thought that such a prayer as this
would be an appropriate commencement for the marriage service.
Considering the issues that are involved in marriage--the misery unto
the third and fourth generation that may result from it--those who join
together man and woman in matrimony ought to pray that in doing so they
may do no harm. Certainly the opening exhortation of the Church of
England marriage service is sufficiently serious. It begins by
proclaiming the sacredness of marriage as a Divine institution;
hallowed as a type of the mystical union between Christ and His Church;
honoured (even in its festive aspect) by Our Lord's presence and first
miracle at Cana of Galilee; declared to be "honourable among all men;
and therefore not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand,
unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly; but reverently, discreetly,
advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes
for which Matrimony was ordained." These are explained in words
plain-spoken almost to coarseness before allusion is made to the higher
moral relation of "mutual society, help, and comfort" which marriage
creates.
Then follows "the betrothal" in which the man "plights his troth"
(pledges his truth), taking the initiative, while the woman gives hers
in return:
"The 'wilt thou,' answered, and again
The 'wilt thou' asked, till out of twain
Her sweet 'I will' has made ye one."
The "joining of hands" is from time immemorial the pledge of
covenant--we "shake hands over a bargain"--and is here an essential part
of the marriage ceremony.
The use of the ring is described in the prayer that follows as the token
of the marriage covenant--from the man the token of his confiding to his
wife all authority over what is his, and for the woman the badge of
belonging to his house. The old service has a quaint rubric declaring it
put on the fourth finger of the left hand, because thence "there is a
vein leading direct to the heart." The Prayer Book of Edward VI. directs
that "the man shall give unto the woman a ring, and other tokens of
spousage, as gold or silver, laying the same upon the book." This is
clearly the ancient bride price. Wheatly's "Book of Common Prayer" says,
"This lets us into the design of the ring, and intimates it to be the
remains of an ancient custom whereby it was usual for the man to
purchase the woman." The words to be spoken by the man are taken from
the old service, still using the ancient word "worship" (worth--ship)
for service and honour. They declare the dedication both of person and
substance to the marriage bond.
The Blessing is one of singular beauty and solemnity. It not only
invokes God's favour to "bless, preserve, and keep" the newly-made
husband and wife in this world, but looks beyond it to the life
hereafter, for which nothing can so well prepare them as a well-spent
wedded life here.
It is said that among the natives of India the cost to a father of
marrying his daughter is about equal to having his house burnt down.
Although brides are not so expensive in this country much money is
wasted on the wedding and preliminaries which would be very useful to
the young people a year or two afterwards.
We would not advise that there should be no wedding-breakfast and that
the bride should have no trousseau; but we do think that these
accessories should be in accordance with the family exchequer. Again,
wedding presents are often the very articles that the young couple need
least, and are not unfrequently found to be duplicates of the gifts of
other persons. But we cannot linger over the wedding festivities.
Adieu, young friends! and may joy crown you, love bless you, God speed
your career!
"Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."
CHAPTER IX.
HONEYMOONING.
"The importance of the honeymoon, which had been so much vaunted
to him by his father, had not held good."--_The Married Life of
Albert Durer._
The "honeymoon" is defined by Johnson to be "the first month after
marriage, when there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure." And
certainly it ought to be the happiest month in our lives; but it may,
like every other good thing, be spoiled by mismanagement. When this is
the case, we take our honeymoon like other pleasures--sadly. Instead of
happy reminiscences, nothing is left of it except its jars.
You take, says the philosophical observer, a man and a woman, who in
nine cases out of ten know very little about each other (though they
generally fancy they do), you cut off the woman from all her female
friends, you deprive the man of his ordinary business and ordinary
pleasures, and you condemn this unhappy pair to spend a month of
enforced seclusion in each other's society. If they marry in the summer
and start on a tour, the man is oppressed with a plethora of
sight-seeing, while the lady, as often as not, becomes seriously ill
from fatigue and excitement.
A newly-married man took his bride on a tour to Switzerland for the
honeymoon, and when there induced her to attempt with him the ascent of
one of the high peaks. The lady, who at home had never ascended a hill
higher than a church, was much alarmed, and had to be carried by the
guides with her eyes blindfolded, so as not to witness the horrors of
the passage. The bridegroom walked close to her, expostulating
respecting her fear. He spoke in honeymoon whispers; but the rarefaction
of the air was such that every word was audible. "You told me, Leonora,
that you always felt happy--no matter where you were--so long as you
were in my company. Then why are you not happy now?" "Yes, Charles, I
did," replied she; sobbing hysterically; "but I never meant above the
snow line." It is at such times as these that awkward angles of temper
make themselves manifest, which, under a more sensible system, might
have been concealed for years, perhaps for ever.
Boswell called upon Dr. Johnson on the morning of the day on which he
was to leave for Scotland--for matrimonial purposes. The prospect of
connubial felicity had made the expectant husband voluble; he therefore
took courage to recite to the sage a little love-song which he had
himself composed and which Dibdin was to set to music:
A MATRIMONIAL THOUGHT.
"In the blythe days of honeymoon,
With Kate's allurements smitten,
I loved her late, I loved her soon,
And called her dearest kitten.
But now my kitten's grown a cat,
And cross like other wives,
Oh! by my soul, my honest Mat,
I fear she has nine lives."
_Johnson_: "It is very well, sir, but you should not swear." Whereupon
the obnoxious "Oh! by my soul," was changed on the instant to "Alas!
alas!"
If the kitten should develop into a cat even before the "blythe days of
honeymoon" are ended, it is no wonder, considering the way some young
couples spend the first month of married life, rushing from one
continental city to another, and visiting all the churches and
picture-galleries, however scorching may be the weather or however great
may be their secret aversion to art and antiquity. The lady gives way to
fatigue, and is seized with a violent headache. For a while the young
husband thinks that it is rather nice to support his Kate's head, but
when she answers his sympathetic inquiries sharply and petulantly, he in
turn becomes less amiable, dazzling, enchanting, and, in a word, all
that as a _fiance_ he had been.
Winter honeymooning is even more trying to the temper, for then short
days and unfavourable weather compel the young couple to stay in one
place. Imagine the delights of a month spent in lodgings at the seaside,
with nothing to do except to get photographed, which is a favourite
pastime of the newly-married. The bride may be indifferent to the rain
and sleet beating against the windows, for she can spend the time
writing to her friends long and enthusiastic descriptions of her
happiness; but what can the unlucky bridegroom do? He subscribes to the
circulating library, reads a series of novels aloud to his wife, and
illustrates every amatory passage with a kiss. But the "dear old boy"
(as the bride calls him) tires of this sort of thing after a week, and
how can he then amuse himself? He stares out of windows, he watches the
arrival of the milkman and the butcher with the liveliest interest; he
envies the coastguardsman, who is perpetually on the look-out for
invisible smugglers through a portentously long telescope. Cases have
been known where the bridegroom--a City man--being driven to
desperation, has privately ordered the office journal and ledger to be
sent down by luggage train, and has devoted his evenings to checking the
additions in those interesting volumes.
When Hodge and his sweetheart crown their pastoral loves in the quiet
old country church, they take a pleasant drive or a walk in their
finery, and settle down at once to connubial comfort in the cot beside
the wood. Why do their richer neighbours deny themselves this happiness
and invent special troubles? Why, during the early weeks of married
life, do they lay up sad memories of provoking mistakes, of trunks which
will not pack, of trains which will not wait, of tiresome sight-seeing,
of broiling sun, of headache, of "the fretful stir unprofitable, and the
fever" of honeymooning abroad? Many a bridegroom but just returned from
a "delightful tour on the Continent" will be able to sympathize in the
remark of the country farmer to a companion in the train, as he went to
town to buy hay. "Yes, it's been a bad winter for some folk. Old
Smith's dead, and so is Jones, and my wife died yesterday. And how be
the hay, master?"
We do not want excitement during the honeymoon, for are we not in love
(if we are not we ought to be ashamed of ourselves), and is not love
all-sufficient? Last week we only saw the object of our affections by
fits and starts as it were; now we have her or him all to ourselves.
"Who hath not felt that breath in the air,
A perfume and freshness strange and rare,
A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere,
When young hearts yearn together?
All sweets below, and all sunny above,
Oh! there's nothing in life like making love,
Save making hay in fine weather."
Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when not greatly
mismanaged, _is_ a halcyon period. It is a delightful lull between two
distinct states of existence, and the married man is not to be envied
who can recall no pleasant reminiscences of it. What profane outsiders
consider very dull has a charm of its own to honeymoon lovers who
"illumine life with dreaming," and who see--
"Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!"
Still, we cannot but think that if a wedding tour must be taken it
should be short, quiet, free-and-easy, and inexpensive. At some future
time, when the young people are less agitated and have learned to
understand each other better, the time and money saved will be
available for a more extended holiday. During the honeymoon there should
be "marches hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather than
globe-trotting; "thoughts moved o'er fields Elysian" rather than over
the perplexing pages of "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation
Guide."
In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters, people's opinions
differ according to their temperaments and circumstances. So we shall
conclude this chapter by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask
our readers to decide for themselves.
In the "Memoir of Daniel Macmillan" his opinion is thus stated: "That
going out for the honeymoon is a most wise and useful invention; it
enables you to be so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper
knowledge of each other; and it also helps one to see and feel the
preciousness of such intimacy as nothing else could. Intercourse in the
presence of others never leads below the surface, and it is in the very
depths of our being that true calm, deep and true peace and love lie.
Nothing so well prepares for the serious duties of after-life."
"As to long honeymoons," says the Bishop of Rochester, "most sensible
people have come utterly to disbelieve in them. They are a forced homage
to utterly false ideas; they are a waste of money at a moment when every
shilling is wanted for much more pressing objects; they are a loss of
time, which soon comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a
risk for love, which ought not so soon to be so unpleasantly tested by
the inevitable petulances of a secret _ennui_. Six days by all means,
and then, oh! happy friends, go straight home.... Whenever you come
back, six weeks hence or one, you will have just as much to stand the
fire of a little hard staring which won't hurt you, and of bright
pleasantness which need not vex you; and the sooner you are at home, the
sooner you will find out what married happiness means."
CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE VOWS.
"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou
shouldest vow and not pay."--_Ecclesiastes_ v. 5.
The honeymoon is over, and our young couple have exchanged their
chrysalis condition for the pleasures and duties of ordinary married
life. Let them begin by forming the highest ideal of marriage. Now, and
on every anniversary of their wedding day, they should seriously reflect
upon those vows which are too often taken, either in entire ignorance of
their meaning and import, or thoughtlessly, as though they were mere
incidents of the marriage ceremony.
A Hampshire incumbent recently reported some of the blunders he had
heard made in the marriage service, by that class of persons who have to
pick up the words as best they can from hearing them repeated by others.
He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion for the man,
when giving the ring, to say to the woman: "With my body I thee wash
up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou." He said the women
were generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One
day, however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to
be language of the Prayer Book, to take her husband "to 'ave and to 'old
from this day fortn't, for betterer horse, for richerer power, in
siggerness health, to love cherries, and to bay." We have heard of an
ignorant bridegroom, who, confusing the baptismal and marriage services,
replied, when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife: "I
renounce them all!" It is to be hoped that the times of such ignorance
are either passed or passing; still, a little instruction in reference
to marriage vows might be given with advantage in some churches.
In one of his letters Byron tells a story of a learned Jew, who was
remarkable, in the brilliant circles to which his learning gained him
admittance, for his habit of asking questions continuously and
fearlessly, in order to get at the bottom of any matter in discussion.
To a person who was complaining of the Prince Regent's bad treatment of
his old boon companions, this habitual interrogator cried across a
dinner-table: "And why does the prince act so?" "Because he was told
so-and-so by Lord ----; who ought to be ashamed of himself!" was the
answer. "But why, sir, has the prince cut _you_?" inquired the searcher
after truth. "Because I stuck to my principles--yes, sir, because I
stuck to my principles!" replied the other, testily, thinking that his
examination was ended. "_And why did you stick to your principles?_"
cried the interrogator, throwing the table into a roar of laughter, the
mirth being no more due to the inquisitor's persistence than to his
inability to conceive that any man would stick to his principles simply
because he believed them to be right. Are there not some educated as
well as uneducated people who seem to be quite as incapable of
conceiving that they should keep their marriage vows, simply because it
is dishonourable and wicked to break them?
A mother having become alarmed about the failing state of her daughter's
health, and not being able to get much satisfaction from a consultation
with the village doctor, took her to a London physician for further
advice. He asked a few questions as to the girl's daily habits and mode
of life, carefully stethoscoped her heart and lungs, and then gave an
involuntary sigh. The mother grew pale, and waited anxiously for a
verdict "Madam," he said, "so far as I can discover, your daughter is
suffering from a most serious complaint, which, for want of a better
name, I shall call 'dulness.' Perhaps it is in your power to cure it. I
have no medicine which is a specific for this disease." Girls, who
suffer in this way, too often prescribe for themselves marriage with men
whom they cannot love, honour, and obey. This is as bad as
dram-drinking, or gambling; but what else can the poor things do? They
have not been trained like their brothers to useful work, and have
always been told that woman's first, best occupation is--to be a wife.
To which it may be answered--
"Most true; but to make a mere business of marriage,
To call it a 'living,' 'vocation,' 'career,'
Is but to pervert, to degrade, and disparage
A contract of all the most sacred and dear."
Nor will those vows be regarded with greater sanctity which are taken
against the inclination. Better to be as candid as the girl who, forced
by her parents into a disagreeable match, when the clergyman came to
that part of the service where the bride is asked if she will have the
bridegroom for her husband, said, with great simplicity, "Oh dear, no,
sir; but you are the first person who has asked my opinion about the
matter!"
Let us think now what the vows are which, at the altar of God, and in
the presence of our fellow-creatures, we solemnly vow. Both the man and
the woman vow to love, honour, cherish, and be faithful, for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, till death part
them. Then the husband promises to comfort his wife, and the wife to
serve and obey her husband.
A Scotch lady, whose daughter was recently married, was asked by an old
friend whether she might congratulate her upon the event. "Yes, yes,"
she answered; "upon the whole it is very satisfactory; it is true
Jeannie hates her gudeman, but then there's always a something." The old
friend might have told this Scotch lady that in making light of love she
made light of that which was needful to hallow her daughter's marriage;
and that even the blessing of a bishop in the most fashionable church
does not prevent a loveless alliance from being a sacrifice of true
chastity.
Contrast the indifference of this Scotch lady in reference to
matrimonial love, with the value set upon it in a letter which Pliny the
Younger, who was a heathen, wrote concerning his wife, Calpurnia, to her
aunt. It is quoted by Dr. Cook as follows: "She loves me, the surest
pledge of her virtue, and adds to this a wonderful disposition to
learning, which she has acquired from her affection to me. She reads my
writings, studies them, and even gets them by heart. You would smile to
see the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead, and the joy she
shows when it is over. She finds means to have the first news brought
her of the success I meet with in court. If I recite anything in public,
she cannot refrain from placing herself privately in some corner to
hear. Sometimes she accompanies my verses with the lute, without any
master except love--the best of instructors. From these instances I take
the most certain omens of our perpetual and increasing happiness, since
her affection is not founded on my youth or person, which must gradually
decay; but she is in love with the immortal part of me."
The second vow taken by both the man and the woman is to "honour."
"Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving
honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel." "And the wife see that
she reverence her husband." The weaker vessel is to be honoured, not
because she is weak, but because, being weak, she acts her part so well.
And even if the wife's courage and endurance should sometimes fail, a
good husband would not withhold honour from her on that account. He
would remember her weaker nature, and her more delicate physical frame,
her more acute nervous sensibility, her greater sensitiveness and
greater trials, the peculiar troubles to which she is subject.
In a lately published "Narrative of a Journey through the South China
Border Lands," we are told that a wife in this part of the world, when
mentioned by her husband, "which happens as seldom as possible," is
called "My dull thorn," "The thorn in my ribs," or "The mean one of the
inner rooms." This is the way _not_ to honour a wife. But the honour
which a husband should give is not merely that chivalrous bearing which
the strong owe to the weak, and which every woman has a right to expect
from every man. In describing a husband who was in the habit of
honouring his wife, Dr. Landels remarks that "one could not be in his
presence without feeling it. Never a word escaped his lips which
reflected directly or indirectly on her. Never an action he performed
would have led to the impression that there could be any difference
between them. She was the queen of his home. All about them felt that in
his estimation, and by his desire, her authority was unimpeachable, and
her will law. And the effect of his example was that children and
friends and domestics alike hedged her about with sweet respect. A man
of strong will himself, his was never known to be in collision with
hers; and, without any undue yielding, the homage which he paid to his
wife made their union one of the happiest it has ever been our privilege
to witness."
And the wife, on her part, is to reverence and honour her husband as
long as she possibly can. If possible, she should let her husband
suppose that she thinks him a _good_ husband, and it will be a strong
stimulus to his being so. As long as he thinks he possesses the
character, he will take some pains to deserve it; but when he has lost
the name he will be very apt to abandon the reality altogether. "To
treat men as if they were better than they are is the surest way to
_make_ them better than they are." Keats tells us that he has met with
women who would like to be married to a Poem, and given away by a
Novel; but wives must not cease to honour their husbands on discovering
that instead of being poetical and romantic they are very ordinary,
imperfect beings.
There are homes where poverty has never left its pinch nor sickness paid
its visit; homes where there is plenty on the board, and health in the
circle, and yet where a skeleton more grim than death haunts the
cupboard, and an ache harsher than consumption's tooth gnaws sharply at
the heart. Why do those shoulders stoop so early ere life's noon has
passed? Why is it that the sigh which follows the closing of the door
after the husband has gone off to business is a sigh of relief, and that
which greets his coming footstep is a sigh of dread? What means that
nervous pressing of the hand against the heart, the gulping back of the
lump that rises in the throat, the forced smile, and the pressed-back
tear? If we could but speak to the husbands who haunt these homes, we
would tell them that some such soliloquy as the following is ever
passing like a laboured breath through the distracted minds of their
wives: "Is this the Canaan, this the land of promise, this the milk and
honey that were pictured to my fancy; when the walks among the lanes,
and fields, and flowers were all too short, and the whispers were so
loving, and the pressure was so fond, and the heart-beat was so
passionate? For what have I surrendered home, youth, beauty, freedom,
love--all that a woman has to give in all her wealth of confidence?
Harsh tones, cold looks, stern words, short answers, sullen reserve."
"What," says the cheery neighbour, "is that all?" All! What more is
needed to make home dark, to poison hope, to turn life into a funeral,
the marriage-robe into a shroud, and the grave into a refuge? It does
not want drunkenness, blows, bruises, clenched fists, oaths, to work
sacrilege in the temple of the home; only a little ice where the fire
should glow; only a cold look where the love should burn; only a sneer
where there ought to be a smile. Husband! that wife of yours is wretched
because you are a liar; because you perjured yourself when you vowed to
love and cherish. You are too great a coward to beat her brains out with
a poker lest the gallows claim you; but you are so little of a man that
you poison her soul with the slow cruelty of an oath daily foresworn and
brutally ignored. If the ducking-stool was a punishment of old for a
scolding wife, a fiercer baptism should await the husband who has ceased
to cherish his wife.
As regards the vow of fidelity we need only quote these words of the
prophet Malachi: "The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife
of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet she is thy
companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one?
Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously
against the wife of his youth." But there are absentee husbands and
wives who, though they are not guilty of breaking the seventh
commandment, do by no means keep the promise of keeping only to their
wives and husbands. If a man come home only when other places are shut,
or when his money is all gone, or when nobody else wants him, is he not
telling his wife and family, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly by
words, that he takes more delight in other company than in theirs?
Charles Lamb used to feel that there was something of dishonesty in any
pleasures which he took without his lunatic sister. A good man will
feel something like this in reference to his wife and children.
But though men should love their homes, it is quite possible for them to
be too much at home. This at least is the opinion of most wives. There
is everywhere a disposition to pack off the men in the morning and to
bid them keep out of the way till towards evening, when it is assumed
they will probably have a little news of the busy world to bring home,
and when baby will be sure to have said something exceptionally
brilliant and precocious. The general events of the day will afford
topics of conversation more interesting by far than if the whole
household had been together from morning till night. Men about home all
day are fidgety, grumpy, and interfering--altogether objectionable, in
short.
As a rule it is when things are going wrong that women show to the best
advantage. Every one can remember illustrations. We have one in the
following story of Hawthorne, which was told to Mr. Conway by an
intimate friend of the novelist. One wintry day Hawthorne received at
his office notification that his services would no longer be required.
With heaviness of heart he repaired to his humble home. His young wife
recognizes the change and stands waiting for the silence to be broken.
At length he falters, "I am removed from office." Then she leaves the
room; she returns with fuel and kindles a bright fire with her own
hands; next she brings pen, paper, ink, and sets them beside him. Then
she touches the sad man on the shoulder, and, as he turns to the beaming
face, says, "Now you can write your book." The cloud cleared away. The
lost office looked like a cage from which he had escaped. "The Scarlet
Letter" was written, and a marvellous success rewarded the author and
his stout-hearted wife.
The care some wives take of their husbands in sickness is very touching.
John Richard Green, the historian, whose death seemed so untimely, is an
instance of this. His very life was prolonged in the most wonderful way
by the care and skill with which he was tended; and it was with and
through his wife that the work was done which he could not have done
alone. She consulted the authorities for him, examined into obscure
points, and wrote to his dictation. In this way, when he could not work
more than two hours in the day, and when often some slight change in the
weather would throw him back and make work impossible for days or weeks,
the book was prepared which he published under the title of "The Making
of England."
The husband's vow to "comfort" was never better performed than by
Cobbett. In his "Advice to Young Men" he says: "I began my young
marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of those times to which I
have just alluded, in the middle of the burning hot month of July, I was
greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife for want of sleep, she
not having, after the great danger was over, had any sleep for more than
forty-eight hours. All great cities in hot countries are, I believe,
full of dogs, and they, in the very hot weather, keep up during the
night a horrible barking and fighting and howling. Upon the particular
occasion to which I am adverting they made a noise so terrible and so
unremitted that it was next to impossible that even a person in full
health and free from pain should obtain a minute's sleep. I was, about
nine in the evening, sitting by the bed. 'I do think,' said she, 'that
I could go to sleep _now_, if it were not _for the dogs_.' Downstairs I
went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and trousers, and without shoes and
stockings; and, going to a heap of stones lying beside the road, set to
work upon the dogs, going backward and forward, and keeping them at two
or three hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the whole
night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes might possibly reach her
ears; and I remember that the bricks of the causeway were, even in the
night, so hot as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced
the desired effect: a sleep of several hours was the consequence, and,
at eight o'clock in the morning, off went I to a day's business which
was to end at six in the evening.
"Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to ask
my wife whether _all_ English husbands were like hers, she boldly
answered in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my
time, Sundays and week-days, except sleeping hours; but I used to make
time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of
things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm
water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got
the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water and wood for the
day, then dress myself neatly and sally forth to my business. The moment
that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more thought
of spending a moment _away from her_, unless business compelled me, than
I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The _thunder_ and
_lightning_ are tremendous in America compared with what they are in
England. My wife was at one time very much afraid of thunder and
lightning; and, as is the feeling of all such women, and indeed all men
too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband, in those times of
danger. I knew well of course that my presence would not diminish the
danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of home, I used to
quit my business and hasten to her the moment I perceived a thunderstorm
approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and last, _run_ on this
errand in the streets of Philadelphia! The Frenchmen who were my
scholars used to laugh at me exceedingly on this account; and sometimes,
when I was making an appointment with them, they would say, with a smile
and a bow, '_Sauve le tonnerre toujours, Monsieur Cobbett!_'"
Much is said both wise and otherwise in reference to the obedience which
a wife vows to yield to her husband. One who wrote a sketch of the Rev.
F. D. Maurice tells us that he met him once at a wedding breakfast.
Maurice proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom. The lady turned
round, and in rather bad taste exclaimed, "Now, Mr. Maurice, I call you
to witness that I entertain no intention of obeying." Maurice answered
with his sad, sweet smile, "Ah, madam, you little know the blessedness
of obedience."
Of course no one believes that it is a wife's duty to obey when her
husband wishes her to act contrary to the dictates of conscience. As
little is she expected to conform to a standard of obedience and service
such as was laid down in a conversation overheard between two children
who were playing on the sands together. Small boy to little girl: "Do
you wish to be my wife?" Little girl, after reflection; "Yes." Small
boy: "Then pull off my boots." We all rejoice in the fact that woman's
rights are very different now from what they used to be, at least in
Russia, where, Dr. Lansdell tells us, anciently at a wedding the
bridegroom took to church a whip, and in one part of the ceremony
lightly applied it to the bride's back, in token that she was to be in
subjection. Is there not still, however, much truth in the old couplet:
"Man, love thy wife; thy husband, wife, obey.
Wives are our heart; we should be head alway"?
On a great many points concerning the pecuniary or other interests of
the family, the husband will usually be the wisest, and may most
properly be treated as the senior or acting partner in the firm.
"The good wife," says Fuller, "commandeth her husband in any equal
matter, by constantly obeying him. It was always observed, that what the
English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of
the English in cunning by treaties. So if the husband should chance by
his power in his passion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely
knoweth by compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again."
This is very much what the well-known lines in "Hiawatha" teach--
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him;
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"
But indeed it is a sign of something being wrong between married
people, when the question which of the two shall be subject to the other
ever arises. It will never do so when both parties love as they ought,
for then the struggle will be not who shall command and control, but who
shall serve and yield. As Chaucer says--
"When mastery cometh, then sweet Love anon,
Flappeth his nimble wings and soon away is flown."
CHAPTER XI.
"DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES!"
"It were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come
nothing near."--_Bacon._
"Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd."--_Milton._
"Drive gently over the stones!" This piece of advice, which is
frequently given to inexperienced whips, may be suggested metaphorically
to the newly-married. On the road upon which they have entered there are
stony places, which, if not carefully driven over, will almost certainly
upset the domestic coach. To accompany one's wife harmoniously on an
Irish car is easy compared to the task of accompanying her over these
stones on the domestic car.
The first rock ahead which should be signalled "dangerous" is the first
year of married life. As a rule the first year either mars or makes a
marriage. During this period errors may be committed which will cast a
shadow over every year that follows. We agree with Mrs. Jameson in
thinking that the first year of married life is not as happy as the
second. People have to get into the habit of being married, and there
are difficult lessons to be learned in the apprenticeship.
A lady once asked Dr. Johnson how in his dictionary he came to define
_pastern_ the _knee_ of a horse; he immediately answered, "Ignorance,
madam, pure ignorance." This is the simple explanation of many an
accident that takes place at the commencement of the matrimonial
journey. The young couple have not yet learned the dangerous places of
the road, and, as a consequence, they drive carelessly over them.
How many people starting in married life throw happiness out of their
grasp, and create troubles for the rest of their days! The cause may be
generally traced to selfishness, their conceit taking everything that
goes amiss as meant for a personal affront, and their wounded
self-esteem making life a burden hard to bear, for themselves and
others. We can all recognize in every circle such cases; we are all able
to read the moral elsewhere; but in our own case we allow the small
breach--that might be healed with very little effort at first--to get
wider and wider, and the pair that should become closer and closer,
gradually not only cease to care for, but have a dread of each other's
society.
There is one simple direction, which, if carefully regarded, might long
preserve the tranquillity of the married life, and ensure no
inconsiderable portion of connubial happiness to the observers of it: it
is--to beware of the _first_ dispute. "Man and wife," says Jeremy
Taylor, "are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in
the beginning of their conversation; every little thing can blast an
infant blossom; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings
of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new
weaned boy: but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the
hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the
kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the
storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be
broken. So are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchful and
observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take
alarm at every unkind word. After the hearts of the man and the wife are
endeared and hardened by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than
artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and
some things present, that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces."
Every little dispute between man and wife is dangerous. It forces
good-humour out of its channel, undermines affection, and insidiously,
though perhaps insensibly, wears out and, at last, entirely destroys
that cordiality which is the life and soul of matrimonial felicity. As
however "it's hardly in a body's power to keep at times from being
sour," undue importance ought not to be attached to "those little tiffs
that sometimes cast a shade on wedlock." Often they are, as the poet
goes on to observe, "love in masquerade--
"And family jars, look we but o'er the rim,
Are filled with honey, even to the brim."
In the Life of St. Francis de Sales we are told that the saint did not
approve of the saying, "Never rely on a reconciled enemy." He rather
preferred a contrary maxim, and said that a quarrel between friends,
when made up, added a new tie to friendship; as experience shows that
the calosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before.
Beware of jealousy; "it is the green-eyed monster, which doth make the
meat it feeds on." Here is an amusing case in point. A French lady who
was jealous of her husband determined to watch his movements. One day,
when he told her he was going to Versailles, she followed him, keeping
him in sight until she missed him in a passage leading to the railway
station. Looking about her for a few minutes, she saw a man coming out
of a glove-shop with a rather overdressed lady. Blinded with rage and
jealousy, she fancied it was her husband, and without pausing for a
moment to consider, bounced suddenly up to him and gave him three or
four stinging boxes on the ear. The instant the gentleman turned round,
she discovered her mistake, and at the same moment caught sight of her
husband, who had merely called at a tobacconist's, and was now crossing
the street. There was nothing for it but to faint in the arms of the
gentleman she had attacked; while the other lady moved away, to avoid a
scene. The stranger, astonished to find an unknown lady in his arms, was
further startled by a gentleman seizing him by the collar and demanding
to know what he meant by embracing that lady. "Why, sir, she boxed my
ears, and then fainted," exclaimed the innocent victim. "She is my
wife," shouted the angry husband, "and would never have struck you
without good cause." Worse than angry words would probably have followed
had not the cause of the whole misunderstanding recovered sufficiently
to explain how it had all happened.
A jealous wife is generally considered a proper subject for ridicule;
and a woman ought to conceal from her husband any feeling of the kind.
Her suspicions may be altogether groundless, and she may be tormenting
herself with a whole train of imaginary evils.
On the other hand a husband is bound to abstain from even the appearance
of preferring any one else to his wife. When in the presence of others
he should indulge her laudable pride by showing that he thinks her an
object of importance and preference.
In his "Advice to Young Men" Cobbett gives this interesting bit of
autobiography. "For about two or three years after I was married, I,
retaining some of my military manners, used, both in France and America,
to _romp_ most famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day
at Philadelphia, my wife said to me in a very gentle manner: 'Don't do
that, _I do not like it_.' That was quite enough; I had never _thought_
on the subject before; one hair of her head was more dear to me than all
the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew. But I now
saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw that
she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from everything
that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech young
married men to bear this in mind; for on some trifle of this sort the
happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns."
There may be a fanaticism in love as well as in belief, and where people
love much they are apt to be exacting one to the other. But although
jealousy does imply love, such love as consists in a craving for the
affection of its object, it is love which is largely dashed with
selfishness. It is incompatible with love of the highest order, for
where that exists there is no dread of not being loved enough in return.
In this relation as well as in the highest, "There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that
feareth is not made perfect in love."
It is generally admitted that conjugal affection largely depends on
mutual confidence. A friend quoted this sentiment the other day in a
smoking-room, and added that he made it a rule to tell his wife
everything that happened, and in this way they avoided any
misunderstanding. "Well, sir," remarked another gentleman present, not
to be outdone in generosity, "you are not so open and frank as I am, for
I tell my wife a good many things that never happen." "Oh!" exclaimed a
third, "I am under no necessity to keep my wife informed regarding my
affairs. She can find out five times as much as I know myself without
the least trouble."
"How," said a gentleman to a friend who wished to convey a matter of
importance to a lady without communicating directly with her, "how can
you be certain of her reading the letter, seeing that you have directed
it to her husband?" "That I have managed without the possibility of
failure," was the answer; "she will open it to a certainty, for I have
put the word 'private' in the corner."
These anecdotes put in a lively way the well-known fact that it is
impossible for married people to keep secrets the one from the other.
But even to make the attempt is to enter upon ground so dangerous that
scarcely any amount of cautious driving will prevent a catastrophe.
Unless husband and wife trust each other all in all the result will be
much the same as if they trusted not at all.
We believe that the Delilahs are few who would sell their Samsons to the
Philistines when these Samsons have told them the secret source of their
great strength. Still, there are secrets entrusted to the clergyman, the
physician, the lawyer, the legislator to betray which, even to a wife,
would be dishonourable and disgraceful.
A case beautifully illustrating this difficult point in matrimonial
relations occurs in the memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, wife of Sir Richard
Fanshawe, who was a faithful Royalist during the civil war. Soon after
Lady Fanshawe's marriage, she was instigated by some crafty ladies of
the court to obtain from her husband a knowledge of some secret
political events. The matter is best described in her own words: "And
now I thought myself a perfect queen, and my husband so glorious a
crown, that I more valued myself to be called by his name than born a
princess, for I knew him very wise and very good, and his soul doted on
me; upon which confidence I will tell you what happened. My Lady Rivers,
a brave woman, and one that had suffered many thousand pounds' loss for
the King, and whom I had a great reverence for, and she a kindness for
me as a kinswoman--in discourse she tacitly commended the knowledge of
State affairs, and that some women were very happy in a good
understanding thereof, as my Lady Aubingny, Lady Isabel Thynne, and
divers others, and yet none was at first more capable than I; that in
the night she knew there came a post from Paris from the Queen, and that
she would be extremely glad to hear what the Queen commanded the King
in order to his affairs; saying, if I would ask my husband privately, he
would tell me what he found in the packet, and I might tell her. I that
was young and innocent, and to that day had never in my mouth, what
news?--began to think there was more in inquiring into public affairs
than I thought of, and that it being a fashionable thing, would make me
more beloved of my husband, if that had been possible, than I was. When
my husband returned home from council, after welcoming him, as his
custom ever was, he went with his handful of papers into his study for
an hour or more; I followed him: he turned hastily and said, 'What
would'st thou have, my life?' I told him, 'I heard the Prince had
received a packet from the Queen, and I guessed it was that in his
hands, and I desired to know what was in it.' He smilingly replied, 'My
love, I will immediately come to thee; pray thee go, for I am very
busy.' When he came out of his closet I revived my suit; he kissed me
and talked of other things. At supper, I would eat nothing; he as usual
sat by me, and drank often to me, which was his custom, and was full of
discourse to company that was at table. Going to bed I asked again, and
said I could not believe he loved me, if he refused to tell me all he
knew; but he answered nothing, but stopped my mouth with kisses. So we
went to bed; I cried, and he went to sleep. Next morning early, as his
custom was, he was called to rise, but began to discourse with me first;
to which I made no reply; he rose, came on the other side of the bed and
kissed me, and drew the curtain softly and went to court. When he came
home to dinner, he presently came to me as was usual, and when I had
him by the hand, I said, 'Thou dost not care to see me troubled;' to
which he, taking me in his arms, answered, 'My dearest soul, nothing
upon earth can afflict me like that; and when you asked me of my
business, it was wholly out of my power to satisfy thee, for my life and
fortune shall be thine, and every thought of my heart in which the trust
I am in may not be revealed; but my honour is my own, which I cannot
preserve if I communicate the Prince's affairs; and pray thee with this
answer rest satisfied.' So great was his reason and goodness, that upon
consideration it made my folly appear to me so vile, that from that day
until the day of his death, I never thought fit to ask him any business
but what he communicated freely to me, in order to his estate and
family."
When a man comes home tired, hungry, and put out about something that
has gone wrong in business, this is not the time for his wife to order
him to stand and deliver his secret troubles. Rather, she should give
him a well-cooked dinner and say little or nothing. Later on in the
evening, when he is rested and has smoked a pipe of peace, he will be
only too glad to give her his confidence in return for her sympathetic
treatment of him. It seems to me that there is more of vulgar
familiarity than of confidence in a man and wife at all times opening
each other's letters. A sealed letter is sacred; and all persons like to
have the first reading of their own letters. Why should a close
relationship abrogate respectful courtesy?
Artemus Ward tells us that when he was at Salt Lake he was introduced to
Brigham Young's mother-in-law. "I can't exactly tell you how many there
is of her, but it's a good deal." Married people require to drive gently
when there is in the way the stumbling-block of "a good deal" of
mother-or other relations-in-law. Certainly Adam and Eve were in
paradise in this respect. "When I want a nice snug day all to myself,"
says an ingenuous wife, "I tell George dear mother is coming, and then I
see nothing of him till one in the morning." "Are your domestic
relations agreeable?" was the question put to an unhappy-looking
specimen of humanity. "Oh, my domestic relations are all right; it is my
wife's relations that are causing the trouble." It is true we read in
the _Graphic_ a year or two ago an exception to the usual dislike to
mothers-in-law, but the exception was scarcely reassuring. A
well-dressed young woman of nineteen informed a magistrate that her own
mother had run away with her husband. This _mater pulchrior_ came to
stay with her _filia pulchra_, won the affections of the husband, and,
at last, withdrew him from his hearth and home. Still it is the duty of
people to keep on terms of at least friendly neutrality with their
relations-in-law. Where there is disunion there are generally faults on
both sides.
We know of a working-man who on the eve of his marriage signed a promise
to abstain from intoxicating liquor. He put the document into a frame
and presented it to his wife after the wedding as a marriage settlement.
And certainly there cannot be a better marriage settlement than for a
young husband to settle his habits.
The young husband or wife who is in the least degree careless in the use
of intoxicating drinks should read the following account which Mr. Gough
gives of a case which he met in one of the convict prisons of America.
"I was attracted, while speaking to the prisoners in the chapel, by the
patient, gentle look of one of the convicts who sat before me, whose
whole appearance was that of a mild-tempered, quiet man. After the
service, one of the prison officers, in reply to my question, stated
that this same man was serving out a life term. I asked what was the
possible crime for which he was serving a life term in a State prison.
'Murder.' 'Murder?' 'Yes, he murdered his wife.' Having asked if I might
have an interview with him, my request was granted, and I held a
conversation with him. 'My friend, I do not wish to ask you any
questions that will be annoying; but I was struck by your appearance,
and was so much surprised when I heard of your crime, that I thought I
would like to ask you a question. May I?' 'Certainly, sir.' 'Then why
did you commit the crime? What led you to it?' Then came such a pitiful
story. He said: 'I loved my wife, but I drank to excess. She was a good
woman; she never complained; come home when or how I might, she never
scolded. I think I never heard a sharp word from her. She would
sometimes look at me with such a pitying look that went to my heart;
sometimes it made me tender, and I would cry, and promise to do better;
at other times it would make me angry. I almost wished she would scold
me, rather than look at me with that patient earnestness. I knew I was
breaking her heart; but I was a slave to drink. Though I loved her, I
knew I was killing her. One day I came home drunk, and as I entered the
room I saw her sitting at the table, her face resting on her hand. Oh,
my God! I think I see her now! As I came in she lifted up her face;
there were tears there; but she smiled and said, "Well, William." I
remember just enough to know that I was mad. The devil entered into me.
I rushed into the kitchen, seized my gun, and deliberately shot her as
she sat by that table. I am in prison for life, and have no desire to be
released. If a pardon was offered me, I think I should refuse it. Buried
here in this prison, I wait till the end comes. I trust God has forgiven
me for Christ's sake. I have bitterly repented; I repent every day. Oh,
the nights when in the darkness I see her face--see her just as she
looked on me that fatal day! I shall rejoice when the time comes. I pray
that I may meet her in heaven.' This was said with sobbings and tears
that were heart-breaking to hear."
"There goes me but for the grace of God!" "What, is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this great thing?" No! not a dog, but a young man or a
young woman who is liable to forget that "small habits well pursued
betimes may reach the dignity of crimes." If you do not measure your
liquor with as much care as strong medicine; if you are not on your
guard against those drinking habits of society and business which first
draw, then drag, and then haul--beware lest tyrant custom make you a
slave to what has been called "the most authentic incarnation of the
principle of evil."
CHAPTER XII.
FURNISHING.
"By wisdom is a house built; by understanding it is established;
and by knowledge the chambers are filled with all pleasant and
precious treasures."--_Solomon's Practical Wisdom._
"We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn
every English home, if we choose, into a picture which shall be
no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life
indeed."--_Ruskin._
A condition of pleasantness in a house has a real power in refining and
raising the characters of its inmates; so home should not only be a
haven of rest, peace, and sympathy, but should have an element of beauty
in all its details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensibilities and
lower the spirits. D'Israeli said, "Happiness is atmosphere," and from
this point of view a few words about furnishing may not be out of place
in our inquiry as to how to be happy though married. Certainly the
fitting up and arranging of a home will not appear unimportant to those
who think with Dr. Johnson that it is by studying little things that we
attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as
possible. "Pound St. Paul's church into atoms and consider any single
atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing; but put these atoms together,
and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which is
made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very
insignificant."
The expense of furnishing is often a source of considerable anxiety to
young people about to marry. We think, however, that this matrimonial
care is, or should be, much more lightly felt than in past years.
Competition has made furniture cheaper, and it is now considered "bad
form" to crowd rooms or to have in them the large heavy things that were
so expensive. Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the
day. A few light chairs of different sizes and shapes, a small lounge,
one or two little tables, the floor polished round the edges and covered
in the centre with a square of carpet, or, if the whole room be stained,
with Oriental rugs where required; the windows hung with some kind of
light drapery--what more do newly-married people require in their
drawing-room? Oh! we have forgotten the piano, and we suppose it is
inevitable, but it can easily be hired.
It is a great gain for a young couple to be compelled to economize, for,
rich as they may become afterwards, habits of thrift never quite leave
them. Their furniture may be scanty and some of it not very new, but
common things can be prettily covered, and the dullest of rooms is set
off by the knick-knacks that came in so plentifully among the bridal
spoils. Besides, if they start with everything they want, there is
nothing to wish for, and no pleasure in adding to their possessions.
George Eliot has a subtle remark about the "best society, where no one
makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages
of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows
from being accustomed to them."
No doubt there will be pictures and photographs, the hanging of which
occasions considerable discussion, and perhaps involves the first
serious divergence of opinion. We must remember, however, that it is
much better to have no pictures than bad ones, and that photographs of
scenery are rarely decorative. As regards one's relations when they are
really decorative, even Mr. Oscar Wilde can see no reason why their
photographs should not be hung on the walls, though he hopes that, if
called on to make a stand between the principles of domestic affection
and decorative art, the latter may have the first place.
It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that we do not know to
be useful or think to be beautiful. We should show our love of art and
beauty in our surroundings, and bring it to bear in the selection of the
smallest household trifle. To have things tasteful and pretty costs no
more than to have them ugly; but it costs a great deal more trouble.
Simplicity, appropriateness, harmony of colour--these produce the best
results. When we enter a room, the first feeling ought to be, "How
comfortable!" and the second, as we glance quickly round to discover
_why_, ought to be, "How beautiful!" Not a touch too much nor too
little. The art is to conceal art. Directly affectation enters, beauty
goes out. But while there should be nothing bizarre in our method of
furnishing, rooms should reflect the individuality of their owners. They
should never look as if they were furnished by contract. People should
allow their own taste to have its way. Whatever we have, let it not be
flimsy, but good of its kind. Good things are cheapest in the end, and
it is economy to employ good dependable tradespeople.
When he heard of the occurrence of some piece of mischief, George the
Fourth used to ask, "Who is _she_?" This question may be asked with much
more reason when we enter a pretty room. Who is she whose judgment and
fingers have so arranged these unconsidered trifles as to make out of
very little an effect so charming? Compare a bachelor's house with the
same house after its master has taken to himself a helpmate. "Bless
thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated!" the friends of his
former state may well exclaim. Of course we are supposing the lady's
head to be furnished, for if that do not contain a certain amount of
common sense, good taste, and power of observation, the result will soon
be observed in her house. A drawing-room should be for use and not for
show merely, and should be furnished accordingly. It should be tidy, but
not painfully tidy. Self-respect should lead us to have things nice in
our homes, whether the eyes of company are to see them or not. It was
surely right of Robinson Crusoe to make his solitary cave look as smart
as possible. Who does not respect the wife whose dinner-table is
prettily adorned with flowers even on days when no one but her husband
has the honour of dining with her?
To furnish the kitchen is a troublesome and unsatisfactory business. It
is unsatisfactory because one expends on kitchen utensils, which are
rather dear, a considerable amount of money without having much to show.
And it is troublesome to have to distinguish between the many implements
a cook really does require and those which she only imagines to be
necessary. Still, cook must be supplied with every appliance that is
really necessary. Without these there may be an expenditure of time out
of all proportion to her task. On the equipoise of that lady's temper
depends to a not inconsiderable extent the comfort of the house. Have in
the kitchen a good clock, and teach your servants to take a pleasure in
making sweet and bright their own special chambers.
Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer curtains on beds, or
heavy carpets on the floors of sleeping apartments. Both foster dust,
and dust conceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes made
a too convenient receptacle for dust is evident from the answer that was
once given by a housemaid. Professing to have become converted to
religion, she was asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus
replied: "Now," she said, "I sweep _under_ the mats." For bedrooms there
should be narrow, separate, tight-woven strips of carpet around the bed
and in front of furniture only. These are easy to shake, and in every
sense in harmony with the simplicity and cleanliness which, if health is
to be preserved, must pervade the bedroom. The more air it contains the
better, and hence everything superfluous should be banished from it. But
we shall not specify the different things which, in our opinion, should,
or should not, be found in the several rooms of a house, for after all
it is the arrangement of furniture rather than the furniture itself that
makes the difference.
If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up furniture at auctions
or to buy it in shops? we reply, Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up
to the eye, and it is seldom possible to examine them. So you generally
find on returning home from a sale that your purchases are by no means
what they seemed.
As regards the expense of furnishing a small house such as young
housekeepers of the middle class usually hire when first they settle
down in life, this of course varies with circumstances, but even one
hundred pounds ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly,
one should know the tastes of the people concerned, their social
position, the size of their house, and the style of the locality in
which they propose to live. Very good furniture can sometimes be
obtained secondhand, but one must be on their guard against "bargains"
that are worthless. There are certain articles, such as lamps, beds, and
bedding, that should as a general rule be purchased new.
People are generally in too great haste when furnishing. They should be
prudent, deliberate, and wait with their eyes open until they see the
sort of things that will suit them. They should buy the most instantly
necessary articles first with ready money, and add to these as they can
afford it to carry out ideas formed by observation. They should buy what
can be easily replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what their
servants can properly attend to, and what will save labour and time.
CHAPTER XIII.
MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY.
"Never treat money affairs with levity--money is character."--_Sir E.
Bulwer Lytton._
A Scotch minister, preaching against the love of money, had frequently
repeated that it was "the root of all evil." Walking home from the
church one old person said to another, "An wasna the minister strang
upon the money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, and added, "Ay, but it's
grand to hae the wee bit siller in your hand when ye gang an errand." So
too, in spite of all that love-in-a-cottage theorists may say, "it's
grand to hae the wee bit siller" when marrying; unless, indeed, we
believe that mortality is one of the effects of matrimony as did the
girl, who, on meeting a lady whose service she had lately left, and
being asked, "Well, Mary, where do you live now?" answered, "Please,
ma'am, I don't live now--I'm married." To marry for love and work for
silver is quite right, but there should be a reasonable chance of
getting work to do and some provision for a rainy day. It is only the
stupidity which is without anxiety, that complacently marries on
"nothing a week; and that uncertain--very!" And yet such flying in the
face of Providence is often spoken of as being disinterested and heroic,
and the quiverfuls of children resulting from it are supposed to be
blessed. As if it were a blessing to give children appetites of hunger
and thirst, and nothing to satisfy them.
On the other hand, there is some truth in the saying that "what will
keep one will keep two." There are bachelors who are so ultra-prudent,
and who hold such absurd opinions as to the expense of matrimony that,
although they have enough money they have not enough courage to enter
the state. Pitt used to say that he could not afford to marry, yet his
butcher's bill was so enormous that some one has calculated it as
affording his servants about fourteen pounds of meat a day, each man and
woman! For the more economical regulation of his household, if for no
other reason, he should have taken to himself a wife.
Newly-married people should be careful not to pitch their rate of
expenditure higher than they can hope to continue it; and they should
remember that, as Lord Bacon said, "it is less dishonourable to abridge
petty charges (expenses) than to stoop to petty gettings." That was
excellent advice which Dr. Johnson gave to Boswell when the latter
inherited his paternal estate: "You, dear sir, have now a new station,
and have, therefore, new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley
seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem; of which one rule
generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and should
promise little. Begin your new course of life with the least show, and
the least expense possible; you may at pleasure increase both, but you
cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own, while
any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore
begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in
any man's debt."
The thrifty wife of Benjamin Franklin felt it a gala day indeed when, by
long accumulated small savings, she was able to surprise her husband one
morning with a china cup and a silver spoon, from which to take his
breakfast. Franklin was shocked: "You see how luxury creeps into
families in spite of principles," he said. When his meal was over he
went to the store, and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through
the streets with his own hands, lest folks should get wind of the china
cup, and say he was above his business.
Although the creeping in of luxury is to be guarded against at the
commencement of married life, people should learn to grow rich
gracefully. It is no part of wisdom to depreciate the little elegances
and social enjoyments of our homes. Those who can afford it act wisely
when they furnish their houses with handsome furniture, cover the walls
with suggestive paintings, and collect expensive books, for these things
afford refined enjoyment. One day a gentleman told Dr. Johnson that he
had bought a suit of lace for his wife. _Johnson_: "Well, sir, you have
done a good thing, and a wise thing." "I have done a good thing," said
the gentleman, "but I do not know that I have done a wise thing."
_Johnson_: "Yes, sir, no money is better spent than what is laid out for
domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as
well as other people; and a wife is pleased that she is dressed."
We should be particular about money matters, but not penurious. The
penny soul never, it is said, came to twopence. There is that
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. People are
often saving at the wrong place, and spoil the ship for a halfpenny
worth of tar. They spare at the spigot, and let all run away at the
bunghole.
She is the wise wife who can steer between penuriousness and such
recklessness as is described in the following cutting from an American
periodical. "My dear fellow," said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk
about economizing and keeping a rigid account of expenses, and that sort
of thing, but I've tried it. Two weeks ago I stepped in on my way home
Saturday night, and I bought just the gayest little Russian leather,
cream-laid account-book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match it. I
said to my wife after supper: 'My dear, it seems to me it costs a lot of
money to keep house.' She sighed and said: 'I know it does, Lavvy; but
I'm sure I can't help it. I'm just as economical as I can be. I don't
spend half as much for candy as you do for cigars.' I never take any
notice of personalities, so I sailed right ahead. 'I believe, my dear,
that if we were to keep a strict account of everything we spend we could
tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little account-book, and
every Monday morning I'll give you some money, and you can set it down
on one side; and then, during the week, you can set down on the other
side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night we can go over it
and see just where the money goes, and how we can boil things down a
little.' Well, sir, she was just delighted--thought it was a first-rate
plan, and the pocket account-book was lovely--regular David Copperfield
and Dora business. Well, sir, the next Saturday night we got through
supper, and she brought out that account-book as proud as possible, and
handed it over for inspection. On one side was, 'Received from Lavvy, 50
dols.' That's all right! Then I looked on the other page, and what do
you think was there? '_Spent it all!_' Then I laughed, and of course she
cried; and we gave up the account-book racket on the spot by mutual
consent. Yes, sir, I've been there, and I know what domestic economy
means, I tell you. Let's have a cigar."
It is the fear of this sort of thing, and especially of extravagance in
reference to dress, that confirms many men in bachelorship. A society
paper tells us that at a recent dance given at the West-end, a married
lady of extravagant habits impertinently asked a wealthy old bachelor if
he remained single because he could not afford to keep a wife. "My
innocent young friend," was the reply, "I could afford to keep three;
but I'm not rich enough to pay the milliner's bills of one."
A wife who puts conscience into the management of her husband's money
should not be obliged to account to him for the exact manner in which
she lays out each penny in the pound. An undue interference on his part
will cause much domestic irritation, and may have a bad influence on
social morals.
In "Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson," his wife says, "So
liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated the
mention of severed purses; his estate being so much at her disposal
that he never would receive an account of anything she expended."
No one can feel dignified, free, and happy without the control of a
certain amount of money for the graces, the elegant adornments, and,
above all, for the charities of life. The hard-drawn line of simply
paying the bills closes a thousand avenues to gentle joys and pleasures
in a woman's daily life.
We would advise all wives to strike the iron when hot, so to speak, by
getting their husbands, before the ardour of the honeymoon cools, to
give them an annual allowance. The little unavoidable demands on a
husband's purse, to which a wife is so frequently compelled to have
recourse, are very apt to create bickering and discord; and when once
good-humour is put out of the way, it is not such an easy matter to
bring it back again.
A Chicago young lady, on being asked the usual question in which the
words "love, honour, and obey" occur, made the straightforward reply:
"Yes, I will, if he does what he promises me financially." The conduct
of some husbands almost justified this answer.
As regards the important subject of Life Insurance there are few
husbands and fathers who can afford to be indifferent to the possibility
of making adequate and immediate provision for those dependent upon
them, in case of their sudden removal.
This matter of Life Insurance should be settled before marriage, as well
as all other monetary and legal arrangements that have to be made either
with the wife that is to be, or with her relations, because
post-matrimonial business details may introduce notes of discord into
what might have been a harmonious home. "When I courted her, I took
lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my love--'Yours, without
prejudice!'" It may not be necessary to be quite so cautious as the
lover who tells us this; but he was certainly right in transacting his
legal business before marriage rather than afterwards.
"Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you
will find it a calamity." Douglas Jerrold says that "the shirt of Nessus
was a shirt not paid for." Those who would be happy though married must
pitch their scale of living a degree below their means, rather than up
to them; but this can only be done by keeping a careful account of
income and expenditure. John Locke strongly advised this course:
"Nothing," he said, "is likelier to keep a man within compass than
having constantly before his eyes, the state of his affairs in a regular
course of account." The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed
account of all the moneys received and expended by him. "I make a
point," he said, "of paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do
the same. Formerly I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them,
but I was cured of that folly by receiving one morning, to my great
surprise, dues of a year or two's standing. The fellow had speculated
with my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking of debt, his remark
was, "It makes a slave of a man." Washington was as particular as
Wellington was in matters of business detail. He did not disdain to
scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his household, even when holding
the office of President of the American Union.
When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was asked what he paid for his
wine, he replied that he did not know; but he believed they "put
something down in a book." This "putting down in a book" has proved the
ruin of a great many people. The regular weekly payment of tradesmen is
not only more honest, but far more economical. I know a wife who says
that she cannot afford to get into the books of tradesmen, and who
prides herself upon the fact that she will never haunt her husband after
her death in the shape of an unpaid
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