"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.
"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."
"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."
"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: