Chapter XIII: Part 13

No young man has any right to ask a young woman to enter the matrimonial bonds with him till he is thoroughly acquainted with the female constitution and character. Woman loves the strong, the resolute, and the vigorous in man. To these qualities she looks for protection. Under the shadow of their wings she feels secure. But she wants them blended with the tender, the sensitive, and the lofty in sentiment. Her companionship, her joy, she finds in these sentiments. Where she finds these she pours the full tides of her loving soul, and willingly enters the bower of conjugal felicity. He who knows not her nature knows not how to gratify and satisfy that nature. So woman should know the nature of man. The rough world often makes him appear what he is not. He has a vein of tenderness below the sternness of his worldly manners which woman should know how to penetrate and bring for her own, as well as for his, proper enjoyment. It is in this strata of tenderness that she finds her true companionship with him, and he with her. If she is ignorant of his nature she knows not how to supply his wants or answer the calls of that nature. Thus we see most clearly the necessity of a thorough study of this whole subject by every youth. It is ignorance in these matters that causes a great amount of matrimonial infelicity.

Some are disappointed in marriage because they expect too much from it; but many more because they do not bring into the copartnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindness, forbearance, and common sense. Their imagination has pictured a condition of things never experienced on this side of heaven, and when real life comes with its troubles and cares there is a sudden wakening up as from a dream. Or, they look for something approaching perfection in their chosen companion, and discover by experience that the fairest of characters have their weaknesses. Yet it is often the very imperfection of human nature, rather than its perfections, that makes the strongest claims on the forbearance and sympathy of others and, in affectionate and sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions.

Marriage is the source from whence originates, as from a radiant point, the most beautiful glories of life, and also the deepest cares. Talk as we will of marriage, it is a real affair—it abounds in homely details. The joys of the wedding morn are quickly followed by the anxious cares of daily life. But if entered understandingly, and lived as becomes thoughtful, considerate human beings, each of whom tries to bear with the other's infirmities, and to consider the other's happiness as paramount with their own, it then becomes a delightful scene of domestic happiness, to which all true men and women look forward as the condition of life most consonant to their true happiness.

In the minds of nearly all properly constituted individuals there exists the hope and expectation of marriage. This is in accordance with the law of God as written in our physical being, and the young man who marries not, save in a few exceptional cases, arising out of ill health, deformity, or eccentricity of character, fails in one of the most palpable duties of life. He deprives himself of life's most refined and exalted pleasures, of some of its strongest incentives to virtue and activity, sets an example unworthy of imitation, and fails to do much good that he might do in society. Moreover, he leaves one who might have made him a happy and useful companion to pine in maidenhood of heart through all the weary days of life.

A single life is not without its advantages, while a married one that fails of accomplishing its true end is the acme of earthly wretchedness. It is eminently proper to prepare for marriage, since this is designed by the Almighty Author to promote the health, happiness, purity, and real greatness of our species. But it is an error to fancy that you can not be truly happy in a single state, or hastily to assume the responsibilities of married life without due consideration. There is many a wife who, having married hastily and with a lack of due caution, has buried her hopes even of happiness deep in a grave of despair. And many a man who married without due thought and consideration can date from that hour the death of his ambitious purposes, and in the disappointments of married life lose sight of the glorious hopes which inspired him while single.

If the greatest happiness, and perhaps the only real and genuine kind, is to be found in the blessings of chaste and devoted love, yet matrimony, it must be acknowledged, is chargeable with numberless solicitudes and responsibilities; and if it often causes the heart to exult in joy, it as frequently makes it throb with pain. If it does not fall to your lot to participate in the delights and pleasures of a happy and reciprocal union of hearts; if destiny has restricted your sympathies and thwarted your desires, and consigned you, perhaps unwillingly, to solitude and celibacy; if you are only a neutral spectator of those scenes wherein great artifice and deception, unfairness and insincerity are too often practiced, and often hearts are won, but happiness lost, you may console yourself that there are many positive advantages in being alone. The command of time and freedom from many cares should open the way to new and beneficial sources of pastime and usefulness sufficient to reconcile you to your condition, and to make it as enviable as that of those who have more incumbrances but less ease, and who sometimes act as if the world was made for matrimony and nothing else.

From the actions and conversations of some people you would suppose that marriage was the chief end of life, which view is altogether degrading and debasing in its tendency. For while admitting that it is, indeed, that state of life most becoming the dignity and happiness of man, yet it is not true that single life does not present fields of usefulness and honor, and that, above all things, it is true wisdom to remain single to the end of your days, unless you are satisfied that it is advisable to unite your destiny with that of another.

Marriage has a great refining and moralizing tendency. When a man marries early and uses prudence in choosing a suitable companion, he is likely to lead a virtuous, happy life; but in an unmarried state all alluring vices have a tendency to draw him away. Marriage renders a man more virtuous and more wise. An unmarried man is but half of a perfect being, and it requires the other half to make things right; and it can not be expected that in this imperfect state he can keep straight in the path of rectitude any more than that a boat with one oar can keep a straight course. Marriage changes the current of a man's feelings, and gives him a center for his thoughts, his affections, and his acts.

There are exceptions to every rule; but the chances are that the young man who marries will make a stronger and better fight all through life than he who remains single. The reason of this is not difficult to find. A man will not put forth all his energies who has not something outside of self to draw him on and to incite him to put forth his best exertions. He also feels the lack of a home, which tends to round out life. He may, indeed, have a place to eat, a place to sleep, and, for that matter, all the luxury that money can buy; but we have long since learned that money will not buy every thing. It is utterly beyond its power to purchase a home and the treasures of love. This the unmarried man can not obtain. He may be courted for his money; he may eat, drink, and revel; and he may sicken and die in a hotel or a garret, with plenty of attendants about him. But, alas! what are attendants, waiting like so many cormorants for their prey, as compared with those whose hearts are knit to him by the strong ties of family relationship.

If marriage increases the cares it also heightens the pleasures of life. If it, in some instances, dampens the enthusiasm and seems a hindrance to success in countless instances it has proved to be the incentive which has called forth the best part of man's nature, roused him from selfish apathy, and inspired in him those generous principles and high resolves which have caused all his after life to be replete with kindly acts, and himself to develop into a character known, loved, and honored by all within the sphere of its influence.

Jeremy Taylor, in contrasting single life with married life, says, in his quaint style: "Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue, and though marriage hath cares, yet single life hath desires which are more troublesome and more dangerous, and often end in sin; while the cares are but exercises of piety, and therefore, if single life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more variety of it, and is an exercise of more grace. Marriage is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the duty of parents, and the charity of relations; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a center.

"Marriage is the nursery of heaven. The virgin sends prayers to God, but she carries but one soul to him; but the state of marriage fills up the number of the elect, and hath in it the labor of love and the delicacies of friendship, the blessings of society, and the union of hearts and hands. It hath in it more safety than single life hath; it hath more care; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of joys and sorrows; it lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strength of love and charity, which makes those burdens delightful. Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches and heaven itself, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world."

Though a great deal can be urged against marriage at too early an age, or against hasty and injudicious marriages, still there arrives a time in the life of every individual when it would be a great deal wiser for him to marry than to remain single. And we suppose that the number of bachelors who remain single all their life is exceedingly small; comparatively few of them die unmarried. When least expected they contract matrimonial alliances, thereby ofttimes disappointing numerous _protégés_, who have been confidently expecting that they would come in for the property. And the chances are against such marriages being happy, for it is more one of convenience, both on his part and that of his wife. She probably takes him because he is wealthy and can provide her with a first-rate establishment. He probably marries her because he is insufferably lonely and wishes to have a home of his own, where, if he can not do every thing as he likes, he is certain of a real welcome.

Though many of the most pathetic sorrows of life are caused by the endearing relations existing, by marriage, between the suffering one and another, yet deep in the heart of many who walk through life alone, unattended by the sympathy of a loving companion,

"Lies
Deeply buried from human eyes"

some of the deepest and most soul-pervading griefs that humanity knows of. Perhaps that old man, now so cross and fretful, whom we call "old bachelor," even now has a mistiness come in his eye and a pathetic tremor in his tongue as he looks at a faded picture, to him too sacred for the curious gaze of others—a picture whose limning has faded as the real one faded long ago under the coffin lid. And there are, no doubt, many whom we call selfish, proud, cold-hearted men who once were as warm-hearted and generous as any could wish, who once poured out all the wealth of their affections on one unworthy of them, the discovery of which changed their whole nature.

There are women whom the world calls single, who are as truly wedded to a tear-stained package as if it really were the being it represents to them—who live in the old, sweet time those missives once belonged to, and who keep their hearts apart from the dull reality that makes up the present world. Years may have passed, and nothing remains the same except the dear dream that never knew reality, yet, held in their love-life by their fragile paper bonds, they still dwell in that fair, unsubstantial Spring-time, while Autumn fades and Winter, cold and dreary, reigns in all the outer world.

The marriage institution is the bond of social order, and if treated with due respect, care, and consideration greatly enhances individual happiness and consequently general good. The Spartan law punished those who did not marry, those who married too late, and those who married improperly. Though positive law has long since ceased to exercise any discretion as to whether a person marries or remains single, yet, as the foundation of marriage is fixed in the law of God, written in our physical being, it follows that it is none the less true now than in the morning of time that it is "not good for man to be alone." For ages history has shown that the permanent union of one man with one woman establishes a relation of affection and interest which can in no other way be made to exist between two human beings. Hence marriage, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view, becomes to him an aid in the stern conflicts of life.

Many a man has risen from obscurity to fame who in the days of his triumphant victory has freely and gracefully acknowledged that to the sympathy and encouragement of his wife during the long and weary years of toil he owed very much of his achieved success. The good wife! How much of this world's happiness and prosperity is contained in the compass of these two short words! Her influence is immense. The power of a wife for good or for evil is altogether irresistible. Home must be the seat of happiness or it must be forever unknown. A good wife is to a man wisdom and courage, strength and endurance; a bad one is confusion and weakness, discomfiture and despair. No condition in life is hopeless when the wife possesses firmness, decision, energy, and economy. There is no outward prosperity which can counteract indolence, folly, and extravagance at home. No spirit can long resist bad domestic influences.

Man is strong, but his strength is not adamant. He delights in enterprise and action; but to sustain him he needs a tranquil mind and a whole heart. He expends his moral force in the conflicts of the world. In the true wife the husband finds not affection only, but companionship—a companionship with which no other can compare. The family relationship gives retirement with solitude, and society without the rough intrusion of the world. It plants in the husband's dwelling a friend who can bear his silence without weariness; who can listen to the details that affect his interests or sympathy; who can appreciate his repetition of events, only important as they are embalmed in the heart.

Common friends are linked to us by a slender thread. We must reclaim them by ministering to their interests or their enjoyments. What a luxury it is for a man to feel that in his home there is a true and devoted being, in whose presence he may throw off restraint without danger to his dignity, he may confide without fear of treachery, and be poor or unfortunate without fear of being abandoned. If in the outer world he grows weary of human selfishness, his heart can safely trust in one whose indulgence overlooks his defects.

The treasure of a wife's affection, like the grace of God, is given, not bought. Gold is power. It can sweep down forests, raise cities, build roads, and deck houses; but wealth can not purchase love and the affections of a wife. If any husband has failed to estimate the affections of a true wife, he will be likely to mark their value in his loss, when the heart that loved him is stilled by death. Is man the child of sorrow, and do afflictions and distresses pour their bitternesses into his cup? How are his trials alleviated, his sighs suppressed, his corroding thoughts dissipated, his anxieties and fears relieved, his gloom and depression chased away by her cheerfulness and love! Is he overwhelmed by disappointments and mortified by reproaches? There is one who can hide his faults from her eyes, and can love without up-braiding.

A judicious wife is constantly exerting an influence for good over her husband. She is, so to speak, the wielder of the moral pruning knife, and is constantly snipping off from her husband's moral nature little twigs that are growing in the wrong direction. Intellectual beings of different sexes were surely intended by their Creator to go through the world thus together, united not only in hand and heart, but in principles, in intellect, in views, and in dispositions, each pursuing one common and noble end—their own improvement and the happiness of those around them by the different means appropriate to their situation, mutually correcting, sustaining, and strengthening each other, undegraded by all practices of tyranny on the one hand and deceit on the other, each finding a candid but severe judge in the understanding, and a warm and partial advocate in the heart, of their companion.

A great deal has been said in a cynical way about the immense number of unhappy marriages. There is so much said on this subject that it is easy to forget that for every instance of complaint there are thousands of beneficent and prosperous unions of which the world never hears. It is natural that the evil attracts the most attention. Men and women whose married life is full of good and helpfulness do not often feel an impulse to defend the system under which they live. Sometimes we hear both sexes repine at their change, relate the happiness of their earlier years, blame the folly and rashness of their own choice, and warn others against the infatuation. But it is to be remembered that the days which they so much wish to call back are the days not only of celibacy, but of youth—the days of novelty and of improvement, of ardor and of hope, of health and vigor of body, of gayety and lightness of heart. It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and we are afraid that, whether married or single, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbersome the longer it is worn.

It is human to see only the good side of any thing that is past and gone. Life is so full of disappointments that whenever in mature years we recall past days, our present state, being present reality, always suffers by comparison with the past. It would be well to calmly reflect on what happiness in married life depends. There is a great deal of mischief wrought in the world by the common understanding of the phrase "mismated." Many apparently act as if all the ills of married life could be explained by a convenient use of that word.

It is arrogant folly to suppose that so much misery and wrong, so much selfishness and cruelty, so much that is low, animal, and unlovely in the lives of men and women, results from their being "mismated." They have, in the majority of cases, mistaken the cause of their trouble. These men and women are undeveloped, exacting, selfish, proud. They have undisciplined tempers, and they are accustomed to think of happiness for themselves as the chief end of marriage. No magic of "mating" would make the lives of such people very high or perfect.

Nowhere does it prove so powerfully true as in married life, that your happiness is found in consulting the happiness of another. We are too prone to trust to specific treatment for particular evils. The real problem of happiness in married life is not difficult of solution if only sought with a spirit of willingness to learn the truths. There are no short roads to happiness. The men and women who marry must somehow acquire thoughtfulness, self-control, consideration for others, patience, and the other qualities, without which life is unendurable in any relations we know of. All candid persons will so readily admit this, that marriage speedily becomes a school for the exercise of virtue, and is the source and nurse of many of the best qualities in the life of man or woman.

It is indeed wonderful that marriage does so much for them, and has such power to lift up their lives to light and beauty. The man who remains single to the end of his days can not well help growing cynical, cold, and selfish. By nature he may be as warm-hearted, as full of generous impulses, as any, but he has only himself to care for. He has never felt the necessity of striving to make happy the life of another. He has never known what it is to have a woman's heart, full of womanly tenderness and strength, affection, sympathy, and encouragement, looking to him for love and happiness, for protection and comfort; has never learned the lesson of patience as it is learned in bearing with the faults of a loved one. He has never known what it is to have a little child turn to him as the source of consolation for its childish troubles and sorrows. It can not but follow that, lacking all the bitter-sweet experience of married life, he shall in that degree fail of being a complete man.

True, there are natures that, whether married or single, would only develop into the cold, hard-hearted disposition; but that does not at all detract from the fact that marriage does thus tend to make life more replete with kindness and manly attributes than celibacy. Every man feels the need of a home, and there is no more sorrowful sight than to see a man bent with the weight of years, who is homeless and has no friends united to him by family ties. There can not be a home without the institution of marriage. Think for a moment how much of the joy and sorrow of life is connected with the word home. What visions of hopes, what days of joy, what seasons of sorrow, does it not recall? All the lights and shades of life originate from thence. How, then, can a man or woman lacking the experience of home and married life possess the strength of character, the full and complete development, expected from those who have taken upon themselves the joys and sorrows, the cross and crown of matrimony?

Happiness in life is of such momentous importance that it becomes all to study well the conditions of happiness, and to none does this truth apply itself with greater force than to those who have taken upon themselves the duties of matrimony. It is vain and useless now to ponder the wisdom and propriety of the choice. The step has been taken, and it only remains now to take up the duties thus voluntarily assumed, and, in the due performance of the same, do what is in their power to gather the happiness with which God, in his goodness, has invested the marriage relation.

Husbands and wives should learn to live happily together, for the lesson _can_ be learned. By living happily together we do not understand a calm, passive existence, unbroken by a single dissenting word or look, because persons are incapacitated for happiness who can adapt themselves to such an impotent existence. Occasional differences of opinion indicate mutual vitality, and, when backed by common sense and self-control, are no drawbacks to a peaceful life. But in all vital points of mutual interest husband and wife should agree perfectly, understanding that their interests are mutual, and that in every sense of the word they are one.

Life is real, and our every-day wants and desires remain the same after as before marriage. All the infirmities of our nature must still be fought against. The marriage ceremony does not do away with the necessity of self-control; the passions still have to be subdued, and a careful watch maintained against hasty words and actions. Many, in failing to recognize these truths, are laying the foundation for future unhappiness. It is so easy to imagine that the loved one is all perfection, and when the soul is filled with the sweet influence of love it is so easy to think that this is sufficient for all the ills of life, that now these two "harps of a thousand strings" will henceforth always be attuned to each other, and thus, ignoring the fact that human nature is extremely frail, forget to strengthen it by the exercise of reflection and judgment, fail to summon to their aid consideration and a disposition to bear and forbear, suddenly awaken to the fact that life has ever its trials, and that—

"For the busiest day some duty waits."

They then learn that happiness comes only as the result of persistent following in the paths of duty, that no ceremony or rite can change their nature, that the plain rules of courtesy and kindness, consideration and respect, are as necessary now as in the Spring-time of love.

Love on both sides and all things equal in outward circumstances are not all the requisites of domestic felicity. Young people seldom court in their every-day dress, but they must put it on after marriage. As in other bargains but few expose defects. They are apt to marry faultless. Love is blind, but faults are there and will come out. The fastidious attentions of wooing are like Spring flowers—they make pretty nosegays, but poor greens. The beautiful romance with which so many have invested the morning-time of wedded life is apt to wear off under the burden and heat of its noon. That this should not be so all will admit; that wedded love, like the river running to the ocean, should grow in magnitude as it rolls through life should, no doubt, be the result of all well-lived matrimonial lives. But, from the constitution and nature of man, such, unfortunately, is not always the case. The honeymoon, at times, gets an unexpected dash of vinegar, and at last it disappears altogether in the prosaic duties of home life. This is the trying hour of married life. Between the parties there can be no more illusions. The deceptions of courtship are no longer of avail.

Right here is the chance to make or mar the happiness of life. Why not look the matter plainly in the face? Why not recognize the fact that life is not romance? It is a real thing, and altogether too precious to be thrown away in secret regrets or open indifference. It is your duty now to begin the duty or adaptation. If you have neglected to study the conditions of happiness heretofore begin at once to do so. If you have been derelict in duty resolve to do your share now. If you find you do not love each other as you thought you did double your attentions to each other, and be zealous of any thing which tends in the slightest way to separate you. Acknowledge your faults to one another, and determine that henceforth you will be all in all to each other. There is no other way for you to do. It is not too late for you to look for happiness. You are yet young. It is folly to expect naught but disappointment the rest of your life.

The fault is in human nature, and, like most faults, has a remedy. It is well to study for the remedy, for the man or woman who has settled down on the conviction that he or she is attached for life to an uncongenial mate, and that there is no way of escape, has lost life; there is no effort too costly to make which can restore the missing pearl to its setting upon the bosom. No doubt much of the unhappiness of married life would be saved if only the sober views of life and duty were more carefully considered before marriage. If only every couple would consider that over against every joy stands a duty, and that tears and smiles alternate with each other through life, they would save themselves much disappointments. It is not too late, however, to begin; and so, if this truth be not recognized before marriage, do not delay an instant when once stern facts have withdrawn the pleasing illusions with which an untaught fancy invested matrimony, and life, with its duties as well as its pleasures, appears to your view.

It has always seemed to us that much of the danger of home life springs from its familiarity; that in the intimate relations of husband and wife the parties are too apt to forget the claims of courtesy which are constantly pressing upon them. While there should be no strictness of formal etiquette between the parties, it is none the less true that, since life is made up of forms and ceremonies, and much of the pleasures of life depend on the due observance of the same, that a spirit of courtesy should constantly exist between husband and wife. Before marriage each would be cautious of a breach of manners, and would strive to demean themselves as became ladies and gentlemen. Are not the claims of courtesy just as pressing now as ever? Has the marriage ceremony given you any right to be less than polite? And, in a still higher sense, when you reflect that true courtesy is ever accompanied by the spirit of kindness and a dignity of carriage the more pressing are its claims.

It is difficult to conceive of any station in life where the exercise of patience is not imperatively demanded. All life is effectually teaching and emphasizing this lesson of patience. But marriage affords a field where too great an importance can not be attached to it. Its claims are fresh every morning and new every evening, and it were difficult to conceive of any thing which had more to do with home happiness than bearing patiently the innumerable vexations which are constantly thrown in your path. Every coupled pair flatter themselves that their experience will be better aid more excellent than that of many who have gone before them. They look with amazement at the coldness, complainings, and dissatisfaction which spoil the comfort of so many, homes as at things which can not by any possibility fall to their happier lot. But like causes produce like effects, and to avoid the misfortune of others we must avoid their mistakes.

The acquaintance of courtship is a very one-sided affair, both parties seeing through the peculiar atmosphere which magnifies virtue, changes defects into beauties, and makes the discovery of faults impossible. The discovery will certainly come, and those who had thought each other next to perfection will soon discover that some few imperfections and the common weaknesses of humanity remain. Disappointment is felt where there is no just reason for it. They had thought they were perfectly adapted to each other, and that mutual concessions would involve no self-denial, and that whatever either desired the other would instantly yield. But experience teaches that the work of mutual adaptation is precisely what they have to learn, to understand each other's peculiarities and tastes, weaknesses and excellencies, and by self-discipline and kindness of construction on both sides to receive and impart a modifying influence, bringing them nearer each other all the time, until through this interchangeable moral and spiritual culture the hopes of happiness are fully realized.

But this happy result, which is unquestionably the highest earth affords, depends in a great degree upon the manner in which the first few years of married life are spent, and the success with which its first unavoidable trials are met and overcome. Some allow themselves to lose sight of the great truth that happiness is surest found in consulting the happiness of others. The husband should have as his great object and rule of conduct the happiness of his wife. Of that happiness the confidence in his affection is the chief element; and the proofs of this affection on his part, therefore, constitute his chief duty. An affection that shows itself not in caresses alone, as if these were the only demonstration of love, but of that respect which distinguishes love as a principle, from that brief passion which assumes, and only assumes, the name—a respect which consults the judgment as well as the wishes of the object beloved, which considers her who is worthy of being taken to the heart as worthy of being admitted to all the counsels of the head.

Do not forget that your happiness both here and hereafter depends upon each other's influence. An unkind word or look, or an unintentional neglect sometimes lead to thoughts which ripen into the ruin of body and soul. A spirit of forbearance, patience, and kindness, and a determination to keep the chain of love bright, are likely to develop corresponding qualities, and to make the rough places of life smooth and pleasant. Have you seriously reflected that it is in the power of either of you to make the other utterly miserable? And when the storms and trials of life come, for come they will, how much either of you can do to calm, to elevate, to purify the troubled spirit of the other, and change clouds for sunshine!

It is emphatically the duty of all who have entered into marriage to strive to forget self, and in furthering the happiness of the other to advance their own; ever remembering that, even though attended with the fairest of outward prospects, infirmity is inseparably bound up with your very nature, and that in bearing one another's burdens you are fulfilling one of the highest duties of the union. Love in marriage can not subsist unless it be mutual; and where love can not be there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful and as unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy.

We celebrate the wedding and make merry over the honeymoon. The poet paints the beauties and blushes of the blooming bride; and the bark of matrimony, with its freight of untested love, is launched on the sea of experiment, amid kind wishes and rejoicing. But on that precarious sea are many storms, and even the calm has its perils; and only when the bark has weathered these, and landed its cargo in the haven of domestic peace, can we pronounce the voyage prosperous and congratulate on their merited and enviable reward.

As long as human nature is what it is, we must expect that life of any kind will abound in trials. To conceive of a life utterly devoid of these is to conceive of a vegetative kind of existence. Trials, then, are to be expected, and they must be overcome. This is none the less true of married life. Marriages may be celebrated in bowers as fair as those of Eden, but they must be proved and put to test in the workshops of the world. And as each state of existence has its peculiar trials and cares, we need not be disappointed when experience teaches that, though marriage hath indeed great joys, it has also its trials and vexations.

In prosaic, every-day life romantic minds are speedily sobered down, and the gloss of pretension is soon worn off. Hands that have heretofore seen no harder work than to entice strains of music from ivory keys, perhaps find themselves engaged in the less poetical, but equally as praiseworthy, occupation of mixing bread, or in the performance of other plain household duties which require to be dispatched, not by angels, but by women. And the possessor of faultless clothes and a silken mustache finds himself weighed down with altogether different burdens than those of holding fans and carrying parasols; and he is called upon to solve other questions than those relating to social etiquette.

Courtship is to many a dreamy resting-place betwixt the joys of youth and the cares of maturity. Under the light of hope married life is nearly always a land of rainbows to the youth; but, as to produce the rainbow it requires the falling rain as well as the shining sun, so, when the nature of these prospective joys is carefully investigated, it will not surprise one to find that trials and duties are interposed between their present stand-point and the pure happiness of domestic life.

To many a young couple, when life's realities come, come also the discovery of traits of character in each other which perfectly astonish them. Every day reveals something new and something unpleasant. The courtship character slowly fades away, and, with sorrow be it said, too often the courtship love as well. Now comes disappointment, sorrow, regret. They find that their characters are entirely dissimilar; they also awake to the fact that married life is full of cares, vexations, and disappointments. This, indeed, should have been expected; but it is human to see naught but joys in the future, especially from the stand-point of youth. This discovery often shipwrecks the happiness of the unfortunate couple.

We have all seen the trees die in Summer-time. But the tree, with its whispering leaves and swaying limbs, its greenness, its umbrage, where the shadows lie hidden all the day, does not die all at once. First a dimness creeps over its brightness; next a leaf sickens here and there, and fades; next a whole bough feels the palsying touch of coming death; and finally the feeble signs of sickly life, visible here and there, all disappear, and the dead trunk holds out its stripped, stark limbs, a melancholy ruin. Just so does wedded love sometimes die. Wedded love, blessed with the prayers of friends, hallowed by the sanction of God, rosy with present joys, and radiant with future hopes, it dies not all at once. A hasty word casts a shadow upon it, and the shadow deepens with the sharp reply. A little thoughtlessness misconstrued, a little unintentional negligence, deemed real, a little word misinterpreted,—through such small channels do dissension and sorrow enter the family circle. Love becomes reticent, confidence is chilled, and noiselessly but surely the work of separation goes on, until the two are left as isolated as the pyramids, nothing remaining of the union but the legal form—the dead trunk of the tree, whose branches once waved in the sunlight. Is it not a melancholy reflection on human nature that petty trials and difficulties, from which no life is free, should have wrought such a startling effect?

The great secret is to learn to bear with each other's failings; not to be blind to them—that were either an impossibility or a folly. We must see and feel them; if we do neither, they are not evils to us, and there is obviously no need of forbearance. We are to throw the mantle of charity around them, concealing them from the curious gaze of others; to determine not to let them chill the affections. Surely it is not the perfections, but the imperfections, of human character that make the strongest claims on our love.

All the world must approve and even enemies must admire the good and the estimable in human nature. If husband and wife estimate only that in each which all must be constrained to value, what do they more than others? It is the infirmities of character, imperfections of nature, that call for pitying sympathy, the tender compassion that makes each the comforter, the monitor of the other. Forbearance helps each to attain command over themselves. This forbearance is not a weak and wicked indulgence of each other's faults, but such a calm, tender observation of them as excludes all harshness and anger, and takes the best and fullest method of pointing them out in the full confidence of affection.

It should be remembered that trials and sufferings are the real test of merit in all life, as they bring out the real character. In married life husband and wife are often adapted to each other through trials, and the closest union is often wrought by suffering, even as iron is welded by heat. As much of the happiness of real life is artificial, so many things in wedded life that to third persons must seem as trials are, after all, only the sweetness of domestic life. How many couples, now in mature life and surrounded by luxury and all the comforts of wealth, look back to the days of early privation as amongst the happiest days of their life! Succeeding years have brought them wealth, but it took with them their domestic happiness.

Marriage is too frequently the end instead of the beginning of love. The dreams of courtship vanish too often into thin air soon after the wedding ring is put on. The realization of that perfect and unalloyed happiness that each partner anticipated is seldom found in the holy bonds of matrimony. Cool and distant, with a feeling that the sweet courtesies of wooing-time are now out of place, they treat each other with an indifference that ends in mutual aversion and contempt. This is altogether wrong. As reasoning men and women they have entered the relation; it is vain to suppose it is one of unmixed delights. It has its trials. You must expect to meet them. The conditions of happiness there are much the same as elsewhere, therefore the only sure way of finding it is to forget self in the furtherance of the happiness of others. The trials of wedded life are seen to be but the approaches to its joys when once the spirit of kindly forbearance is spread abroad in the heart.

It must seem to all who seriously meditate on this subject that many of the trials of married life arise from mistaken notions of economy and the right use of money. Every wife knows her husband's income or ought to know it. That knowledge should be the guide of her conduct. A clear understanding respecting the domestic expenses is necessary to the peace of every dwelling. If it be little, "better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." If it be ample, let it be enjoyed with all thankfulness. Partners in privation are more to each other than partners in wealth. Those who have suffered together love more than those who have rejoiced together. Where a wife, seeing her duty, has made up her mind to this, she will brighten her little home with smiles that will make it a region of perpetual sunshine.

We account these two things essential to the happiness of married life,—to have a home of your own, and to live distinctly and honestly within your means. A great proportion of the failures in wedlock may be traced directly to the neglect of the latter rule. No man can feel happy or enjoy the sweets of domestic life who is spending more than he earns. No sensible person will account it a hardship to begin on a moderate scale; and those who do thus begin, and afterwards attain to the possession of wealth, always look back to the days of "small things" with peculiar satisfaction as the golden days of their hearts, if not of their purses. True affection delights in the opportunities of self-denial and in the little acts of personal service, for which there is scarcely any place in the house of the rich.

At the shrine of domestic ambition much of the comfort and happiness of home life is immolated, and, for the sake of appearance, happiness and content are exchanged for wearying cares. To regulate our expenses by other people's income is the height of folly, and to contract debts for a style of living which is of our neighbor's choosing rather than our own is nearly akin to insanity. There is no happiness, social, domestic, or individual, without independence; and no dependence is so bitter as that of debt. And when you reflect how needless this is, you can readily see that in this instance, as in many others, the trials are of our own choosing, and might be avoided by consideration and care.

"O let us walk the world, so that our love
Burns like a blessed beacon, beautiful,
Upon the walls of life's surrounding dark."

—MASSEY.

The true marriage is the result of years of mutual endeavor to please, and comes of patient efforts to learn each other's disposition and taste. This can be done by all who cherish right views of the duties and pleasures of the marriage relation.

You have but one life to live, and no amount of money or influence or fame can pay you for a life of unhappiness. You can not afford to quarrel with one another. You can not afford to cherish a single thought, to harbor a single desire, to gratify a single passion, nor indulge a single selfish feeling, that will tend to make this union any thing but a source of happiness to you. So it becomes you at starting to have a perfect understanding with one another. It becomes you to resolve that you will be happy together at any rate, or that if you suffer it shall be from the same cause and in perfect sympathy. You are not to let any human being step between you under any circumstances.

Human character, by a wise provision of Providence, is infinitely varied, and there are not two individuals in existence so entirely alike in their tastes, habits of thought, and natural aptitude that they can keep step with one another over all the rough places in the journey of life. There must be a leaning to one another. The compromise can not be all on one side. You can be happy together if you will, but the agreement to be happy must be mutual. Draw your souls closer and closer together from year to year. Get all obstacles out of the way. Just as soon as one arises attend to it, and get rid of it. At last they will all disappear. You will have become wonted to one another's habits and frames of mind and peculiarities of disposition, and love, respect, and charity will take care of the rest.

If you observe faults in your companion keep them to yourself. What right have you, who should be the very one to kindly conceal faults, to inform others of their presence? Neither father nor mother, neither brother nor sister, have any right to be informed of the secrets of your domestic life. A husband and wife have no business to tell one another's faults to any body but themselves. They can not do it without shame. Their grievances are to be settled in private between themselves, and in all public places and among friends they are to preserve towards one another that nice consideration and entire respectfulness which their relations enjoin. With a true wife the husband's faults should be secret. A wife forgets when she condescends to that refuge of weakness, a female confidant. A wife's bosom should be the tomb of her husband's failings, and his character far more valuable in her estimation than life.

Happiness between husband and wife can only be secured by that constant tenderness and care of the parties for each other which are based upon warm and demonstrative love. The heart demands that the man shall not sit silent, reticent, and self-absorbed in the midst of his family. The wife who forgets to provide for her husband's tastes and wishes renders her home undesirable for him. In a word, ever-present and ever-demonstrative gentleness must reign, or else the heart starves.

There is propriety in all things, and though public displays of affection, familiarity of touch, and half-concealed caresses are always distasteful to men and women of sense, yet love is of such a nature that you must give it expression or it languishes. There are husbands so cold and formal that they have no kiss or caress for the wives whom they really love. There are wives to whom a single demonstration that shall tell to their hearts how inexpressibly pleasant their faces and their society are, and how fondly they are loved, would be better than untold gold.

The affection that should link together man and wife is a far holier and more enduring passion than the enthusiasm of young love. It may want its gorgeousness or its imaginative character, but it is far richer in its attributes. It should not call for such daily proofs of existence as is demanded of the lover, but it is human to wish for the freshness of morning to continue far into the day and evening. True, it is vain to expect this, but humanity continually wishes for what can not be; and, though the glow and sparkle of the morning of love will fade away, yet it should be as fades the bewitching charm of morning into the quiet splendor of the Summer day; and, though recognizing that exhibitions of tenderness so appropriate for the morning of life are out of place in its noon, yet, as long as it is human to love, so long are exhibitions of it, quiet though they may be, gratifying to the one beloved.

We exhort you who are a husband to love your wife even as you love yourself. Continue through life the same manly tenderness that in youth gained her affections. Reflect that though her bodily charms may not now be so great as then, yet that habit and a thousand acts of kindness have strengthened your mutual friendship. Devote yourself to her, and after the hours of business let the pleasures which you most highly prize be found in her society. The true wife wishes to feel sure that she is precious to her husband—not useful, not valuable, not convenient simply, but that she is dear to him; let her be the recipient of his polite and hearty attentions; let her notice that her cares and loves are noticed, appreciated, and returned, her opinions asked, her approval sought, and her judgment respected; in short, let her only be loved, honored, and cherished in fulfillment of the marriage vow, and she will be to her husband a well-spring of pleasure.

We exhort you who are wife to be gentle and considerate to your husband. Let the influence which you possess over him arise from the mildness of your manner and the discretion of your conduct. Whilst you are careful to adorn your person with new and clean apparel—for no woman can long preserve affections if she is negligent on this point—be still more attentive in ornamenting your mind with meekness and peace, with cheerfulness and good humor. Lighten the cares and chase away the vexations to which he is inevitably exposed in his commerce with the world by rendering, as far as is in your power, his home pleasant. Keep at home. Let your employment and pleasures be domestic.

What a man desires in a wife is her companionship, sympathy, and love. The way of life has many dreary places in it, and man needs a companion to go with him. A man is sometimes overtaken by misfortune; he meets with failure and defeat, trials and temptation beset him, and he needs one to stand by and sympathize. All through life, through storms and through sunshine, conflicts and victory, man needs a woman's love. Let him think upon his duty in return for this love. You who have taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and kind companionship, have you done what you could to make amends for the loss of those friends and companions? Remember what your wife was when you took her, not from compulsion, but from your own choice—a choice based on what you then considered her superiority to all others. She was young—perhaps the idol of her happy home; she was as gay and blithe as the lark, and the brothers and sisters at her father's cherished her as an object of endearment. Yet she left all to join her destiny with yours—to make your home happy, and to do all that womanly ingenuity could do to meet your wishes, and to lighten the burdens which might press upon you.