How to be Happy Though Married Part 7

When Hodge and his sweetheart crown their pastoral loves in the quiet old country church, they take a pleasant drive or a walk in their finery, and settle down at once to connubial comfort in the cot beside the wood. Why do their richer neighbours deny themselves this happiness and invent special troubles? Why, during the early weeks of married life, do they lay up sad memories of provoking mistakes, of trunks which will not pack, of trains which will not wait, of tiresome sight-seeing, of broiling sun, of headache, of "the fretful stir unprofitable, and the fever" of honeymooning abroad? Many a bridegroom but just returned from a "delightful tour on the Continent" will be able to sympathize in the remark of the country farmer to a companion in the train, as he went to town to buy hay. "Yes, it's been a bad winter for some folk. Old Smith's dead, and so is Jones, and my wife died yesterday. And how be the hay, master?"

We do not want excitement during the honeymoon, for are we not in love (if we are not we ought to be ashamed of ourselves), and is not love all-sufficient? Last week we only saw the object of our affections by fits and starts as it were; now we have her or him all to ourselves.

"Who hath not felt that breath in the air, A perfume and freshness strange and rare, A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere, When young hearts yearn together?

All sweets below, and all sunny above, Oh! there's nothing in life like making love, Save making hay in fine weather."

Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when not greatly mismanaged, _is_ a halcyon period. It is a delightful lull between two distinct states of existence, and the married man is not to be envied who can recall no pleasant reminiscences of it. What profane outsiders consider very dull has a charm of its own to honeymoon lovers who "illumine life with dreaming," and who see--

"Golden visions wave and hover, Golden vapours, waters streaming, Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!"

Still, we cannot but think that if a wedding tour must be taken it should be short, quiet, free-and-easy, and inexpensive. At some future time, when the young people are less agitated and have learned to understand each other better, the time and money saved will be available for a more extended holiday. During the honeymoon there should be "marches hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather than globe-trotting; "thoughts moved o'er fields Elysian" rather than over the perplexing pages of "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide."

In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters, people's opinions differ according to their temperaments and circ.u.mstances. So we shall conclude this chapter by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask our readers to decide for themselves.

In the "Memoir of Daniel Macmillan" his opinion is thus stated: "That going out for the honeymoon is a most wise and useful invention; it enables you to be so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper knowledge of each other; and it also helps one to see and feel the preciousness of such intimacy as nothing else could. Intercourse in the presence of others never leads below the surface, and it is in the very depths of our being that true calm, deep and true peace and love lie.

Nothing so well prepares for the serious duties of after-life."

"As to long honeymoons," says the Bishop of Rochester, "most sensible people have come utterly to disbelieve in them. They are a forced homage to utterly false ideas; they are a waste of money at a moment when every shilling is wanted for much more pressing objects; they are a loss of time, which soon comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a risk for love, which ought not so soon to be so unpleasantly tested by the inevitable petulances of a secret _ennui_. Six days by all means, and then, oh! happy friends, go straight home.... Whenever you come back, six weeks hence or one, you will have just as much to stand the fire of a little hard staring which won't hurt you, and of bright pleasantness which need not vex you; and the sooner you are at home, the sooner you will find out what married happiness means."

CHAPTER X.

MARRIAGE VOWS.

"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."--_Ecclesiastes_ v. 5.

The honeymoon is over, and our young couple have exchanged their chrysalis condition for the pleasures and duties of ordinary married life. Let them begin by forming the highest ideal of marriage. Now, and on every anniversary of their wedding day, they should seriously reflect upon those vows which are too often taken, either in entire ignorance of their meaning and import, or thoughtlessly, as though they were mere incidents of the marriage ceremony.

A Hampshire inc.u.mbent recently reported some of the blunders he had heard made in the marriage service, by that cla.s.s of persons who have to pick up the words as best they can from hearing them repeated by others.

He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion for the man, when giving the ring, to say to the woman: "With my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou." He said the women were generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One day, however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to be language of the Prayer Book, to take her husband "to 'ave and to 'old from this day fortn't, for betterer horse, for richerer power, in siggerness health, to love cherries, and to bay." We have heard of an ignorant bridegroom, who, confusing the baptismal and marriage services, replied, when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife: "I renounce them all!" It is to be hoped that the times of such ignorance are either pa.s.sed or pa.s.sing; still, a little instruction in reference to marriage vows might be given with advantage in some churches.

In one of his letters Byron tells a story of a learned Jew, who was remarkable, in the brilliant circles to which his learning gained him admittance, for his habit of asking questions continuously and fearlessly, in order to get at the bottom of any matter in discussion.

To a person who was complaining of the Prince Regent's bad treatment of his old boon companions, this habitual interrogator cried across a dinner-table: "And why does the prince act so?" "Because he was told so-and-so by Lord ----; who ought to be ashamed of himself!" was the answer. "But why, sir, has the prince cut _you_?" inquired the searcher after truth. "Because I stuck to my principles--yes, sir, because I stuck to my principles!" replied the other, testily, thinking that his examination was ended. "_And why did you stick to your principles?_"

cried the interrogator, throwing the table into a roar of laughter, the mirth being no more due to the inquisitor's persistence than to his inability to conceive that any man would stick to his principles simply because he believed them to be right. Are there not some educated as well as uneducated people who seem to be quite as incapable of conceiving that they should keep their marriage vows, simply because it is dishonourable and wicked to break them?

A mother having become alarmed about the failing state of her daughter's health, and not being able to get much satisfaction from a consultation with the village doctor, took her to a London physician for further advice. He asked a few questions as to the girl's daily habits and mode of life, carefully stethoscoped her heart and lungs, and then gave an involuntary sigh. The mother grew pale, and waited anxiously for a verdict "Madam," he said, "so far as I can discover, your daughter is suffering from a most serious complaint, which, for want of a better name, I shall call 'dulness.' Perhaps it is in your power to cure it. I have no medicine which is a specific for this disease." Girls, who suffer in this way, too often prescribe for themselves marriage with men whom they cannot love, honour, and obey. This is as bad as dram-drinking, or gambling; but what else can the poor things do? They have not been trained like their brothers to useful work, and have always been told that woman's first, best occupation is--to be a wife.

To which it may be answered--

"Most true; but to make a mere business of marriage, To call it a 'living,' 'vocation,' 'career,'

Is but to pervert, to degrade, and disparage A contract of all the most sacred and dear."

Nor will those vows be regarded with greater sanct.i.ty which are taken against the inclination. Better to be as candid as the girl who, forced by her parents into a disagreeable match, when the clergyman came to that part of the service where the bride is asked if she will have the bridegroom for her husband, said, with great simplicity, "Oh dear, no, sir; but you are the first person who has asked my opinion about the matter!"

Let us think now what the vows are which, at the altar of G.o.d, and in the presence of our fellow-creatures, we solemnly vow. Both the man and the woman vow to love, honour, cherish, and be faithful, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, till death part them. Then the husband promises to comfort his wife, and the wife to serve and obey her husband.

A Scotch lady, whose daughter was recently married, was asked by an old friend whether she might congratulate her upon the event. "Yes, yes,"

she answered; "upon the whole it is very satisfactory; it is true Jeannie hates her gudeman, but then there's always a something." The old friend might have told this Scotch lady that in making light of love she made light of that which was needful to hallow her daughter's marriage; and that even the blessing of a bishop in the most fashionable church does not prevent a loveless alliance from being a sacrifice of true chast.i.ty.

Contrast the indifference of this Scotch lady in reference to matrimonial love, with the value set upon it in a letter which Pliny the Younger, who was a heathen, wrote concerning his wife, Calpurnia, to her aunt. It is quoted by Dr. Cook as follows: "She loves me, the surest pledge of her virtue, and adds to this a wonderful disposition to learning, which she has acquired from her affection to me. She reads my writings, studies them, and even gets them by heart. You would smile to see the concern she is in when I have a cause to plead, and the joy she shows when it is over. She finds means to have the first news brought her of the success I meet with in court. If I recite anything in public, she cannot refrain from placing herself privately in some corner to hear. Sometimes she accompanies my verses with the lute, without any master except love--the best of instructors. From these instances I take the most certain omens of our perpetual and increasing happiness, since her affection is not founded on my youth or person, which must gradually decay; but she is in love with the immortal part of me."

The second vow taken by both the man and the woman is to "honour."

"Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel." "And the wife see that she reverence her husband." The weaker vessel is to be honoured, not because she is weak, but because, being weak, she acts her part so well.

And even if the wife's courage and endurance should sometimes fail, a good husband would not withhold honour from her on that account. He would remember her weaker nature, and her more delicate physical frame, her more acute nervous sensibility, her greater sensitiveness and greater trials, the peculiar troubles to which she is subject.

In a lately published "Narrative of a Journey through the South China Border Lands," we are told that a wife in this part of the world, when mentioned by her husband, "which happens as seldom as possible," is called "My dull thorn," "The thorn in my ribs," or "The mean one of the inner rooms." This is the way _not_ to honour a wife. But the honour which a husband should give is not merely that chivalrous bearing which the strong owe to the weak, and which every woman has a right to expect from every man. In describing a husband who was in the habit of honouring his wife, Dr. Landels remarks that "one could not be in his presence without feeling it. Never a word escaped his lips which reflected directly or indirectly on her. Never an action he performed would have led to the impression that there could be any difference between them. She was the queen of his home. All about them felt that in his estimation, and by his desire, her authority was unimpeachable, and her will law. And the effect of his example was that children and friends and domestics alike hedged her about with sweet respect. A man of strong will himself, his was never known to be in collision with hers; and, without any undue yielding, the homage which he paid to his wife made their union one of the happiest it has ever been our privilege to witness."

And the wife, on her part, is to reverence and honour her husband as long as she possibly can. If possible, she should let her husband suppose that she thinks him a _good_ husband, and it will be a strong stimulus to his being so. As long as he thinks he possesses the character, he will take some pains to deserve it; but when he has lost the name he will be very apt to abandon the reality altogether. "To treat men as if they were better than they are is the surest way to _make_ them better than they are." Keats tells us that he has met with women who would like to be married to a Poem, and given away by a Novel; but wives must not cease to honour their husbands on discovering that instead of being poetical and romantic they are very ordinary, imperfect beings.

There are homes where poverty has never left its pinch nor sickness paid its visit; homes where there is plenty on the board, and health in the circle, and yet where a skeleton more grim than death haunts the cupboard, and an ache harsher than consumption's tooth gnaws sharply at the heart. Why do those shoulders stoop so early ere life's noon has pa.s.sed? Why is it that the sigh which follows the closing of the door after the husband has gone off to business is a sigh of relief, and that which greets his coming footstep is a sigh of dread? What means that nervous pressing of the hand against the heart, the gulping back of the lump that rises in the throat, the forced smile, and the pressed-back tear? If we could but speak to the husbands who haunt these homes, we would tell them that some such soliloquy as the following is ever pa.s.sing like a laboured breath through the distracted minds of their wives: "Is this the Canaan, this the land of promise, this the milk and honey that were pictured to my fancy; when the walks among the lanes, and fields, and flowers were all too short, and the whispers were so loving, and the pressure was so fond, and the heart-beat was so pa.s.sionate? For what have I surrendered home, youth, beauty, freedom, love--all that a woman has to give in all her wealth of confidence?

Harsh tones, cold looks, stern words, short answers, sullen reserve."

"What," says the cheery neighbour, "is that all?" All! What more is needed to make home dark, to poison hope, to turn life into a funeral, the marriage-robe into a shroud, and the grave into a refuge? It does not want drunkenness, blows, bruises, clenched fists, oaths, to work sacrilege in the temple of the home; only a little ice where the fire should glow; only a cold look where the love should burn; only a sneer where there ought to be a smile. Husband! that wife of yours is wretched because you are a liar; because you perjured yourself when you vowed to love and cherish. You are too great a coward to beat her brains out with a poker lest the gallows claim you; but you are so little of a man that you poison her soul with the slow cruelty of an oath daily foresworn and brutally ignored. If the ducking-stool was a punishment of old for a scolding wife, a fiercer baptism should await the husband who has ceased to cherish his wife.

As regards the vow of fidelity we need only quote these words of the prophet Malachi: "The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one?

Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth." But there are absentee husbands and wives who, though they are not guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, do by no means keep the promise of keeping only to their wives and husbands. If a man come home only when other places are shut, or when his money is all gone, or when n.o.body else wants him, is he not telling his wife and family, as plainly by deeds as he could possibly by words, that he takes more delight in other company than in theirs?

Charles Lamb used to feel that there was something of dishonesty in any pleasures which he took without his lunatic sister. A good man will feel something like this in reference to his wife and children.

But though men should love their homes, it is quite possible for them to be too much at home. This at least is the opinion of most wives. There is everywhere a disposition to pack off the men in the morning and to bid them keep out of the way till towards evening, when it is a.s.sumed they will probably have a little news of the busy world to bring home, and when baby will be sure to have said something exceptionally brilliant and precocious. The general events of the day will afford topics of conversation more interesting by far than if the whole household had been together from morning till night. Men about home all day are fidgety, grumpy, and interfering--altogether objectionable, in short.

As a rule it is when things are going wrong that women show to the best advantage. Every one can remember ill.u.s.trations. We have one in the following story of Hawthorne, which was told to Mr. Conway by an intimate friend of the novelist. One wintry day Hawthorne received at his office notification that his services would no longer be required.

With heaviness of heart he repaired to his humble home. His young wife recognizes the change and stands waiting for the silence to be broken.

At length he falters, "I am removed from office." Then she leaves the room; she returns with fuel and kindles a bright fire with her own hands; next she brings pen, paper, ink, and sets them beside him. Then she touches the sad man on the shoulder, and, as he turns to the beaming face, says, "Now you can write your book." The cloud cleared away. The lost office looked like a cage from which he had escaped. "The Scarlet Letter" was written, and a marvellous success rewarded the author and his stout-hearted wife.

The care some wives take of their husbands in sickness is very touching.

John Richard Green, the historian, whose death seemed so untimely, is an instance of this. His very life was prolonged in the most wonderful way by the care and skill with which he was tended; and it was with and through his wife that the work was done which he could not have done alone. She consulted the authorities for him, examined into obscure points, and wrote to his dictation. In this way, when he could not work more than two hours in the day, and when often some slight change in the weather would throw him back and make work impossible for days or weeks, the book was prepared which he published under the t.i.tle of "The Making of England."

The husband's vow to "comfort" was never better performed than by Cobbett. In his "Advice to Young Men" he says: "I began my young marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of those times to which I have just alluded, in the middle of the burning hot month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife for want of sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had any sleep for more than forty-eight hours. All great cities in hot countries are, I believe, full of dogs, and they, in the very hot weather, keep up during the night a horrible barking and fighting and howling. Upon the particular occasion to which I am adverting they made a noise so terrible and so unremitted that it was next to impossible that even a person in full health and free from pain should obtain a minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the bed. 'I do think,' said she, 'that I could go to sleep _now_, if it were not _for the dogs_.' Downstairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and trousers, and without shoes and stockings; and, going to a heap of stones lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going backward and forward, and keeping them at two or three hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes might possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the bricks of the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired effect: a sleep of several hours was the consequence, and, at eight o'clock in the morning, off went I to a day's business which was to end at six in the evening.

"Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to ask my wife whether _all_ English husbands were like hers, she boldly answered in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my time, Sundays and week-days, except sleeping hours; but I used to make time to a.s.sist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water and wood for the day, then dress myself neatly and sally forth to my business. The moment that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more thought of spending a moment _away from her_, unless business compelled me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The _thunder_ and _lightning_ are tremendous in America compared with what they are in England. My wife was at one time very much afraid of thunder and lightning; and, as is the feeling of all such women, and indeed all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband, in those times of danger. I knew well of course that my presence would not diminish the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of home, I used to quit my business and hasten to her the moment I perceived a thunderstorm approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and last, _run_ on this errand in the streets of Philadelphia! The Frenchmen who were my scholars used to laugh at me exceedingly on this account; and sometimes, when I was making an appointment with them, they would say, with a smile and a bow, '_Sauve le tonnerre toujours, Monsieur Cobbett!_'"

Much is said both wise and otherwise in reference to the obedience which a wife vows to yield to her husband. One who wrote a sketch of the Rev.

F. D. Maurice tells us that he met him once at a wedding breakfast.

Maurice proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom. The lady turned round, and in rather bad taste exclaimed, "Now, Mr. Maurice, I call you to witness that I entertain no intention of obeying." Maurice answered with his sad, sweet smile, "Ah, madam, you little know the blessedness of obedience."

Of course no one believes that it is a wife's duty to obey when her husband wishes her to act contrary to the dictates of conscience. As little is she expected to conform to a standard of obedience and service such as was laid down in a conversation overheard between two children who were playing on the sands together. Small boy to little girl: "Do you wish to be my wife?" Little girl, after reflection; "Yes." Small boy: "Then pull off my boots." We all rejoice in the fact that woman's rights are very different now from what they used to be, at least in Russia, where, Dr. Lansdell tells us, anciently at a wedding the bridegroom took to church a whip, and in one part of the ceremony lightly applied it to the bride's back, in token that she was to be in subjection. Is there not still, however, much truth in the old couplet:

"Man, love thy wife; thy husband, wife, obey.

Wives are our heart; we should be head alway"?

On a great many points concerning the pecuniary or other interests of the family, the husband will usually be the wisest, and may most properly be treated as the senior or acting partner in the firm.

"The good wife," says Fuller, "commandeth her husband in any equal matter, by constantly obeying him. It was always observed, that what the English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of the English in cunning by treaties. So if the husband should chance by his power in his pa.s.sion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth by compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again."

This is very much what the well-known lines in "Hiawatha" teach--

"As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him; Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other!"