Social Life Part 20

The vow and its tangible witnesses come next. All agreements require to be attested; and this as much more than others as it is the most obligatory. Both need its unequivocal and mutual mementos, to be cherished for all time to come as its perpetual witnesses. This vow of each to the other can neither be made too strong, nor held too sacred.

If calling G.o.d to witness will strengthen your mutual adjuration, swear by Him and His throne, or by whatever else will render it inviolable, and commit it to writing, each transcribing a copy for the other as your most sacred relics, to be enshrined in your "holy of holies."

Two witnesses are required, one for each. A ring for her and locket for him, containing the likeness of both, as always showing how they now look, or any keepsake both may select, more or less valuable, to be handed down to their posterity, will answer.

Your mode of conducting your future affairs should now be arranged.

Though implied in selection, yet it must be specified in detail. Both should arrange your marriage relations; say what each desires to do, and have done; and draw out a definite outline plan of the various positions you desire to maintain towards each other. Your future home must be discussed: whether you will board, or live in your own house, rented, or owned, or built, and after what pattern; or with either or which of your parents. And it is vastly important that wives determine most as to their domiciles; their internal arrangements, rooms, furniture, management; respecting which they are consulted quite too little, yet cannot well be too much.

Family rules, as well as national, state, corporate, financial, must be established. They are most needed, yet least practiced in marriage.

Without them, all must be chaotic. Ignoring them is a great but common marital error. The Friends wisely make family method cardinal.

A Full Understanding.

Your general treatment of each other now especially requires to be mutually agreed upon. Each should say, "I should like to treat and be treated by you thus, but not so; and let you do this but not that;"

and both mutually agree on a thousand like minor points, better definitely arranged at first than left for future contention; each making requisitions, conceding privileges, and stipulating for any fancies, idols, or "reserved rights."

Differences must needs arise, which cannot be adjusted too soon. Those const.i.tutionally inherent in each should be adjusted in love's _early_ stages; it matters less how, than whether to your mutual satisfaction.

Or if this is impossible, "agree to disagree;" but settle on something.

A concessionary spirit is indispensable, and inheres in love. Neither should insist, but both concede, in all things; each making, not demanding sacrifices. The one who loves most will yield to oblige most. What course will make both happiest should overrule all your mutual relations.

Write down and file all. Your present decisions, subject to mutual changes and amendments, will become more and more important for future reference, as time rolls on, by enabling each to correct both; for our own changes make us think others have changed. A mutual diary is desirable; for incidents now seemingly trivial, may yet become important.

Important Trifles.

See or correspond with each other often. Love will not bear neglect.

Nothing kills it equally. In this it is most exacting. It will not, should not, be second in anything. "First or nothing," is its motto.

Meet as often as possible. After its fires have once been lit, they must be perpetually resupplied with their natural fuel; else they die down, go out, or go elsewhere; and are harder to rekindle than to light at first.

A splendid young man, son of one of New England's most talented and pious divines, endowed with one of the very best of organisms, physical and phrenological, having selected his mate, and plighted their mutual vows, being the business manager of a large manufactory, and obliged to defend several consecutive lawsuits for patent-right infringements, neglected for weeks to write to his betrothed, presupposing, of course, that all was right. This offended her ladyship, and allowed evil-minded meddlers to sow seeds of alienation in her mind; persuade her to send him his dismissal, and accept a marriage proposal from another.

As he told his mournful story, he seemed like a st.u.r.dy oak riven by lightning and torn by whirlwinds; its foliage scorched, bark stripped, limbs tattered, even its very rootlets scathed; yet standing, a stern, proud, defiant, resolute wreck. A gushing tear he manfully tried but failed to suppress. His lips quivered and voice faltered. Perceiving his impending fate, he seemed to dread his future more than present; and hesitated between self-abandonment, and a merely mechanical, objectless, business life. In attempting his salvation, by proffering advice to the "broken-hearted," he respectfully but firmly declined; deliberately preferring old-bachelorship, with all its dearths, of which he seemed fully conscious. He felt as if he had been deeply wronged.

Yet was not he the _first_ practically to repudiate? He suffered terribly, because he had sinned grievously, not by commission, but omission. He felt the deepest, fullest, manliest love, and revelled in antic.i.p.ations of their future union, but did not _express_ it; which was to her as if he had not felt it; whereas, had he saved but one minute per week to write lovingly, "I long to be with you, and love you still," or, "Business does not, cannot diminish my fondness," he would have saved her broken vows, and his broken heart.

Mingling other enjoyments with love, by going together to picnics and parties, sleigh-rides and Mayings, concerts, and lectures, marvellously cements the affections.

Love Feeds on Love.

Meet in your most attractive habiliments of mind and person. French ladies will see their affianced only when arrayed in their best toilet. Yet mental charms vastly surpa.s.s millinery. Neither can render yourselves too lovely.

Express affectionate fondness in your visits and letters; the more the better, so that you keep it a sentiment, not debase it by animal pa.s.sion. It is still establishing its rootlets, like young corn, instead of growing. Allow no amatory excitement, no frenzied, delirious intoxication with it; for its violence, like every other, must react only to exhaust and paralyze itself by its own excesses.

Affianced young man, life has its epochs, which revolutionize it for good or bad. You are now in one. You have heretofore affiliated much with men; formed habits of smoking or chewing tobacco; indulged in late suppers; abused yourself in various ways; perhaps been on sprees.

Now is your time to take a new departure from whatever is evil to all that is good and pure. Break up most of your masculine a.s.sociations; and affiliate chiefly with your affianced. Be out no more nights. Let your new responsibilities and relations brace you up against their temptations; and, if these are not sufficient, your prospective spouse will help. No other aid in resisting temptation and inspiring to good equals that of a loving, loved woman.

Break off from your cronyisms, clubs, societies, all engagements except such as mean imperative, cold-blooded business. Your new ties furnish an excellent excuse. All your spare time and small change are wanted for _her_. To give to bad habits the time and money due to her and setting up in life, is outrageous. Bend everything to your new relations, them to nothing. Now's your time to turn over a new leaf, and turn all the angles, corners and right-about faces needed.

Affianced maiden, you have some departures to take and corners to turn. Your life has till now been frivolous, but has now become serious. You have no more need of toilet fineries; for "your market is made," and you have work on hand far more important, namely, fitting yourself for your new duties. Find out what they demand of you, and set right about making a premium wife and mother. Both begin life anew. Forgetting the past, plant and sow now what you would gather and become always.

The Best of all Possessions.

Woman is man's choicest treasure. That is the most precious which confers the most happiness. She is adapted to render him incomparably happier than any other terrestrial possession. He can enjoy luscious peaches, melting pears, crack horses, dollars and other things innumerable; but a well-s.e.xed man can enjoy woman most of all. He is poor indeed, and takes little pleasure in this life, be his possessions and social position what they may, who takes no pleasure with her. All description utterly fails to express the varied and exultant enjoyments G.o.d has engrafted into a right s.e.xual state. Only few experiences can attest how many and great, from infancy to death, and throughout eternity itself. All G.o.d could do He has done to render each s.e.x superlatively happy in the other. Of all his beautiful and perfect work, this is the most beautiful and perfect. Of all his benignant devices, this is his most benign. All the divine attributes, all human happiness, converge in male and female adaptations to mutual enjoyments.

Each is correspondingly precious to the other. Man should prize many things, yet woman is his pearl of greatest price. He should preserve, cherish, husband many life possessions, but woman the most. He has many jewels in his crown of glory, but she is his gem-jewel, his diadem. What masculine luxury equals making women in general, and the loved one in particular, happy?

The Source of Miseries.

Beginning and conducting courtship as this chapter directs, avoiding the errors and following the directions it specifies, will just as surely render all superlatively happy as sun will rise to-morrow. Scan their sense. Do they not expound nature's love-initiating and consummating ordinances? Are they not worthy of being put into practice? Discordants, can you not trace many of your antagonisms and miseries to their ignorant violation? Parents, what are they worth to put into your children's hands, to forewarn them against carelessly, ignorantly, spoiling their marriage? Young ladies, what are they worth to you, as showing you how to so treat your admirers as to gain and redouble their heart's devotion? Young men, what are these warnings and teachings worth to you? G.o.d in his natural laws will bless all who practice, curse all who violate them.

The conduct during engagement on the part of the gentleman should be marked by the utmost courtesy toward and confidence in the woman of his choice; a state of feeling which she should fully reciprocate.

In public their behavior toward one another should not be markedly different from that displayed by them toward other men and women of their acquaintance; save that the bridegroom-elect should be on the watch that not the slightest wish of the lady be unfulfilled.

As for the lady, while she is not expected to debar herself from accepting the customary courtesies extended by the gentlemen of her acquaintance, a slight reserve should mark her conduct in accepting them. At all places of amus.e.m.e.nt or entertainment she should appear either in the company of her _fiance_, or that of some relative.

She should never captiously take offense at her _fiance's_ showing the same attention to other ladies that she, in her turn, is willing to accept from other gentlemen, and she should take the same pains to please his taste in trifles that he does to gratify her slightest wish.

This does not mean, though, that in the selfishness and blindness of love--and love is very blind and selfish sometimes--she is to shut herself up to his companionship at all times, excluding him from the family circle of which he is so soon to become a member, and "pairing off" on all occasions, thus rendering both the mark for silly jestings.

How to Cherish Love.

But, in sober matter-of-fact, that little ring of gold does not mean utter blindness. It does not mean that she is to devote her evenings exclusively to the chosen one, ignoring her family entirely. It does not mean that she is to accept valuable presents of all kinds at his hands, to expect him to give up all his friends for her sake, nor to confide all the secrets of the household to his keeping, but, as one wise woman says, to "guard herself in word and deed; hold his love in the best way possible; tie it firmly with the blue ribbon of hope, and never let it be eaten away by the little fox who destroys so many loving ties, and who is called familiarity."

Neither is this counsel to be deemed over-cautious, since, alas! even "engagements" are sometimes broken in this uncertain world, and surely there is no womanly woman that would not in such an event reflect gladly, as she took up her life once more at the old point, that she had remembered these things.

A domineering, jealous disposition on either side before marriage is not the best possible guarantee for after happiness, and if these traits are clearly shown during an engagement, the individual who escapes from such thraldom before it is too late has shown conclusively that discretion which is, at times, the better part of valor.

Conduct Toward Parents.

The gentleman should exercise some tact in regard to his conduct toward the family of his betrothed. Marked attention should be shown toward the lady's mother. He should accommodate himself as much as possible to the wishes, habits and ways of the household, and not being, as yet, a member of the family, he should not presume to show an intrusive familiarity of conversation.

The lady, on her part, should strive to show consideration, friendliness, and a desire to please the parents of her husband-that-is-to-be. Thus both will unite in the endeavor to overcome that loving jealousy so natural on the part of those who see the claims of another grown paramount in the heart of one of their number, and feel that these new links are fast becoming stronger than ties of blood and relationship.

The respective families should meet these advances with all kindness, and should also endeavor, in view of the new union pending between them, to make, if this be necessary, one another's acquaintance as soon as convenient.

Length of Engagements.

Engagements should not be entered upon prematurely, a certain degree of acquaintanceship proving no mean preparation for an arrangement of this nature. But when an engagement is once formed it should not, in the majority of cases, be of an undue length. This is a matter to be settled by the wishes or the circ.u.mstances of the contracting parties.

It is oftimes the measure of wisdom, where the obstacle is lack of fortune, to risk some degree of deprivation, rather than submit to a long-protracted engagement; the man, as head of the new home, finding a fresh motive for ambitious striving, and both parties being preserved from that coolness of feeling too attendant upon years of waiting. No homes are happier than those constructed on the principle of economy and patient effort.