The Young Man's Guide Part 17

SECTION II. _General Considerations._

We are now to enter on a most important part of our subject. Hitherto it had been my object to point out the proper course for you to pursue in reference to yourself, your own improvement, and consequent usefulness. In the remarks of the preceding chapter, and in those which follow, you are regarded as seeking a _companion_; as anxious to a.s.sume new relations, such as involve new duties and new responsibilities.

If you are successful, instead of educating yourself alone, you are to be concerned in improving the mental, moral, and social condition of two persons; and in the end, perhaps _others_. You are to be a _teacher_; you cannot avoid this station if you would. But you are also to be a _learner_. Dr. Rush says we naturally imitate the manners, and gradually acquire the tempers of persons with whom we live, provided they are objects of our affection and respect. 'This,' he adds, 'has been observed in husbands and wives who have lived long and happily together; and even in servants.' And nothing can be more true.

Not only your temper and that of your companion, but your whole character, considered as physical, mental, and moral beings, will be mutually improved or injured through life. You will be placed, as I have already intimated, at a school of mutual instruction, which is to continue without vacation or change of monitors,--perhaps half a century;--during every one of the earliest years of which, your character will be more really and more permanently modified than in the same amount of time at any prior period of your education, unless it were in the veriest infancy.

Surely then it is no light affair to make preparation for a school like this. There is no period in the life of a young man so important; for there is none on which his happiness and the happiness of others so essentially depend.

Before I advert to the particular qualifications which it is necessary for you to seek in so intimate a friend, I shall mention a few considerations of a general nature.

Settle it, in the first place, that absolute perfection is not to be found. There are not a few young men of a romantic turn of mind, fostered and increased by reading the fict.i.tious writings of the day, who have pictured to themselves for companions in life unreal forms and angelic characters, instead of beings who dwell in 'houses of clay,'

and are 'crushed before the moth.' Such 'exalted imaginations' must sooner or later be brought down: happy will it be with those who are chastened in due season.

In the second place, resolve never to be misled by any advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances. Wealth, beauty, rank, friends, &c, are all proper considerations, but they are not of the _first_ importance. They are merely secondary qualifications. Marriage must never be a matter of bargain and sale; for

In the third place, no marriage engagement should ever be thought of unless there is first a genuine and rational attachment. No cold calculations of profit or loss, no hereditary estates or other advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances, though they were equivalent to a peerage, or a realm, should ever, for one moment, even in thought, be subst.i.tuted for love. It is treason to Him who ordained this most blessed inst.i.tution.

But fourthly, though wealth, however valuable in itself, is by no means a recommendation in the present case, yet the means of a comfortable support are certainly to be regarded. It is painful to see a very young couple, with a large family, and dest.i.tute of the means of support.

In the fifth place, a _suitable age_ is desirable.

When we consider the varying tastes, habits and feelings of the same person at different periods of his life, is it not at once obvious that, other things being equal, those persons are most likely to find that happiness which is sought in matrimony, by a.s.sociating with those whose age does not differ greatly from their own? It is true, some of the happiest human connexions that ever were formed were between persons of widely differing ages; but is this the general rule? Would not those who have found happiness under other circ.u.mstances, have been _still happier_, had their ages been more nearly equal?

There is little doubt that a person advanced in life may lengthen his days by a connection with a person much younger than himself. Whether the life of the other party is not shortened, in an equal degree, at the same time, and by the same means, remains to be determined; but probably it is so.

Some men and women are as old, in reality, whatever their _years_ may indicate, at twenty, as others at twenty-five. The matrimonial connection then may be safely formed between parties whose ages differ a few years; but I think that as a general rule, the ages of the parties ought to be nearly equal.

Lastly, it was believed by a great observer of human nature, the late Dr. Spurzheim, that no person was fit for the domestic relations who had not undergone trials and sufferings. The gay reader may smile at this opinion, but I can a.s.sure him that many wise men besides Spurzheim have entertained it. Chateaubriand, among others, in his 'Genius of Christianity,' advances the same opinion. Some, as we have seen, hold that no person can be well educated without suffering. Such persons, however, use the term education as meaning something more than a little scientific instruction;--as a means of forming _character_. In this point of view no sentiment can be more true. Even the Bible confirms it, when it a.s.sures us, that the 'Captain of our Salvation was made perfect through sufferings.'

SECTION III. _Female Qualifications for Marriage._

1. MORAL EXCELLENCE.

The highest as well as n.o.blest trait in female character, is love to G.o.d. When we consider what are the tendencies of Christianity to elevate woman from the state of degradation to which she had, for ages, been subjected--when we consider not only what it has done, but what it is destined yet to do for her advancement,--it is impossible not to shrink from the presence of an impious, and above all an unprincipled atheistical female, as from an ungrateful and unnatural being.

Man is under eternal obligations to Christianity and its Divine Author, undoubtedly; but woman seems to be more so.

That charge against females which in the minds of some half atheistical men is magnified into a stigma on Christianity itself, namely that they are more apt to become religious than men; and that we find by far the greater part of professing Christians to be females, is in my own view one of the highest praises of the s.e.x. I rejoice that their hearts are more susceptible than ours, and that they do not war so strongly against that religion which their nature demands. I have met with but one female, whom I knew to be an avowed atheist.

Indeed there are very few men to be found, who are skeptical themselves, who do not prefer pious companions of the other s.e.x. I will not stop to adduce this as an evidence of the truth of our religion itself, and of its adaptation to the wants of the human race, for happily it does not need it. Christianity is based on the most abundant evidence, of a character wholly unquestionable. But this I do and will say, that to be consistent, young men of loose principles ought not to rail at females for their piety, and then whenever they seek for a constant friend, one whom they can love,--for they never really love the abandoned--always prefer, other things being equal, the society of the pious and the virtuous.

2. COMMON SENSE.

Next on the list of particular qualifications in a female, for matrimonial life, I place COMMON SENSE. In the view of some, it ought to precede moral excellence. A person, it is said, who is deficient in common sense, is, in proportion to the imbecility, unfit for _social_ life, and yet the same person might possess a kind of negative excellency, or perhaps even a species of piety. This view appears to me, however, much more specious than sound.

By _common sense_, as used in this place, I mean the faculty by means of which we see things _as they_ really are. It implies judgment and discrimination, and a proper sense of propriety in regard to the common concerns of life. It leads us to form judicious plans of action, and to be governed by our circ.u.mstances in such a way as will be generally approved. It is the exercise of reason, uninfluenced by pa.s.sion or prejudice. To man, it is nearly what instinct is to brutes. It is very different from genius or talent, as they are commonly defined; but much better than either. It never blazes forth with the splendor of noon, but s.h.i.+nes with a constant and useful light. To the housewife--but, above all, to the mother,--it is indispensable.

3. DESIRE FOR IMPROVEMENT.

Whatever other recommendations a lady may possess, she should have an inextinguishable thirst for improvement. No sensible person can be truly happy in the world, without this; much less qualified to make others happy. But the genuine spirit of improvement, wherever it exists, atones for the absence of many qualities which would otherwise be indispensable: in this respect resembling that 'charity' which covers 'a mult.i.tude of sins.' Without it, almost everything would be of little consequence,--with it, every thing else is rendered doubly valuable.

One would think that every sensible person, of either s.e.x, would aspire at improvement, were it merely to avoid the shame of being stationary like the brutes. Above all, it is most surprising that any lady should be satisfied to pa.s.s a day or even an hour without mental and moral progress. It is no discredit to the lower animals that--'their little all flows in at once,' that 'in ages they no more can know, or covet or enjoy,' for this is the legitimate result of the physical const.i.tution which G.o.d has given them. But it is far otherwise with the masters and mistresses of creation; for

'Were man to live coeval with the sun, The patriarch pupil _should_ be learning still, And dying, leave his lessons half unlearnt.'

There are,--I am sorry to say it--not a few of both s.e.xes who never appear to breathe out one hearty desire to rise, intellectually or morally, with a view to the government of themselves or others. They love themselves supremely--their friends subordinately--their neighbors, perhaps not at all. But neither the love they bear to themselves or others ever leads them to a single series of any sort of action which has for its ultimate object the improvement of any thing higher than the condition of the mere animal. Dress, personal appearance, equipage, style of a dwelling or its furniture, with no other view, however, than the promotion of mere physical enjoyment, is the height of their desires for improvement!

Talk to them of elevating the intellect or improving the heart, and they admit it is true; but they go their way and pursue their accustomed round of folly again. The probability is, that though they a.s.sent to your views, they do not understand you. It requires a stretch of charity to which I am wholly unequal, to believe that beings who ever conceived, for one short moment, of the height to which their natures may be elevated, should sink back without a single struggle, to a mere selfish, unsocial, animal life;--to lying in bed ten or twelve hours daily, rising three or four hours later than the sun, spending the morning in preparation at the gla.s.s, the remainder of the time till dinner in unmeaning calls, the afternoon in yawning over a novel, and the evening in the excitement of the tea table and the party, and the ball room, to retire, perhaps at midnight, with the mind and body and soul in a feverish state, to toss away the night in vapid or distressing dreams.

How beings endowed with immortal souls can be contented to while away precious hours in a manner so useless, and withal so displeasing to the G.o.d who gave them their time for the improvement of themselves and others, is to me absolutely inconceivable! Yet it is certainly done; and that not merely by a few solitary individuals scattered up and down the land; but in some of our most populous cities, by considerable numbers.

A philanthropic individual not long since undertook with the aid of others, to establish a weekly or semi-weekly gazette in one of our cities, for almost the sole purpose, as I have since learned, of rousing the drones among her s.e.x to benevolent action in some form or other, in behalf of members of their families, their friends or their neighbors. She hoped, at first, to save them from many hours of ennui by the perusal of her columns; and that their _minds_ being opened to instruction, and their _hearts_ made to vibrate in sympathy with the cries of ignorance, poverty, or absolute distress, their _hands_ might be roused to action. But alas, the articles in the paper were _too long_, or _too dry_. They could not task their minds to go through with an argument.

Should the young man who is seeking an 'help meet,' chance to fall in with such _beings_ as these--and some we fear there are in almost every part of our land,--let him shun them as he would the 'choke damp' of the cavern.

Their society would extinguish, rather than fan the flame of every generous or benevolent feeling that might be kindling in his bosom.

_With_ the fond, the ardent, the never failing desire to improve, physically, intellectually, and morally, there are few females who may not make tolerable companions for a man of sense;--_without_ it, though a young lady were beautiful and otherwise lovely beyond comparison, wealthy as the Indies, surrounded by thousands of the most worthy friends, and even talented, let him beware! Better remain in celibacy a thousand years (could life last so long) great as the evil may be, than form a union with such an object. He should pity, and seek her reformation, if not beyond the bounds of possibility; but love her he should not! The penalty will be absolutely insupportable.

One point ought to be settled,--I think unalterably settled--before matrimony. It ought indeed so be settled in early life, but it is better late, perhaps, than never. Each of the parties should consider themselves as sacredly pledged, in all cases, to yield to conviction. I have no good opinion of the man who expects his wife to yield her opinion to his, on every occasion, unless she is convinced. I say on _every occasion_; for that she sometimes ought to do so, seems to be both scriptural and rational. It would be very inconvenient to call in a third person as an umpire upon every slight difference of opinion between a young couple, besides being very humiliating. But if each maintain, with pertinacity, their opinion, what can be done? It does seem to me that every sensible woman, who feels any good degree of confidence in her husband, will perceive the propriety of yielding her opinion to his in such cases, where the matter is of such a nature that it cannot be delayed.

But there are a thousand things occurring, in which there is no necessity of forming an immediate opinion, or decision, except from conviction. I should never like the idea of a woman's conforming to her husband's views to please him, merely, without considering whether they are correct or not. It seems to me a sort of treason against the G.o.d who gave her a mind of her own, with an intention that she should use it. But it would be higher treason still, in male, or female, not to yield, when actually convinced.

4. FONDNESS FOR CHILDREN.

Few traits of female character are more important than this. Yet there is much reason to believe that, even in contemplating an engagement that is expected to last for life, it is almost universally overlooked.

Without it, though a woman should possess every accomplishment of person, mind, and manners, she would be poor indeed; and would probably render those around her miserable. I speak now generally. There may be exceptions to this, as to other general rules. A dislike of children, even in men, is an unfavorable omen; in woman it is insupportable; for it is grossly unnatural. To a susceptible, intelligent, virtuous mind, I can scarcely conceive of a worse situation in this world or any other, than to be chained for life to a person who hates children. You can purchase, if you have the pecuniary means, almost every thing but _maternal love_. This no gold can buy. Wo to the female who is doomed to drag out a miserable existence with a husband who 'can't bear children;' but thrice miserable is the doom of him who has a wife and a family of children, but whose children have no _mother_! If there be orphans any where in the wide world, they are these.[13]

The more I reflect on the four last mentioned traits of female character, the more they rise in my estimation, eclipsing all others; unless perhaps, a good temper.

It is said that after every precaution, the choice of a wife is like buying a ticket in a lottery. If we were absolutely deaf and blind in the selection, and were so from necessity, the maxim might be just. But this is not so. We shut our eyes and stop our ears voluntarily, and then complain of the imperfection of our means of forming a judgment.

In truth we impeach the goodness of Him who was the author of the _inst.i.tution_.

No young man is worthy of a wife who has not sense enough to determine, even after a few interviews, what the bent of a lady's mind is;--whether she listens with most pleasure to conversation which is wholly unimproving, or whether she gladly turns from it, when an opportunity offers, to subjects which are above the petty chit-chat or common but fas.h.i.+onable scandal of the day; and above all, avoids _retailing_ it. He knows, or _may_ know, without a 'seven years'

acquaintance, whether she spends a part of her leisure time in reading, or whether the whole is spent in dressing, visiting, or conversing about plays, actors, theatres, &c. And if she reads a part of the time, the fault must be his own, if he does not know whether she relishes any thing but the latest novel, or the most light--not to say empty--periodical. Let it be remembered, then, by every young man that the fault is his own, if he do not give himself time, before he forms an engagement that is to last for life, to ascertain whether his friends.h.i.+p is to be formed with a person who is desirous of improvement, or with one who, living only for pleasure, is 'dead while she liveth.'

You will say it is difficult to ascertain whether she is fond of children or not. But I doubt it. Has she then no young brothers, or sisters, or cousins? Are there no children in the neighborhood? For if there are,--if there is but one, and she sees that individual but once a week,--the fact may easily be ascertained. If she loves that child, the child will love her; and its eye will brighten when it sees her, or hears her name mentioned. Children seldom fail to keep debt and credit in these matters, and they know how to balance the account, with great ingenuity.

These remarks are made, not in the belief that they will benefit those who are already blinded by fancy or pa.s.sion, but with the hope that some more fortunate reader may reflect on the probable chances of happiness or misery, and pause before he leaps into the vortex of matrimonial discord. No home can ever be a happy one to any of its inmates, where there is no maternal love, nor any desire for mental or moral improvement. But where these exist, in any considerable degree, and the original attachment was founded on correct principles, there is always hope of brighter days, even though clouds at present obscure the horizon. No woman who loves her husband, and desires to make continual improvement, will long consent to render those around her unhappy.

[13] It is worthy of remark, as a well established fact, that the Chinese have an _Isan-mon_ or _mother_, to their silkworms! Her duty is, not to attend to the eggs and the hatching, for nature has made provision for that; but to take possession of the chamber where the young are deposited; to see that it be free from 'noisome smells, and all noises;' to attend to its temperature, and to 'avoid making a smoke, or raising a dust.'

She must not enter the room till she is perfectly clean in person and dress, and must be clothed in a very plain habit; and in order to be more sensible to the temperature of the place, her dress must contain no lining.

Now although every mother of children does not have the care of silkworms, yet she has the care of beings who are in some respects equally susceptible. And I trust no person who knows the importance of temperature, ventilation, &c. especially to the tender infant, will be ashamed to derive an important lesson from the foregoing.

5. LOVE OF DOMESTIC CONCERNS.

Without the knowledge and the love of domestic concerns, even the wife of a peer, is but a poor affair. It was the fas.h.i.+on, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal about these things, and it would be very hard to make me believe that it did not tend to promote the interests and honor of their husbands.