The Golden Censer Part 19

MARRIAGE.

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell.--Byron.

Quotation of this verse is made, not because it celebrated a marriage--it, rather, commemorated the frightful carnage of Waterloo--- but because it very faithfully represents the fas.h.i.+onable beginning of wedded life, to which it alludes. There seems to be in woman an inherited, instinctive desire for this kind of thing at her marriage. It is cruel to deny her, therefore man usually goes through with it like a martyr. My prejudices are so heartily enlisted against "blow-outs" of this kind that I feel the compunctions of an honest judge at sitting in such a case. Nevertheless, I may relate some things I have seen, to show how badly a couple may start in life. Here is one instance: The dust has filled the air for six blocks around some stately church. The "hacks" and private barouches and coupes have been packed together so that any movement was entirely impossible; the bride has come like a queen of the orient; she has walked on flowers to the vestibule; there she has pa.s.sed under an arch of tuberoses; half-way down the aisle a gate of jessamines and smilax has opened with a smothering sense of richness; at the altar she has actually knelt on a pillow of camellias (fifty cents apiece); and a fifty-dollar organist has put on his full instrument, as though he were proclaiming the glory of G.o.d most mighty, instead of the folly of man most miserable. Into the church have thronged the elect, proud and disdainful; on the outside has stared the vulgar mult.i.tude, too ignorant for anything but rapt wonderment. From the temple of high-priced wors.h.i.+p the celebrants have pa.s.sed, in a still more exclusive body, to a residence where a banquet has been prepared by a man who generally makes ice cream for a living, and where a dazzling display of wedding presents has been uncovered to the careless gaze. Then the train bears away the twain of one foolish flesh, and the farce is over.

OF COURSE IT WAS A FARCE.

The elect read the newspapers next morning with a smile. None but he of the vulgar mult.i.tude was hoodwinked. The man and the woman have spent all their money to purchase a "swell wedding." The presents were hired, so were most of the "hacks." The florist has got part of his money. The couple, six months afterward, are "beating" some poor landlady out of their board, and the man, in all likelihood, will never again be heard of. But the women have been intensely agitated by the event. They have never thought about the subsequent aspects of the case.

NO ONE OF THE SAME "SET"

would be willing to spare a single "hack" or one double camellia. Why did the young man and the young woman do it? They did it princ.i.p.ally out of vanity, in imitation of some rich person who desired to distribute his money among hard-working folks and at the same time create a feeling of envy among his fellows and "please the women folk."

LET US HAVE THE MANHOOD AND THE WOMANHOOD,

if we have five hundred or a thousand dollars, to buy those necessaries of life which will enable us to live without debt after we are settled for life. We are sailing out of the harbor. Would it not be ridiculous for us to heave into the water our provisions, as a symbol of our delirious joy?--would not our s.h.i.+p be a s.h.i.+p of death when we reached the middle of the sea? There is just as much joy in a simple wedding which has properly shown our respect for the event as the third in importance of all which will punctuate our history. We have been born; we will die;

WE NOW MARRY.

"A man finds himself seven years older, the day after his marriage,"

says Lord Bacon. "Men should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards," says Madame Scuderie. "Marriage is a feast,"

says Colton, "where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner."

"Mistress," cries Shakspeare, "know yourself; down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love. For I must tell you friendly in your ear,--sell when you can; you are not for all markets."

"To love early and marry late," says Richter, "is to hear a lark singing at dawn, and at night to eat it roasted for supper." "Marriages are best of dissimilar material," says Theodore Parker.

"TO BE A MAN

in a true sense," says Michelet, "is, in the first place, and above all things, to have a wife." "It is in vain for a man to be born fortunate,"

says Dacier, "if he be unfortunate in his marriage." "When it shall please G.o.d to bring thee to man's estate," says Sir Philip Sidney, "use great providence and circ.u.mspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once!" "We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages," says Ralph Waldo Emerson;

"WE LIVE AMID HALLUCINATIONS,

and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, and all are tripped up, first or last. But the mighty mother nature, who had been so sly with us, as if she felt she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious benefits and some great joys." "It is a mistake to consider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness," says Chapin; "it is also a bond of service. It is the most ancient form of that social ministration which G.o.d has ordained for human beings, and which is symbolized by all the relations of nature."

"Marriage" says Selden, "is a desperate thing;

THE FROGS IN aeSOP

were extremely wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again." Why were they wise? They were not wise at all. I have seen frogs in wells who are more contented than they would be outside. "Men are April when they woo, December when they wed," says Shakspeare; but he also says that "maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives,"

so it is an even tilt between two forms of human nature. "If idleness be the root of all evil," says Vanbruch, "then matrimony is good for something, for it sets many a poor woman to work." "In the opinion of the world," says Madame Swetchine, "marriage ends all; as it does in a comedy;

THE TRUTH IS PRECISELY THE REVERSE.

It begins all. So they say of death, 'It is the end of all things.' Yes, just as much as marriage!" "Humble wedlock," says St. Augustine, "is far better than proud virginity." "Never marry but for love," says William Penn, in his will; "but see that thou lovest what is lovely!" "Strong are the instincts with which G.o.d has guarded the sacredness of marriage," says Maria McIntosh. We cannot bear this remark too constantly in mind. You would not dare shut off your supply of water, because you know you will need it. But you are sometimes tempted to shut off your supplies of love; and men do sometimes do it, and

AFTERWARD GO MAD

from clear soul-starvation. "Up to twenty-one I hold the father to have power over his children as to marriage," says Coleridge; "after that age he has authority and influence only. Show me one couple unhappy merely on account of their limited circ.u.mstances, and I will show you ten who are wretched from other causes." "He that takes a wife takes care,"

says Ben Franklin. "I chose my wife," says Goldsmith, "as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well." "Before marriage,"

says Addison,

"WE CANNOT BE TOO INQUISITIVE

and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dimsighted and superficial. Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries.

A MARRIAGE OF LOVE

is pleasant; a marriage of interest easy; and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friends.h.i.+p, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life." "It is the policy of the Londoners," says Thomas Fuller, "when they send a s.h.i.+p into the Mediterranean Sea, to make every mariner therein a merchant, each seaman venturing somewhat of his own, which will make him more wary to avoid, and more valiant to undergo dangers.

Thus married men, especially if having posterity, are

THE DEEPER SHARERS IN THAT NATION

wherein they live, which engageth their affections to the greater loyalty." "Matrimony hath something in it of nature, something of civility, something of divinity," says Bishop Hall. "Though matrimony may have some pains, celibacy has few pleasures," says old Dr. Johnson, a bachelor. Again says he: "Marriage is the best state for man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state." "Marriage is an inst.i.tution," says Sir Richard Steele "celebrated for a constant scene of as much delight as our being is capable of."

ONE THING KEEP IN MIND!

When the sages, the critics, and the people who love to say smart things, paint the infelicities of marriage, they as often paint simply the general troubles of life, which are common to all people. The bachelor is more apt to be kept awake by the crying child in the next chamber than is the father in the same room with the child. The young man quarrels with his landlady as often as the young husband quarrels with his wife. The young man notoriously finds his wants as lightly resting on the memories of those he hires to attend to them as does the husband of the most careless wife. He cannot escape the sickness of life with even the good fortune of a married man, according to the statistics of the Government. The married woman is also healthier than the maid. So, then, get the critics of the married state to specify its various unhappinesses; then subtract from that schedule all that come alike to the single state, and you will find that marriage, for its separate joys, has not a separate set of troubles in as great proportion. The very highest evidence of the usefulness and agreeableness of marriage is gathered from the well-known haste in which both men and women, when death takes away their companions, seek, in a second marriage, a renewal of those relations which, in their opinion, lend additional charm to the drama of life.

WEDDED LIFE

You are my true and wedded wife; As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart.--Shakspeare.

She's adorned Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely-- The truest mirror that an honest wife Can see her beauty in.--John Tobin.

"Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people," says Selden, "yet, of all actions of our life, it is most meddled with by other people." In fact, if people would take home their attention thus so liberally bestowed abroad, it would enable them to make matches of their own far better than those which now burden the records of the churches and the courts. If a young man and a young woman can be left alone three or four years, to wear into the new relations they have a.s.sumed, there is little chance of their being unhappily married. An instinct of the strongest character brought them together, and is likely to hold them by its own force. Man is a creature of habit. Strip him of his home after he has been for four years habituated to it, and he will be unhappy, no matter how unpeaceful that home may have been. Therefore, if possible, have your wife and yourself in a house by yourselves for the first four years of your married life.

As a general thing this is possible, and I think a firm will, in most cases, greatly aids the possibility of such a course. One thing, at least, is clear,

NO HUSBAND IS DOING RIGHT