CHAPTER VII.

BEFORE MARRIAGE.

Marriage Should be early and suitable, and appropriate-Should abandon all old acquaintances and habits, for mutual affection and kindnessEquality-Open-Frank-No scolding-No concealment of characterIf the object is sensual, no disguise-Why-Not so if marriage is intended-Should inquire carefully of the delicacy, temper, character, age-If rich, poor, inferior, deformed, or diseased -Query - When should not marry-Conspiracy for marriage-Miss Euphemia and Mr. Crawler-If both poor, or both rich-Or equal in their means, well -And herein, of poverty with one, and wealth with the other, QuerySecret humiliation-Excitement for marriage should be restrained until the proper pre-requisites are found out-Affinities and disaffinities-Involuntary blindness while the passions last-Frauds by low families on respectable persons for fraudulent marriages-A case in point-Persons of inconsistent principles cannot agree-Judge Lewis' view of the philosophy of marriage.

No man should entertain or encourage aspirations so extravagant as to defer marriage until he is able to support his wife, according to some fancied notions of living, above his present sphere and means.

Let him hunt out a woman who is his equal in all the appropriate moral and social elements; who is heartily willing to begin the world with him upon a scale of domestic economy which he has the ability to support; whether that plan involves the limited accommodations of an unserved attic, a remote cottage, or a full-furnished dwelling.

Let him prepare his mind to abandon all his old personal associations and indulgences; faithfully and industriously pursue his business; maintain honest participations with his wife, in all his amusements and gratifications; give her his confidence; respect her opinions; persuade her kindly from her faults; and praise her motives and efforts;-and by his conduct and conversation, give her to feel that she is his equal.

Revere and tenderly minister to all her maternal relations;—

never scold, arraign, or reproach her; and maintain in all things towards her the behavior of a gentleman-such as a well-bred man would hold towards his sainted mother and beloved sister. Let him freely and solemnly conform to these honorable and conservative resolutions.

Let the woman be prepared to reciprocate with the man all these rational preparations for marriage; make herself an example of every female virtue; be cheerful, neat, modest, clean, industrious, saving, and thoroughly accomplished in all that constitutes, not a street stroller, a saloon promenader, a ball-room flirt, or a parlor belle-but in every perfect and winning qualification for an affectionate and faithful wife and mother.

And then, let the man and woman have with each other a fair, free, full, and unreserved understanding;-waste no time, but get married;—the woman at eighteen or nineteen, and the man at twenty-one or twenty-two. Begin life at the right time, and the right age; and in the natural, proper, and honorable way; take position as a respectable member of the community; and fill the distinguished destiny God has offered to him, like a man of true pride.

Marriage should not be hastily contracted. The parties should be certain that both are in earnest, and that they fully answer, and will honestly come up to, the foregoing require

ments.

Of this they should be certain; and that there is no covert design, or pursuit for property, or supposed family advantages; desire for sensual indulgences, or sinister objects; and then they should surrender their entire hearts to each other.

The whole feeling with both should be unaffected, true, sincere, genuine, and reciprocal.

Marriage. "To honor marriage more yet, or rather to teach the married how to honor one another, it is said that the wife was made of the husband's rib; not of his head, for Paul calleth the husband the wife's head; not of his foot, for he must not set her at his foot; the servant is appointed to serve, and his wife to help. If she must not match with the head, nor stoop at the foot, where shall he set her then? He must set her at his heart; and therefore she which should lie in his bosom was made in his bosom, and should be as close to him as his rib, of which she was fashioned."-HENRY SMITH's Sermons, p. 12.

"We see many times even the godly couples to jar when they are married, because there is some unfitness between them, which makes odds. What is odds but the contrary to even? Therefore make them even, saith one, and there will be no odds. From hence came the first use of the Ring in weddings, to represent this evenness: for if it be straiter than the finger, it will pinch; and if it be wider than the finger, it will fall off; but if it be fit, it neither pincheth nor slippeth."-Ibid., p. 19.

A marginal note says, "The ceremony is not approved, but the invention declared."

"Let no one doubt that it would be well for both men and women if each sex really knew more of the other; if women were less in the habit of wearing a smiling mask in their intercourse with men, and men showed more of their natural manly selves in the society of women. As it is, there is a sort of hypocrisy of sex on both sides, which is usually practiced out of the family. It is curious to mark how far this goes, and in what little things it shows itself. You shall watch a man talking with men; mark how natural his tones are, how easy his attitude and gestures, if he indulge in any. But see the same man go up to a woman and talk with her: in nine cases out of ten, you see a sudden and total change of bearing and demeanor. His voice has a sort of affectation in it; his body has acquired a sort of ungraceful movement, or is stiffened into a more constrained repose. It is clear that he is acting a part; and a similar change is observable in the woman, who has, generally, one manner for her own sex, and another for the other. While conversing with a man, she is much more alive, and eager, and vivacious, and often thinks it necessary to affect an interest in things in which she feels no real concern. She is playing to the man, as the man is playing to her. They are showing each other the varnished side of their respective selves.

“Now in all social intercourse there is more or less of this sort of admitted and conscious deception, but it is much more elaborate, goes further, and is used more as a blind between persons of the opposite sexes; and it has more serious ill consequences as between men and women than as between man and man, or woman and woman. It is never so much practiced as when people are falling in love with each other, and afterwards, during love-making, and the earlier stages of married life; and then,

all of a sudden, the husband or wife lays aside the mask from sheer impatience of it, or it gets knocked off in some sudden collision, or it slips aside, and then is the first bitter disappointment and disenchantment, on the one side or the other, as the case may be.

"Married people, however, must come to an understanding sooner or later, and at more or less cost. With them the deception is sure to be found out, though the discovery not unfrequently saddens the future of two lives. But in the common give and take of social life, between men and women who are not lovers, nor like to be, this habit of mutual deception leads to a sort of general falseness, unreality, and contemptible, though tolerated, affectation.

"It belongs to women to say what they think of men, but it strikes the writer that he may be pardoned for saying some things which he has observed men think of women, in the hope that he may hit some real 'blots,' and, perhaps, touch a quick conscience or so, and thus help, perhaps, to the correction of a bad habit.

"As a general rule, men like natural, easy-mannered, frank, and unaffected women. It is true that some men will tell you they 'like affectation.' But inquiry into this will prove that they only like an affectation; some trick, perhaps, or peculiarity, which has for them a mysterious attraction, altogether inexplicable, and which no woman need ever give herself the trouble to seek for, in order to employ it. It is not, indeed, uncommon for a man to declare he likes affectation, because he happens, for the time being, to admire and like an affected woman. But the real charm, then, is not in her affectation: 'She's an affected woman,' in man's criticism of woman, is blame. So much women may be assured of.”

In all this plain, sensible business, of judicious and necessary preparation for a long life, there should be no flinching, prevarication, or disguise; and there never will be any, if the parties have been properly brought up, and are influenced by pure and honorable feelings.

The primary motive will be honorable marriage, not lust or speculation. All bargains upon this momentous subject should be open and frank-and no concealment of lineage, education, habits, character, connection, and fortune, intentions and purposes; everything should be as sincere as when our souls are in communion with God.

There are by nature so many plain and distinct reciprocations, in the constitution of the sexes, as to render all useless ceremonies between them absurd and ridiculous.

Before marriage, if the motives are honorable, there is mutual confidence, and when their objects are sensual, all forms and ceremonies are dispensed with; and they soon understand each other.

And why shall not the honorable impulses of a true husband and wife in every case be invoked and consulted in advance? Why not be frank and candid when the object is honorable, if unreserved when it is not so?

There is as much candor due to virtue as to licentiousness. Influenced by honorable intentions for marriage, both men and women, with becoming delicacy, may properly seek each other's acquaintance; and encourage mutual and social interchanges of genteel and liberal familiarity.

It subserves the cause of virtue, maintains a correct sense of mutual respect, and elevates the tone of society, enables young persons to become acquainted with, and to understand each other; prevents imprudent marriages, and scandalous and fatal intrigues.

Whatever precautions may be recommended by education, upon this curious and mysterious subject, its capricious and blindfold obstinacy in youth, it is seen, sometimes rejects all the cautions employed upon less important affairs.

And even with age, marvelous eccentricities are sometimes manifested.

Spring and winter, dry old age, and blooming youth, often harmonize in wonderful concord.

This apparent inconsistency, and why so many queer matches turn out well, finds its explanation, perhaps, in the great law which has so emphatically and mysteriously ordained the sexes for each other.

The hidden instincts, and invincible impulses, which imperceptibly draw them together, and from which the most ungovernable animal sympathies and cohesions proceed, admonish each man and woman, as maturity is approached, solemnly and soberly to resolve upon marriage or celibacy.

Vanity, rashness, speculation, and passion should have no sway.

By this period of life, both sexes have sufficient discretion to know if there is any obstacle in the way of their marriage.