MJi)A i6H5 €MI9IiaiZfl€ .\x\.^^^y exes' i !, db ,./ \, ) ;^-(5^<2%3!j HQ 734.W48 Wedlock; 3 T153 DDS517m 1 4^ ■!>- OJ aai /4#^-^.^-":'- 4?- 0, WEDLOCK; OR, THB RIGHT RELATIONS OF THE SEXES DiscLOsma l^t tatos 0f i0n]ttgal ^^lertion, AND 8H0WINQ WHO MAY, AND WHO MAY NOT MARRY. By S. E. wells, lUTUOll OP "NEW physiognomy" " HOW TO KKAL» CUARACTER," AND EDITOR OS THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL, NEW YORK: FOWLER & WELLS CO.. PUBLISHERS. 775 Broadway. 1888. Entered, accordiug to Act of Congress, in :h, year 1860, By S. R. wells. in Uie Cert'i Office of the District Court of the United States for the Snuinwi District of New York- PREFACE. ' f A.N a bap])y union of two ripe, nch, congenial, and loving miman hearts, satisfied and cemented in a thorough under- standing of eacli other, and a perfect adaptation to each other, in the well-adjusted bands of holy wedlocli, what can be more pleasing to contemplate? Science and revelation, God and nature, approve the match, and endless blessings crown the nuptials. The noble and loving Iiusband with his beautiful and loving wife now enter together upon the new duties and the pleasant responsi- bilities of domestic life. By such a union a new family is established, and a heaven on earth begins. What other interest, what other relation or condition, is comparable in importance with this? If tlie motive for marriage be high and holy ; if the parties be of proper age, of sound body and mind ; and if there be an irresistible atfinity for each otlier, sucli as will not only truly unite their souls but hold them firmly together through all trials and to all time, then it is both their privilege and then- duty to unite in the holy bonds of matri- mony. Of such relations are born children — offspring of love and design rather than of lust and of chance — more favorably organized, harmonious, self-regulating, law-abiding, well-disposed. Now reverse the picture. Consider the many incongruous matches, or mis-matches, made among all classes. How little thought is given to steps of such momentous import! how selfish the motives of many, and how fatal to happiness the results! First, there are the ignorant and thoughtless; second, the selfish and sordid; third, the vam and ambitious; fourth, the lustful and dishonest. The first of t])es(.' imirry in haste and repent — too late — at their leisure, regretting all their lives Ihe iut-onsitlei-ate step. Children born to them are often unwelcome, a burden, and " in the way." They grow up in poverty and Ignorance, filling our poor-houses. The second class seldom realize anything more iiian the deep disappointment which, by their cupidity, they deserve. J t'Ae laws of hereditary desf cut are applicable to the human as to th^ anim-al creation, the children of such an alliance will be low, if not pro- IV PREFACE. disposed to become criminal. The third class may shine for a time in the world of foolish fashion, be courted by empty-headed nobodies; but very soon " vain pride will have a fall," and nothing be left but bubbles and froth. The fourth class people our hospitals, our asylums, and oui prisons. The voluptuary lives in Ms propensities, and perpetuates the passions in an inordinate degree, subordinating the higher intellectual and spiritual to the lower propensities. Such become idolaters, and worship at the shrine of lasciviousness, in whose train come insanity, imbecilit}^ and idiocy. Dissipation and consanguineous marriages lead, to similar results. Seeing these things, and believing it was the intention of an all-wise Creator that marriage, though consummated on earth, should be such as would be approved in heaven ; and believing, furthermore, that Science may and should be applied in the work of conjugal selection, to enable us to know, in advance, what to expect from each other, and how to obtain the most perfect adaptation and felicity ; and also how the better to adapt ourselves to each other where differences exist, this volume has been prepared with a sincere aim to impart such scientific antl ethical information, which our experience warrants us in believing is calculated to aid those who would enter upon the married relation in the proper spirit, who earnestly seek by so domg to further their besi interests as members of human societ3\ If without science such sad mistakes be made, and such unfortunate results occur, why not invoke Phrenology, Physiology, Physiognomy, and Psychology to throw all their bright light on the subject ? We do not let go, or propose to let go, the teachings of past history, sacred or profane ; but simply to add the knowledge gained through human science, to mitigate existing evils, and to prevent their occurrence in future. Mankind is composed of many different races and temperaments. Our characters and dispositions are as diverse as are our physical or- ganization or our looks. " Variety gives the spice of life ; " but while difference is desirable, incongruity must be avoided. In the following pages we have endeavored to point out who may and who may not unite in marriage, with the prospect of assimilating and becoming one in purpose, one in sentiment, one in soul. God's laws are open to us ; let us read them and obey them. If He gave man " dominion over nature," He certainly intended that man should elevate and not degrade his own race. If by judicious grafting or breeding and selection we can improve flowers, fruits, horses, cattle, and poultry, is it not a higher and a more sacred duty to do the same for the race of man ? If happiness be the end of our existence, why not so act as to secure tlie greatest measure of it ? Happiness comes of right relations, health, development, and a careful observance of God's laws. To aid in more complete realization of these great bless- ings thrcugh holy wedlock is the object of this work. CONTENTS. -♦♦♦- I. Makriage a Divine Institution 7 II. Qualifications for Matrlmony 13 III. The Right Age to Marry 23 IV. Motives for IVIarrying 27 V. Marria(}es of Consanguinity 34 VI. Conjugal Selection 41 VII. Courtship 61 VIII. The Dtmr of Parents C7 IX. Marriage Customs ant) Ceremonies 79 X. Ethics of Marriage 90 XL Second Makriages .,., ,. 104 VI CONTENTS. xn. JEAI.OUSY— Its Cause and Cuiie 110 XIll. BErARATION AXD DiVORCE 114 XIV. Celibacy, Ancient and ]\Iodern 126 XV. POLYe AMY AND PaNTAGAM V 138 XVI. Lo^-E Signs 143 XVII Love Letters 148 XVIII. The Poet's Wife 158 XIX. Tnr Model Husband 166 XX. The Model Wife 171 XXL MiSCELLANEOlTS MaTRIMONL\L MATTERS . 180 XXIL Poetry of Love and Makriage ?lv Indsx ... 2&- WEDLOCK. Inttin^t a S^^"^^ MnBiitntion. From the beginning God made them male and female. For this cause si all a rata leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be on« flesh. — Bible. The Bible on Marriage OTHING can be more evident, from the whole tenor of the Holy Scriptures, than that marriage is an ordination of God, instituted for the promotion of human happiness and improvement, as well as for the peipetuation of the race. Even in Paradise it was "not good for man to be alone," and God made "a help meet for him ; " and among the blessings promised to those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways, the psalmist mentions the fol- lowing: "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house ; thy children like olive plants around thy table." Our Saviour expressed himself, on several occasions, in the strongest terms, in favor of the sacredness and binding nature of the marriage relation. " Ye have heard," he says, in tlie Gospel according to St. Matthew, " that it was said by them of old time, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery ; ' but I say unto you. That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. It has been said, ' Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement ;' but I say unto you. That whosoever shall put away his wife, save for the cause of ^ WEDLOCK. fornication, causeth Iier to commit adultery; and whosoevei shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says : " Wives, submit your- selves to your own husbands, as to the Lord ; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the C'liurch; and he is the Saviour of the body : therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in everything. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself." What the Axcients Thought of It. The laws and customs pertaining to marriage diifered widely in different countries and among the different nations of anti- quity, but the importance of the institution was fully recog- nized by all. It was seen to be the basis of the political as well as the social structure, and its perpetuation and univers- ality provided for accordingly. Wise lawgivers took pains to encourage marriage, and, in some cases, even compelled j»ersons to enter the state of matrimonial usefulness. In Sparta, penalties were inflicted upon those who remained un- married after a certain age; and at Athens only married men could become commanders or public orators. It was held to be the duty of every Roman to marry, and those who neglected to do their duty in that respect were compelled to ])ay a fine. Fruitfulness in the marriage relation was also encoui-aged by law; for we are told that " whoever, in the city of Ttome, had three children — in other parts of Italy, four, or in the ])rovinces, five — was entitled to certain privileges, while certain disabili- ties were imposed on those who lived in celibacy. The Laws of Nature. i\len may deny the authority of antiquity and differ in their interpretation of the Scriptures, but the laws of nature, as truly God-given as those recorded in the Bible, are too clearly impressed upon the human constitution to be ignored or mis- taken by any but the most ignorant. Man and w^oman are seen to be exactly adapted to ea«h MARRIAGE A DIVINE INSTITITTION. 9 other, pliysically, intellectually, and socially. They arc com- plements of each other. Neither is complete alone. The one makes good the deficiencies of the other. Phjsically, maii ia characterized by compact muscular development, indicative of power; woman, by bending and varied lines, gracefully louuded limbs, and smooth surfaces, indicative of delicacy and grace. He has more of the motive temperament ; she, more of the vital. Mentally, he excels in the intellectual powers; she, in the social aflfections. He is logical, she is intuitive. " For contemplation, he, and valor formed ; For softness, she, and sweet, attractive grace." All discussion in reference to equality, superiority, or in- feriority, in connection with the sexes, is decidedly out of or- der. Man is superior in his distinguishing qualities— in those special endowments which constitute him a man ; and woman is superior in her special line of development— in those gifts which constitute her a woman. We may properly compare two men with each other, with reference to their natural ca- pacities and powers, or two women, and pronounce one the superior of the other; but not a man and a woman. She is best and highest in her place— he in his. Each attains the full measure of power and efficiency only in union with the other. That the difference between the sexes is not a mere matter of bodily form is shown by the shape of the cranium in each The male head rises high from the opening of the ear to Firmness. In the social region, Amativeness is the dominant oro;an. Pride, energy, self-reliance, and intellectual capacity are indicated. A well-balanced female skull is fine, smooth, and even. The social group of organs, as a whole, is more fully developed than in the male, but Amativeness is less prominent. At Benevolence and Veneration the female is relatively more developed, but less so at Firmness and Self Esteem. The Social Affections. Marriage naturally grows out of the requirements of man's •pocial nature, represented by what we are accustomed to call the Domestic Propensities. These are grouped together in 1* 10 WEDLOCK. the posterior region of the brain, and comprise the following organs : AsiATivEXESs ; Parental Love ; Friendsuip; Inhabitivexess ; and Conjugality, or Union for Life. A brief exposition of the functions of these organs will serve to show how essential marriage is to their full and harmonious action, and how certainly any other relation of the sexes must lead to their abuse and perversion. 1. Adhesiveness. — First in the order of development is Ad- hesiveness, or Friendship, giving a desire for com])anionship and affection — for soraetliing to cling to — and the impulse to embrace and fondle. This feeling manifests itself even in in- fancy. The child appreciates the mother's caresses at a very early stage of its existence, and shows itself pleased and dis- posed to return them. At a later day, brothers, sisters, play- mates, dolls, and pets of various kinds help to call it out still further and widen its sphere. Adhesiveness gives the sentiment of general friendship, without distinction of sex. It may, and often does, exist be- tween a man and a woman, but it does not take sex into ac- count. Girls manifest more of this feeling than boys, and show it in their actions — their clasping of the hands, their entwining arms, and their frequent embraces. The poet happily describes the action of this organ when he says : " The heart, like a tendril accustomed to cling, Let it grow where it will, can not flourish alone; But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing It can twme with itself and make closely its own." But while Adhesiveness of itself has no relation to sex, and gimj'ly seeks to give and receive affection, it co-operates har- moniously with Amativeness and Connubial Love, strengthen- ing and elevating the affection existing between husband and wife. It may exist between a man and a woman who ex- perience no stronger feeling toward each otiier; but where both this feeling and those of love and connubiality are in exercise toward the same person, each gives strength and MARRIAGE A DIVINE INSTITUTION. H intensitj to the other. Love does not necessarily involve Friendship, but it by no means exchides it. 2. Aniativeness. — The function of this organ is to manifest sexual feeling — to give the desire to love and be loved, and to find love's fruition in the most intimate union. Its jiriniaiy end is the perpetuation of the species. It res[)ond» to the Divine command to "increase, multiply, and replenish the earth;" but it has, incidentally, a most powerful refining and elevating influence upon both sexes — making man courtpous, polite, attentive, charitable, and forbearing; and woman kind, tender, winning, gentle, and confiding. Combined with the higher sentiments, and properly controlled by them, its action leads to the most beneficial results, physical, social, intel- lectual, and moral. It is only in its perversion that it becomes gross and indelicate, or leads to degradation and crime. It is this fiiculty that inclines mothers to love their sons more than their daughters, and fathers to become more at- tached to their daugliters than to their sons ; and in propor- tion as a young man is dutiful and affectionate to his mother, will he be fond of his wife and faithful in his love ; and the young girl who manifests true devotion to her father and her brothers may safely be trusted as a wife. 3. Conjugality. — Conjugality, or Union for Life, represents the mating propensity or instinct of permanent union. It is closely related to Amativeness, and works in conjunction with that faculty, but is distinct in function and independent in action. It often comes into exercise before Amativeness, and leads to the choosing of mates before the promptings of sex- ual love are felt. Boys and girls sometimes become attacl;ed to each other, even in childhood, tacitly plight themselves, and afterward marry and remain faitliful through life. 4. Parental Love. — Parental Love, orPhiloprogeniiivencss, as its name implies, is the peculiar feeling which watches over and provides for offspring. Its primary function is to impart love for the young, and especially for one's own children ; but it also leads, as an incidental manifestation, to a general fond- ness for pets. Parental love in man implies marriage — a permanent unior 12 WEDLOCK. of the father and mother ; for in no other way can the propei care be given and the necessary provision be made foi ofi' spring. The child needs the protection of the father, the tender offices of maternal love during its earliest years, and, later, the teachings and guidance of both, in a well-ordered uiid happy home. 5. Inhahitiveness. — The Love of Home is one of the ele- ments of domestic happiness, and it is the function of Inhahit- iveness to impart it and to create a desire to have a permanent place of abode — a "homestead" of one's own — to adorn, beautify, and make attractive. Where this organ is large, there is a strong love of place, domicile, and country, and gi-eat aversion to a change of residence, with a liability to home- sickness when absent from the beloved familiar scene. AYe have thus completed the circle of the domestic pro- pensities — the faculties which make man a social being and demand that relation of the sexes called marriage. If there be any truth in physiology and phrenology, then, as it seems fo us, is the permanent union of one man with one woman in iw-cordance with the divinely instituted order of nature. n. dgp Mens sana in corpore sauo--A soimd mind in a sound body. The social enjoyments of the marriage relation depend upon the capacity for then ifhich exists in the mental organization.— J.wore. Physical and Mental Soundness. F it be in accordance with the laws of nature that men and women should marry, it must also be in- tended that they shall be physically and mentally sound, and fitted to fulfill every requirement of the matrimonial relation. Marriage was instituted, primarily, for the perpetuation of the race. It implies, therefore, the neces- sary physical completeness and bodily health in both the man and the woman to become the parents of sound, well-organ- ized, healthy children. This is the law. This is according to the intentions of nature. We may consider in another place what exceptions, if any, may be made — what indulgence per- mitted, in view of the present state of ignorance, weakness, and undevelopment in which the race is sunk. In connection with a body fully developed in all its organs and parts, and with every function in healthy activity, there must be a sane mind — a reasoning intelligeiice, capable of forethought and of adapting means to ends. We have no right to propagate disease, idiocy, or mental obliquity. Per- sons afflicted with incurable diseases, or whose minds are deranged or hopelessly imbecile, are utterly unfitted thereby for marriage, or, at least, for becoming parents. Such persons not only bring misery upon themselves by their disregard of the prohibition of nature, but they transmit the terrible legacy to their children. Society abounds in heart-rending illustra- tions of this solemn but little regarded truth. Continual 14: WEDLOCK. suiTering and premature death are the only hirth-nght ot thousands of unfortunate little ones around us — the offspring of sin — the sin of ignorance, perhaps, but sin nevertheless. Heware of adding to their number I There are thousands, then, Avho, on the score of health alone, should never marry. Their case is a sad one, but they only make it still sadder, and add sin to suffering, by refusing to submit to the requirements of the natural laws. It is our business to give what we believe to be the rule in the matter of bodily and mental health, in their bearings upon marriage. There may be exceptions here, as in the cases of other general rules, but it is not easy to clearly designate the grounds on which they may be founded. We do not insist here upon perfect health as essential. Such a rule would exclude a majority of our population — at least of the female portion of it; and there are numerous cases in which marriage affords the surest means for the restoration of health ; but we insist that there should be no transmission of incurable or dangerous disease of body or mind. If two persons, of opposite sexes, who know themselves un- fitted for becoming parents, but who love each other, and be- lieve that the happiness and welfare of both will be promoted by a union, choose to marry for the sake of the companionship thej' desire, we leave it with them to decide whether such a union is safe and permissible. It must be with them a matter of conscience. Social Endowments. Wo have shown that marriage has its foundation deeply and securely laid in the social nature of man. Unfortunately, there are cases in which this social nature, represented by what are called the domestic propensities, is so imperfectly developed as to furnish no sure basis for matrimonial happiness. There are individuals in whom Adhesiveness is so deficient, that they are alike incapal)le of manifesting friendship and of winning the afR-'ction of those around them ; or who, through small or dormant Amativeness and Conjugality, instead of being at tracttd toward the other sex, become man-haters or woman QUALIFICATIONS FOR MATRIMONY. 15 waters, as the case may be. Some have no love fa** children, by whom they are instinctively shunned, as if they were dan- gerous or repulsive animals. Others have no home-feeling, and are never so well pleased as when they are wandeiing about the world, with no permanent abiding place. Where all or several of these deficiencies exist in a marked degree, there is an evident unfitness for the marriage relation^ the very foundations of the social structure being absent. Ht who can not love wife, children, and home has no right to possess them ; and above all should the woman who is so un- fortunately constituted as to be incapable of conjugal and maternal aff*ection avoid marriage, as not only an evil to her- self and the luckless man who might be mated with her, but as a crime against the unborn. We set down, therefore, as an essential matrimonial quali- fication, a fiiir development of the social or domestic organs of the brain. Education. By education we here mean something more than the mere acquisition of the various branches of knowledge usually taught in schools. Each pursuit in life requires its special training. No sensible parent would think of making his son a doctor or a lawyer without giving him the customary pro- fessional education. He who would be a carpenter or a brick- layer must learn the trade. Do the duties of domestic life require no special educational qualifications? Are housekeep- ing, the management of a family, and the training of children matters of too little importance to demand educated intel- ligence to be brought to bear upon them? No greater mis- take can be made than to assume such a ground as this. On the contrary, it is here, more than anywhere else, that know! edge and skill are required. 1. Every young man and young woman contemplating the conjugal union should have some knowledge o-f physiology, phrenology, and physiognomy, to enable him or her advant- ageously to study the human constitution, especially in ita bearings upon the relaticns of the sexes. No one is qualified It> WEDLOCK. to cl-jose a corapauion till he has become fam.liar with th« pliysical and mental peculiarities of his own organization, learned the combinations to be desired in a matrimonial con- nection, and fitted himself to distinguish the necessary qual ities in the opposite sex, by means of their external Mgns He must be able to judge in regard to temperament, qualil ) of fiber, activity, health, disposition, and the capacities and tendencies of the mind. A lack of this knowledge is the cause of frequent and irremediable mistakes and of untold misery. 2. Sexual physiology and, on the part of the woman at least, the laws of maternity should receive especial atten- tion. This subject is often treated in a gross and indelicate manner by ignorant charlatans and unprincipled quacks; but there is nothing necessarily indelicate or impure about it, and it should be studied in the same spirit as any other part of physiology — as digestion or circulation, for instance, are stud- ied. It is quite as important as either, and just as proper for every young man and young woman to learn. 8. A practical knowledge of housekeeping in all its branches should be considered essential in every marriageable young woman, no matter what her rank or wealth. She may have servants, and even employ a professional housekeeper ; but no one can relieve her from the responsibility which must rest upon the mistress of a family. It is her duty to know how cveiything ought to be done, so that she can gi-s'e the proper directions, if necessary, even in the details of cooking, washing, or house-cleaning. She should be as familiar with domestic economy as with music or the French language, and should count cookery as one of the elegant arts — an accompliih'ment not to be dispensed with or ashamed of To the poor and those in moderate circumstances, a pi-actical familiarity with all the duties of the household is of course an immediate and pressing necessity on the part of the young wife, and sad indeed are the results where she shows herself unequal to 'he situation. Music, French, and drawing may be dispensed with, but ]iot the arts of the kitchen and the laundry. Even the most devoted of young husbands will hardly be content to live tvholly on smiles and kisses, how QUALIFICATIONS FOR MATRIMONV". 17 ever sweet. He will be likely to prefer a nicely cooked beef- fiteak now and th^n, by way of change. The young husband, too, has his duties and responsibilitiea in the matter of housekeeping. He is the head of the family. He must be qualified to manage its affairs and provide judi- ciously for its needs. He must divide with his partner tlie burdens of the household, lightening her labors as she does his; but neitlier can wholly relieve the other from his or her re- sponsibilities, for each holds a position involving certain spe- cific individual duties which can be delegated to no one else. 4. Marriage implies, or should imply, the expectation of pa- rentage, and how to rear and educate children should be among the branches of education required of all candidates for the joys and honors of matrimony. The bodily development and health, the mental culture, and the moral training of a family of children depend mainly upon their parents ; and a proper performance of their duties to their offspring requires not merely parental affection, which is seldom Jacking, but knowledge, sound judgment, skill, patience, self-control, and a conscientious God-loving and God-fearing spirit. Especially is this true in regard to the mother. Each mother is a histo- rian. She writes not the history of empires or of nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the imperishable mind of her child. That tablet and that history will remain in- delible throughout all eternity. That history each mother shall meet again, and read with eternal joy or unutterable grief in the coming ages. Industry and Economy. The great majority of our people are obliged to earn a liveli- hood by means of some form of useful activity — ^by work of hand or brain, or both together ; and habits of industry and economy are not merely desirable but absolutely essential qualifications for marriage. He who can not provide for a fam- ily has no right to take upon himself the responsibilities of one. The idle and the extravagant are pests and clogs to so- ciety. By marriage, they but multiply the evils which they inflict upon themselves and others. 18 WEDLOCK The young man whom laziness or faise pride pn.'vcnts from engaging in some useful trade, profession, or business, and ■who prefers a life of dependence and idleness, or seeks by dis- reputable pursuits to acquire the means of subsistence, should be shunned by every virtuous young woman as an unworthy and dangerous companion. To become linked to such a one can be nothing but a terrible misfortune. Young women with no domestic tastes, no knowled^re of household duties, and no habits of industry, but with the ex- travagant notions so prevalent at the present day in matters of fashion and dress — with no desire or ability to earn or to save, but with unlimited artificial wants and great talents for "shopping," are utterly unfitted for becoming the wives of men of small income — for becoming-wives at all, we may say, for their ideas are not consistent with domestic life and happi- ness in any sphere. Even where there is abundant means, we would still insist upon industry and economy as necessary qualifications for marriage. Wealth is often spoken of as taking to itself wings. This is hardly a figure of speech. It is almost a literal fact ; and it is so often illustrated in real life as to need few words here to enforce the truth. Suppose a young, lately married pair, who have commenced life in affluence, to awake some fine morning to find themselves beggars. Industry and economy are words of which they have never learned the meaning. What are they to do ? The lessons they will be compelled to learn will be hard ones in- deed, and sadly will they repent their neglect to fit themselves in time to meet such changes of fortune as all are liable to experience, sooner or later. But aside from the danger of losing one's wealth and need ing the ])ecuniary benefits of industry and economy, we should consider active usefulness as a moral duty. If we do not need to earn and save for our own use, we should do it for the benefit of the less fortunate of our fellow-men. We have no right to stand idly looking on in a world where there is so much work to be done, and no right to waste where there is %o much poverty and want. QUALIFICATIONfe FOK MATRBIONY. 19 Good Habits. Habits ruinous to health or morals, in either sex, Fliouhl bo a bar to marriage. Intemperance, gambling, general licentious- ness, and self-abuse involve consequences too terrible to be exteii'led beyond the individual who has subjecterl himself to these vices. It is hardly necessary to warn tlie riglit-minded virtuous young woman against the actual sot or the notoiious blackleg. They are too repulsive to be dangerous to the pure and refined;, but tiiere are those who have entered the downward path which leads to degradation, if not to crime, but who have not yet lost the power to make themselves agreeable, and who have the manners and bearing of gentle- men. They are fond of billiards and cards, too fond of the social glass, are not always judicious in the choice of their companions, and sometimes betray their disreputable associa- tions by the use of profanity or slang. These are the danger- ous men. Depend upon it, their path is downward, and they would drag yon with them. Allow uo such person to approach you with professions of love till they have retraced their steps, purged and purified their souls and bodies, and made themselves worthy of that greatest of all earthly boons, a pure woman's love. You need not look far among your acquaint- ances for examples of the opposite course and its consequences. Ask the worse than widowed mother of those ragged, half- starved children what has brought ruin and misery upon her once comfortable home. She is the wife of a drunkard ; but she did not marry a drunkard. She would not have listened for a moment to such a one. William was a gay, genial, jovial, warm-hearted yoang man, smoked, drank, and played, but kei)t himself well dressed, outwardly clean and respect- able, and was very agreeable in his manners. She was young and thoughtless. A few years have passed, and you see where she is. This result was foreshadowed in the beginning of her intercourse with the young man. A better knowledge of hu- man nature would have shown her what must be the tend- ency of those convivial and ruinous habits, which then ga^d her no alarm. "A word to the wise" should be enough here. The fairer sex, we are sorry to be obliged to say, are not 20 WEDLOCK. free from habits tending to unfit them for marriage — habits injurious to health and destructive to the morals. Tight lac- ing and other fashionable follies, late hours, social dissipa- tion, and other abuses of the constitution are undermining the health, destroying the beauty, and incapacitating for the en- j)jments as well as the duties of married life many of oui young women. We should fail in our duty if we were to re main silent in regard to the ruinous consequences of marrying s^uch poor unfortunate victims of folly and fashion. Better remain single for life than to become yoked in the holy bonds of matrimony with one who is incapable alike of being a help- meet, in the true sense of the word, or the mother of a family. Beware of painted faces and "made up" figures, as well as ol idle habits, frivolity, extravagance, and inanity. ^lORAL PeIIs^CIPLES. In addition to a good physical organization'J^a well-devel- oped social nature, and sufiicient intellectual capacity to fit one for the ordinary business of life, we must insist upon the necessity of correct moral principles as essential to useful- ness and happiness in the marriage relation. The domestic propensities are blind instincts intended for our good, and to insure the perpetuation of the race and the establishment and preservation of social order, but they need the guidance of reason and the controlling and restraining influences of the moral or spiritual sentiments. If these be lacking or weak, the social organs may become perverted, and lead to the most lamentable abuses. Even the intellect may be made tlie instrument of evil as well as of good ; in fact, mere intellectual ability, unsanctified by religion and uncontrolled by moral principle, very often proves a curse to its possessor and to the world. Allow, then, no personal advantages, no evidences of a social disposition, no degree of intellectual ability, to blind you to the lack of moral principle. Better attempt to cross the ocean without a compass, than to embark on the sea of matrimony in a bark without the helm of conscientiousness, and with a pilot who has no better guiding star than poor un- QUALIFICATIOXS FOR MATRIMONY. 21 panctific'd human reason. "Youth, beauty, health, strength, good manners, reputable connections, good sense, and amia- bility, with other natural or acquired endowments, may be sought in marriage ; but the most indispensable qualification in a husband or aAvife, and one which is most frequently made of little importance, is a good moral and religious character. With this, many other deficiencies may be easily borne ; but without it, the most splendid natural and acquired gifts will &il to meet the wants of the truly pious man or w^oman." " How swift the heavenly course they run Whose hearts, whose faith, whose hopes are one!** m. Although my heart in earlier y mth Might kindle with more wild desire, Believe me, it has gained in truth Much more than it has lo&t in &Te.— Moore. Physiological CoNsiDEEATioNb. — Man's Dominion. N" the case of the lower animals, nature has deter- mined the mating season, making it coincident with the desire for union and the ability of each sex to perform its distinctive functions. It might seem, at the first glance, that the same rule ought to apply to the human race ; but we must look at man, not merely in the light of nature, but in relation to the artificial conditions by which he has surrounded himself. lie differs from the lower ani- mals in his ada])tation to artificial conditions. Art, to speak somewhat paradoxically, is a part of his nature. His inferiors of the animal kingdom are brought into subjection to art through his power over them, but he assumes similar condi- tions freely and as a matter of choice; and is improved and elevated by them, provided they are in harmony with natural laws. When they violate these laws, when art and nature are thrown into positions of antagonism, as they often are under the present order of things, deterioration and decadence are the results. Man has dominion over nature. The unphysiological habits and pernicious systems of edu- cation so prevalent at the present day, especially in cities, tend to produce precocity and a depreciation of vital staminji. The natural order of development is often subverted, and the desires, and passions which should come only with the full development of the physical system, are prematurely and al> THE RIGHT AGE TO MARRY. 23 normally manifested. It will not do to make these premature manifestations the criterions of fitness for the conjugal union. In utter disregard of these considerations, some have recom- mended that marriage should take place as soon as the desire for union shall manifest itself, which may be at the age of from twelve to fourteen in the young woman, and from fourteen to sixteen in the young man, or in some cases even earlier.* Others contend that they should not marry before they havt reached maturity of body, if not of mind. Dr. Johnson, an eminent English writer, says that from twenty-eight to thirty in the male, and from twenty-three to twenty-five in the female, may be considered as the average periods of bod- ily maturity, and that the female should be at least tweiity- one years of age, and the male at least twenty-eight, before ihey become united in marriage. This opinion is founded on observations made in Europe. Physical maturity ari'ives a little earlier in the United States. It is difficult to lay down any exact rule in regard to the right age to marry, except the general one, that there should be such a degree of bodily and mental development as shall fit the parties for the proper performance of all the duties in- volved in the conjugal relation. With this limitation, we are decidedly in favor of early marriages. In the northern por- tions of the United States, a good average age for the male is from twenty-two to thirty, and for the female from eighteen t J twenty-six. In the South, both sexes reach maturity sooner, and may marry somewhat earlier, say from one to tw^o years. Early Marriages. By early marriages, we do not mean the union of mere boys ♦ Practical Illustrations of this doctrine are not lacking, but they occur mainly among savage or barbarous tribes, whose habits are less artificial than those of the highly ci\ilizod nations of Europe and America. In India, if a person sees girls of more than twelve years of age unmarried in a family, he says : '' How is it that a Brahmin can sit at home and eat his food with comfort when his daughters at such an age re- main unmarried?" In China, the matrimonial age varies from twelve to fourteen In females, and from sixteen to twenty in males. Mongolian women, in a climate ae cold as Sweden, or even farther north, are married between eleven and twelve. On the other hand, the ancient Gauls thought it a disgrace to marry early. Aristotle Taught that the proper age for men was thirty-seven, SLnd for women eighteen; and Plato recommended thirty for males and twenty for females 24 WEDLOCK. anc girls, but of youug, tliougli measui-ably nifliiire, men aivl women, as insisted upon in the preceding section. There are many reasons, both physical and moral, why marriage should not b\^ unnecessarily delayed beyond the period of I'ull bodily development. Celibacy is in direct opposition to a law of our nature. With the exceptions noted in a previous chapter, it is the duty as well as the privilege of men and women to marry, and a failjire to do so is an act of disobedience which can not gn unpunished. "But suppose circumstances beyond one's con trol absolutely pi-event any matrimonial union? Take the* case of the maiden, for instance, whom " nobody comes to woo ? " This may change the moral aspects of the case, but in relation to the natural laws it remains the same. Fire will burn you all the same, no matter how innocently you fall into it. The health almost invariably suffers from the repression of the natural activity of any of the bodily functions; and long- continued restraint in the direction of legitimate exercise is very liable to result in hurtful, if not sinful, abuses of the re- })ressed functions. Young men who remain unmarried, especially in cities, are exposed to many temptations which they have not always the moral strength to i-esist, and from which a loving wife and a happy home would save them. Marriage is the best safe- guard of virtue in such cases, and should not be unnecessarily delayed. The plea of want of pecuniary means is not always a good one. The young man who is able to indulge in the expensive habits from which few single men are free^ can gen- erally provide in an economical but comfortable way for a family. It often costs less to support two than to pander to the artificial wants of one. Another important reason for early marriage is the fact, that in youth the parties more readily assimilate to each other, and harmonious relations are more likely to be main- tained. Later in life, the character of each becomes fixed, and habits formed that are difficult to change, and may lead to unpleasant differences, if not to permanent estrangement. THE RIGHT AGE TO MARRY. 25 It should be considered, too, that, where marriage takes place early in life, the chances that the parents will live to see their children grown up and settled in life are much greater than when it is delayed. In the latter case, they are ofttpn deprived of the guardianship and protection of those wh 3ni nature has assigned to them as teachers, guides, and rouuselors at a time when their kind offices are most needed. They may fall into good hands or into bad, but in no case can tlie place of a parent be truly filled by any other person. In short, every argument that can be consistently urged in favor of marrying at all, may be used to enforce early marriages, as we have defined and limited the term. Difference in Age. Nature has indicated with sufficient clearness that there should be a slight difference in age between the male and the female on assuming the marriage relation. As the girl ar- rives at womanhood two or three years earlier than the boy reaches manhood, we may infer that the husband should be at least as many years older than the wife. Any rule, however, that we might lay down, in regard to difl'erence in age, must be subject to many exceptions, mainly on account of individ- ual differences in the time of reaching maturity. One person may be really older, so far as growth, development, and ma- turity of body and mind are concerned, at eighteen years of age than another at twenty-five. We consider from four to six years a very good average difference, wliere the parties are young; but if both be somewhat advanced in years, a greater difference may be allowable — say, from ten to fifteen years; but not fifty ! Each age has its peculiar tastes, pursuits, aspirations, and attractions, its own modes of thinking and acting, and its own hopes and pleasures, with which those widely separated from it can not fully sympathize, and serious disagreements are apt to result in married life from this cause. Some one has said, " that when two young persons get mar- ried to each other, it is God's work; when an old man marries a young woman, 't is man's work; but when a young man 9 26 WEDLOCK luaiTies an old woman, it is the devil's work." It is true that instances may be quoted in which a great difference of age has proved no bar to matrimonial happiness, but, on the other hand, has seemed to furnish one of the principal elements of Bympathy, union, and felicity. We must consider these, how- ever, as exceptional cases and unsafe examples to follow. " Few indeed have been our years, Yet enough our hearts to bind, love, And to show how many tears In life's brightest cup we find, love ; Since, in our united youth, We twain sported on the heather, Dearest, it is meet, in truth, That we sliould grow old together." lY. gotib^s for garrging. "Ktrriage ir a union of love between one man and one woman, devoting them*«lTefl U> strictest intimacy and with exclusive fidelity to perpetual mutual improvement. .... Tiie union ehould be formed witli a view to tlie whole life of man, both that which now is and that which is to come. Love is an ciernal principle; hence all merely temporary motives are wrong.— i^'o^^^n. Why they Married, OME close observer of our social relations, having looked about among his married female acquaint ances, ventures to give the following list, with an attempt to indicate the real reasons which in- fluence too many to marry. We hope and believe that hr is not correct in the proportion he assigns to the right motive for marrying, but we are sure that all the other motives he mentions are more or less influential. lie says: 1. Marrying for a Home. — Number One has married for a home. She got tired of working in a factory, or teaching school, or making dresses, and she thought married life was nothing on earth but moonlight walks, buggy-rides, new bon- nets, and nothing to do! Well, she has got her home; whether or no she is tired of the accompanying incumbrances this deponent saith not, inasmuch as this deponent doth not positively know. 2. Consulting Family Interests. — Number Two married because she had seven younger sisters, and a papa with a nar- row income. She "consulted the interests of her family." Perhaps she would better have consulted her own interest by taking in light Avashing, or going out by the day to work. 3. She Liked the Sound of 3Irs. — Number Three married -^S WEDLOCK. because Mrs. sounded so much better than Miss. She was twenty-nine years and eleven months old, and another month would have transmuted her into a regular old maid. Think how awful that would have been ! 4. Waiited Somebody to Pay her Bills. — Number Four married because she wanted somebody to pay her bills. 13 er liusband married for precisely the same reason, so they are botli of them repenting at leisure. 5. N'ot Going to he Left Behind. — Number Five married because Fanny White had a nice new husband, and 5^6 wasn't going to be left behind ! Pity if she could'nt get married as well as other folks ! 6. Marrying for Money. — Number Six married because she was poor, and wanted riches. Poor child ! she never counted on all the other things that were inseparable from those cov- eted riches. 7. She Liked to Travel. — Number Seven married because she thought she should like to travel! But Mr. Number Seven changed his mind afterward, and all the traveling she has done has been between the well and the back-kitchen door. 8. Marrying out of Spite. — Number Eight married out oi spite, because her first love had taken unto himself a second love ! This little piece of retaliation might have done her good at the time, but, in the long run. Number Eight found it did not pa}^ 9. Wanted Sympathy. — Number Nine married because she had read novels and " wanted sympathy," Sympathy is a fine thing, but it cools down at a rapid rate if the domestic kettle is not kept boiling, and the domestic tui-key is underdone. Novels and housekeeping don't run well together in harness, to use a sporting phrase, and Number Nine's supply of sym- pathy didn't hold out very long ! 10. Marrying for Love. — Number Ten married because slie loved her husband with all her heart and with all her soul ! And she loves him still, and will probably always continue to love him, and is the happiest wife in the world — so she says ! Here we have the i-ight motive at last — a motive which, MOTIVES FOR MARRYING. 20 when sanctified by a desire and a resolution to improve and elevate each other, and.to live true and holy lives before God, can not fail to call down the blessings of Pleaven. But sad i? the fate of those who marry from wrong motives — to escape their share of life's work, or to get something for which tiK.'y Un\e nothing to give in return. Marrying for Money. Prominent among the wrong motives for marrying is the desire fur wealth, or for the luxuries, the privileges, and the ease wliicli wealth is supposed to insure. Wealth is a good thing in itself, and, when rightly used, may be made a source of happiness to its possessor, and of great benefit to the world at large ; but as the leading motive for forming a matrimonial alliance, it almost always proves a snare and a curse; and those who succeed in making a pecuniarily " good match," generally get misery as well as money — more of the t'ormer than of the latter — and learn, too late, that cupidity is a more dangerous foe to peace of mind than even Cupid himself. Solon abolished the giving of portions with young women in marriage, unless they were only daughters, for he would not have matrimony become a trafiic ; and when one asked Themistocles what he thought about marrying a person with- out a fortune, he replied that he would rather marry his daugh- ter to a man without an estate than to an estate without a man. Must we not admit that these pagans of ancient Gi'eece were wiser than many a so-called Christian parent who is ready to sacrifice his daughter on the altar of Mammon, and who gives little thought to the man, provided the estate be secured ? It has been satirically said that — " Maidens, like moths, are ever caught with glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair." IJut though -VNuinan, under the present system of unjust dis- crimination between her and man in the distribution of the rewards of industry, is more frequently necessitous, as well as less qualified to struggle wnth adversity, and more confiding in her nature, and, therefore, under stronger temptations to accept 30 WEDLOCK. money in place of a heart, yet the stronger sex is scarcely less addicted to mercenary designs in marriage. Fortune hunt- ing is not confined to one sex, but is pursued with equal zest by both, each eager for a "good match" — in other words, a good bargain. But is it a good bargain after all ? You may have obtained a large pile of gold, but is it an adequate price cr a free-born spirit — for a life of love and happiness resigned and made forever impossible ? Mrs. Child says : " I never knew a marriage expressly for money that did not end unhappily. Yet managing mothers and heartless daughters are constantly playing the same unlucky game. ] believe that men more frequently marry for love than women, because women think they shall never have a better chance, and dread to be dependent. If I may judge by my own ob servation, marrying for a home is a most tiresome way of get ting a living." Prudence will dictate that marriage should not take place till thei-e shall be a reasonable prospect of a comfortable sup port ; but this is not so difficult to attain as many suppose, and, as a rule, need not long delay the happy consummation, where industry and economy are incited to activity by true love and sustained by the hope of a future happy home. Other Matrimonial Bargains. There are thousands of matrimonial alliances in which therf is not sufficient money on either side to serve as a tempta- tion, but which are, nevertheless, mere contracts of self-inter- est with which love has nothing to do. A bachelor, for in- stance, gets tired of his lonely, dusty apartments and hia dull, unsatisfactory life, and thinks it would be a fine thing to- have some one to keep tilings tidy, to mend his stockings, to sew buttons on his shirt, and to have an eye on his domestic affairs generally ; and he looks about for a suitable })artner with just as sharp an eye to business as if he were selecting a bookkeeper or a salesman for his shop. Or a widower, with a family of young children on liis hands, makes up his mind that a wife would be less expensive than a hired housekeepe?*, sjid sets himself at work to secure one. There is no great MOTIVES FOR MARRYING. 31 difficulty in finding a maiden, young or old, or a widow who will be glad to exchange the life of ill-paid drudgery to which poor unmarried women are subjected, for almost any position which promises to secure her a home and the certainty of a provision for her necessities. So the bargain is closed, and the vacant place, uninviting as it is, is filled — the one party agreeing to furnish bed and board, clothes and " pin mo»iey," and tho otiier promising to take care of the children and attend to the dusting and the dinners. Nothing is said about a heart. If either party has one, he or she is left in undisputed possession of it. Such a bargain may sometimes prove a good one for both parties in a merely commercial point of view ; but oftener \- fails, even in that respect, to give satisfaction to either. In any case, it is not marriage in the highest and best sense of the term, and brings with it none of the blessings which wed- ded love insures. This is one out of the many forms which matrimonial traffic assumes, but the same false principle underlies them all. In each it is a business transaction, and not a union of hearts — the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out. Marryixg for Beauty. The poet says — " A thing of beauty is a joy forever." If this be true, as it may be in a certain poetic sense, then a thing of beauty is a very desirable object to have in one's house ; but a pretty fiice, liowever pleasant to look upon, is not always, we are sorry to say, to be relied upon as a peren- nial spring of happiness. Beauty, or what generally passes for beauty, in the female face, is often but a fieeting charm. Sir Walter Raleigh, in a letter to his son, very truly says: "Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, tliou bindest thy- self for life for that which will perhaps neither last nor please thee one year ; and when thou hast it, it will be to tl ee of no price at all." The worshipers of pretty faces are mainly of the masculine gender, though women sometimes allow themselves to be led astray by a doll in pantaloons, with curling locks and a 32 WEDLOCK " love of a mustaclie ; " but the effects of the high vahie of beauty in the matrimonial market is to lead the fair sex to make use of expensive and often dangerous means to secure, or at least to seem to possess, the j^ersonal attractions ^vhic]) they have learned are so pleasing to the gentlemen ; " spending their time," in the quaint language of Dean Swift, "in making nets instead of cages" — striving to gain admiration rather than to secui-e and retain affection. We do not underrate beautj^, nor discourage the love of it ; but even in its highest forms, as manifested in the outward signs of health, physical completeness, and mental symmetry, it must not be made the dominant motive for marriage. It will not supply the place of love ; and love is the true bond of union. The Right Motive. The true motive for entering into the holy state of wedlock has been more than hinted at in the preceding pages ; and may be inferred from the considerations, urged in our first chapter, where it is shown that Marriage is an ordinance of God, instituted for the promotion of human happiness, the mutual improvement of the parties united, and the perpetua- tion of its numerous blessings through offspring to the latest generations. Love is made the foundation of marriage and the moving spring of obedience to the divine command. When one mar- ries under the influence of lower motives, he sins against God and his own God-given nature. A late writer sets this subject in the strong light of trutli before certain fair ones, to whom he is speaking; and our readers of the rougher sex may take the greater portion of liis remarks home to their own consciences, as equally applicable to their case : "' Straight is the gate and narrow is the way' that leads to a true marriage. Selfish motives, that so easily obtain *u- pieme control in the heart, lead to ill-assorted, wi etched mar riages. To man-y foi- money, to marry for position, to marry that you may not 'turn brown nnd be an old maid,' is to MOTIVES FOR MARRYING. 33 marry in the spirit of selfishness, ruinous selfishness, and not for love's sake. " ' Hasn't every woman a right to look out for herself? ' in- dignantly asks one of the fair. Yes ; but when you begin to talk about looking out for yourself, you venture on dangerous ground. You should remember that your married life may call you to self-sacrifice, not to self-indulgence. The constantly turning wheel of fortune may bring poverty and sickness, and if you have not love enough for a man to go through fire and flood for his sake, you had better never marry him. If you marry for anything but love, you marry for what may pei'ish in a night. Now, do not talk selfishly or frivolously about that union which, if it be a real union of hearts, is of God, for *love is of God,' and destined, for aught you know, to run parallel with eternity. There are two lines, often sung, and said to be sacred, but we think they are not : ' There is no union here of hearts That finds not here an end.' "Xo, a true union of hearts not even death can end, and may your marriage, my fair friend, be a true union of liearts, a true man-iage, such as will be yours not only through life here, but in tlie life beyond, where souls rejoice forever in a perfect union." 2* Variety's the very spice of life That gives it all its &aYor.—Cowper. None ( f you shall approach [in Marriage] to any that is of kin to him.^Levitlcut. May Cousins Makey? HE laws of the most civilized of modern nations do not forbid it. Legally, you may marry your cousin. Are such marriages admissible in a physiological point of view ? European physiologists are divided on this question. In this country there are hardly two oi^inions. The evil effects of consanguineous marriages seem to be more strikingly manifested here than in Europe, prob- ably because we, as a people, are less evenly balanced in or- ganization and character than our European congeners, and therefore more liable than they to transmit excesses or de- ficiencies disastrous in their results upon the bodies and the minds of offspring. Be the cause what it may, our statistics show, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the mariiage of cousins is not here, as a rule, permissible on physiological grounds. The Reasons Why. In all families the likeness which marks them is the ground on which we found our chief objection to the marriage of near relations. It is the similarity which in its development throws the organization more and more out Df balance. Nature finds compensating influences in mixed marriages, and thus modi- fies and improves the progeny. Persons too much alike, even if not related, should not marry, for the reason that their MARRIAGES OF CONSANGUINITY. 35 children are likely to inherit the similar characteristics of their parents in an intensified degree, and be all the more inhar. moniously constituted. The children born of such alliances usually inherit all the phj^sical weaknesses or " taints " of Mieir parents. Experience, taken from the lessons imparted by nature, has (Mughi us the value of blood and the importance of change in regard to marriage, and we can not understand why these principles are not in practice applied to the human race. In agricultural operations, every experienced farmer knows that corn or wheat, if grown for successive seasons on the same ground, Avill deteriorate in quality ; and therefore he not only changes the ground occasionally, but also the seed, so as to determine and keep up the standard quality of his grain. Opinions of the Physiologists. Dr. Carpenter, of the University of London, in his " Prin- siples of Human Physiology," uses the following strong lan- guage : "The intensification which almost any kind of perver- sion of nutrition derives from being common to hoth parents, is most remarkably evinced by the lamentable results which lOO frequently accrue from the marriage of individuals nearly related to each other and partaking of the same 'taint.' Out of 359 idiots, the condition of whose progenitors could be ascertained, 17 were hnown to have been the children of pa- rents nearly related by blood, and this relationship was sus- pected to have existed in several other cases, in which posi- tive information could not be obtained. On examining into tlie history of the 17 families, to which these individuals be- longed, it was found that they had consisted in all of S5 children ; that of these, no fewer than 44 were idiotic, 12 others \^'ore scrofulous and puny, 1 was deaf, and 1 was a dwaif. In some of these families all the children were either idiotic or very scrofulous and puny; in one family of 8 children. 6 were idiotic." George Combe, the author of " Constitution of Man," has given his decided opposition to such marriages. He says: " Marriages between blood-relations tend most decidedly to tb© S6 WEDLOCK. deterioration of the physical and mental qualities of the off spring. In Spain, kings marry their nieces; and in England, first and second cousins marry without scruple, although every philosophical physiologist will declare that it is in direct op- position to the institutions of nature.* '• If the first individuals connected in near i elation ship, who unite in marriage, are uncommonly robust, and possess vcrv favorably developed brains, their offspring may not be S'* much deteriorated below the common standard of the country as to attract particular attention, and the law of nature is, in this instance, supposed not to hold ; but it does hold, for to a law of nature there never is an exception. The offspniig are uniformly inferior to what X\\qj would have bee) i if the parents had united with strangers in blood of equal vigor and cerebral development. Wherever there is any rer)iarkahle deficierhyy in parents who are related in bloody these appear in the most marl'ed and aggravated forms in the offspring. The fact is so well known that I forbear to enlarge upon it." Facts adduced by cattle-growers in reference to the bene- fits of in-and-in breeding are sometimes quoted in opposition to these views. The Durham ox and Ditchley sheep of Eng- * The Archives de la Medecine Naval of France contain a scrap of curious informa- tion respecting marriages of consanguinity in the black race. We translate from the Journal de Medecine Mental, in which we find it copied: In 1&49 there died at Widah, in the kingdom of Dahomey, a Portuguese trader named Da Souza, well known to all navigators who have visited the western coast of Africa. He was an important personage in the country, which he had inhabited many years, and had made an immense fortune by trading with the negroes. On his death he left behind him a number of children, the issue of fixe four hundred women kept in his harem. The political policy of the kings of Dahomey being hostile to the establishment of a mixed race, the numerous progeny of Da Souza were shut up in an inclosure (enceinte particuliere) by themselves, under the government of one of tlie eons. Here, subjected to the surveillance of the agents of the king— the most despot ic of ail the mnuarchs of the earth— these metis (people of mixed blood) could unite iu marriage on.j among themselves — in other words, they lived in the most shameless promiscuity. In 1863 they counted children of the third generation. The color of their skin was returning rapidly to deep black, though all of them preserved some of the traits of their European ancestor. Among all these descendants of Da Souza— we are able to state this from personal observation— forming among themselves imions at once the closest in relationship and the most monstrous, thero are neither deaf mutes nor blind, nor cretins (idiots), nor feeble or deformed from birth Nature seems to revenge hef »elf here in ancther way. Thii human herd is decreastKg, and is menaced with earijf ixtinction. MARRIAGES OF CONSANGUINITY. 37 land are the product of breeding in-and-in. The Arabs can trace the pedigree of their most vahiable horses to the time of Mohammed, while they avoid all crossing as detrimental. These facts, while they admit of but exceptional denial, can hardly be received as analogous to the results of marriages of kin amono: men, owing: to the differences of structure and ner- vous constitution between man and the lower animals. Im provements in the English cattle are altogether physical, and produced by the association of selected individuals of the stock most approved. Speaking of breeding in-and-in generally, Sir John Sebright, a noted English authority, says: "I have no doubt that by this practice being continued, animals would, in course of time, degenerate to such a degree as to become incapable of breeding at all. I have tried many experiments by breeding in-and-in upon dogs, fowls, and pigeons; the dogs become, from strong spaniels, weak and diminutive lapdogs ; the fowls become long in the legs, small in the body, and poor breeders. Barrenness is the result." Mr. Berry, another eminent authority, says: "Although clo«;e breeding may confirm valuable properties, it will also increase and confirm defects. * * * It impairs the constitu- tion and affects the procreative powers." Alexander Walker, the author of "Intermarriage; or Beauty, Health, and Intellect," devotes a large portion of his work to the consideration of stock-raising in England, citing the best authorities on cross-breeding and in-and-in breeding. He does not indorse in all respects the views generally enter- tained concerning the superior quality of Durham cattle, Ditchley sheep, and Arabian horses, but adduces evidence showing that the gain resulting from such interbreeding is olTsct by a loss in other respects. Pertinent Facts. The Report of the Commissioners of the Kenturky Institu- tion for the Education and Training of Imbeciles or Feeble- minded Children, in a passage urging the prohibition of first- cousin marriages by legal statute, uses the following language. 38 WEDLOCK. " We deem it our duly to the interests of humanity, as well ai to the pe(?uniary interest of the State, to bear our testimony in addition to the abundant statistics heretofore collected and published by physicians and philanthropists, and to the ob- servation of every close observer, as well as to general consid- erations of propriety, that a large percentage of deaf mutes and of the blind, a limited percentage of lunatics, and, no doubt, a much larger one than either of feeble-minded or idiotic children, are the offspring of the marriage oi first cou- sins. Our charitable institutions are filled with children whose parents are so related — sometimes as many as four from one family ; and we have known, in the case of idiots, of a still larger number in a family. It is a fearful penalty to which ])ersons so related render themselves liable by forming the matrimonial relation, and which they, in nearly every instance, incur, not indeed in all, but in one or more of their ofi*spring. Instances, we do not deny, may be shown where a portion of the children — one or more — may inlierit from both parents, where they possess high mental and bodily endowments of a common origin, enhanced and remarkable qualities of body and mind ; but it is generally at the expense of unfortunate and deeply afflicted brothers and sisters. We believe few in- stances can be given where such enhanced endowments are common to all the oifspring; while instances are not unfre- quent where nearly all, and, in a few, perhaps, every child, is afflicted either in body or mind, and sometimes in both." A report read before the National Medical Association at Washington, by Dr. S. M. Bemiss, in 1858, shows that over ten per cerit. of the blind, and nearly fifteen per cent, of the idiotic, in the different State institutions, were the offspring of kindred parents. According to " Chambers' Encyclopedia," the result of an examination into the congenital influences affecting deaf and dumb children in Scotland, was that of 235 whose parentage could be traced, TO, or nearly 30 per cent., were the offspring of the intermarriage of blood-relations. The physical de- formity and mental debasement of theCagots of the Pyrenees, of the ^Marrons of Auvergnt^, of the Sarrasins of Dauphine, of MARRIAGES OF CONSANGUINITY. 39 the Cretins of the Alps, and the gradual deterioration of the slave population of America, have been attributed to the con- sanguineous alliances which are unavoidable among these un- fortunate people.* These are appalling statements, but they fail to disclose the whole truth, for in many homes the unhappy fruits of a mar- riage between blood-relations are secluded from observation, and their existence is not suspected by even intimate ac- paintances. Hereditary Taints. It is well known that a person often carries in himself or tierself inherited physiological peculiarities which are latent, tut crop out after a generation or two. A man whose father had blue eyes and flaxen hair often derives from his mother black or dark hair and eyes and a dark complexion ; he mar- ries a woman similar, temperamentally, to himself, and lo ! his daughter has a light complexion, flaxen hair, and blue eyes. Her voice, her walk, and general habitude are like her light- complexioned grandfather, and acquaintances of the family who meet her as a stranger know her by the resemblance to that grandfather. So cousins, who appear to resemble the un- related parents, may carry enough of their related parents' blood idiosyncrasies to render their marriage improper. The Warning. 'No reasonable man, even when entertaining a strong at- tachment for a blood-relation, could indifferently glance at the array of testimony we have here presented. The terrible looking for of a judgment, as it were, in the form of abnormal, dwarfed, mal-organized children as the product of his marriage with that relative, would deter him from such a consummation. For her sake, on whom would devolve the agonizing charge * For more extended statistical evidence, we would refer the reader to the "Annual Rep'irts of the New York State Asylum for Idiots ; " " The American Journal of Med- ical Science for 1849;" "Steiraij's Essay on Hereditary Diseases and Intermar- riage; ' "Deray on the Danger of Consanguineous Mai-riages;" "Boudin, Danqert i4» Uutor)S Qynmnguins,^^ and to medical works in general. 40 WEDLOCK. of such oftspring, he would pause. The spirit which should actuate every person, man or woman, contemplating marriage, should be that of positive good to themselves and the improve- ment of their race. They should seek to more than duplicate themselves in their children ; and a well-ordered marriage, wherein the husband and wife complement each other tem- peramentally and physically, and who conduct their household on the sure principles of religion, temperance, and mutual concession, will be confirmed in its happiness by the olive branches which may spring up in their midst When Permissible. Undoubtedly thei'e are circumstances under which cousins might marry without apparent injurious results, but such cir- cumstances are exceedingly rare. We might suppose those circumstances to exist in the following hypothesis: Two brothers, in whose veins is the blood of half a dozen nations, and who can not recall a single instance of intermarriage in the family in generations past, settle for life in this country a thousand miles apart, and marry wives who are total strangers and as dissimilar as two white women can be ; their habits are excellent, their morals pure, and their health vigorous. Were the son of one brother to marry the daughter of the other, we could hardly apprehend a serious marring of their offspring, especially if such son and daughter respectively re- sembled their mothers, thus being withdrawn as it were frora the temperamental constitution of their flithers, or the con- sanguineous side. This may be considered an extreme and improbable case, but it is only such a one that we would venture to permit as conferring no injury on the offspring. Again : if the suitors — cousins — be past forty years of age, and seek to marry simply and only for personal companion' ahip^ that is another thing, and may be admissible. The danger of inflicting imbeciles on society would be materially lessened. If, therefore, cousins will marry, let them put it oflf till past forty years of age. /0nfttgctl mUdxon. m Love is a celestial harmony, Of likely hearts compos'd of star's consen''., Whicn join together in sweet sympathy, To work each others joy and true content.— SpenMT. TJXHAPPY MaEKIAGES. \KRIAGE is intended to promote, and not to de^ stroy, happiness. It is normally a perennial spring of joy, and not a perpetually flowing fountain of bitter- ness. When it becomes a source of bickerings, contention, and domestic misery, we may conclude that the conditions under which it has been contracted are not favor- able — not such as nature has indicated to be essential to its harmonious operations. When we see an unhappy married couple, we are apt hastily to infer that one of the parties, at least, is greatly in fault, and that perhaps both are of an unamiable disposition ; but this is often far from being the case. In many instances both parties are naturally amiable, kind-hearted, and affectionate. Each is capable of loving and of making another being happy in the marriage relation, but that other does not happen to be the one to whom he or she is bound. They are mismated. They do not harmonize — the bond of sympathy or under- standing of each other is lacking. The parties have made a mistake. The world is full of these mismated couples — full of the unhappiness, the deep misery which inevitably grows out of incompatibility in the marriage relation. Can anything be done to prevent the so frequent occurrence of these errors ? or 18 marriage a mere game of chance — a lottery — as some 3* 4:2 WEDLOCK. have called it? We believe that something can be done. Ignorance is the main cause of these unhappy alliances, and the diffusion of the needed knowledge will, in a great measure, prevent them. It is our purpose in this chapter to impart at least some hints toward this knowledge, so as to enable our readers to avoid the terrible dangers which beset the path of those who are ignorant of nature's laws in respect to tlie union of the sexes in marriage. He who, in the full light of day and with his eyes wide open, persists in running into the iaws of a calamity worse than death, must accept the inevi- table consequences. About Temperament. Prominent among the conditions affecting the happiness of married couples is temperament; and this is one of the first things to be considered by those contemplating matrimony. To enable the reader to fully understand our teachings on this point, we here give a brief description of the three primary temperaments. Temperament is a particular state of the constitution, de- pending upon the relative proportion of its different masses or systems of organs. We are accustomed to consider these con- stitutional conditions as primarily three in number, called, re- Bpectively, The Motive Temperament; The Vital Temperament; AND The Mental Temperament. The first is marked by a superior development of the os- seous and muscular systems, forming the locomotive appa- ratus; in the second, the vital organs, the principal seat of which is in the trunk, give the tone to the organization ; whikj in the third, the brain and nervous system exert the control- ling power. 1. TTie Motive Temperament. — In this temperament the bones are comparatively large and broad rather than long, and the muscles only moderately full, but dense, firm, and tough. The figure is generally tall, the face long, the posed to the arrangement, great delicacy is required in placing the matter in its most favorable light before her. The lady ambassadors do not shock thy voung lady to whom they are MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND CEREMOJSTIES. 77 seivt by any sudden or abrupt avowal of the awful subject of tlieir mission. Instead of doing this, they launch out in praises of the gentleman who seeks her hand. They speak of the f^plendor of his house, the sumptuousness of his furniture, of his courage and skill in fishing and catching seals, and otlier iccomplishments. The lady, even if favorably disposed, pretends to be affront-^ ed even at these remote hints, runs away, tearing the ringlets of her hair as she retires, w^hile the ambassadresses, having got the consent of her parents, pursue her, drag her from her concealment, take her by force to the house of her destined husband, and there leave her. Compelled to remain there, she sits for days with disheveled hair, silent and dejected, re- fusing every kind of subsistence, till at last, if kind entreaties do not prevail, she is compelled by force, and even by blows, to submit to the detested union. Among the Armenians, the wedding takes place on some special day, generally on Sunday. On the preceding day, large quantities of food and drink are prepared, and the women congregate at the house of the bride to eat and drink. At night they all crowd into the room where she is prepared for her husband. She laments and cries incessantly, keeping her face buried in her hands. When they withdraw her liands to put her garments on, she resists till she is in a perspiration. The garments are as fine as the parties can aflibrd. A vail of gauze and gold spangles covers her head and falls below her waist. About midnight the bridegroom comes with music and at- tendants, and the women who are with the bride set up a wail- ing, and begin to beat the musicians till they keep quiet. The bride is mounted on a horse and taken to the church, where the ceremony is performed by the priest. Only one woman from her side is allowed to be present, who acts as her ad- viser, following her to the bridegroom's house and giving her counsel all nio'ht in reference to the manasjement of her house- hold affairs. All the rest of the night, the following Sunday, Sunday night, and Monday are spent by the bridegroom'i friends at Us jiouse, in feasting, often in drunkenness. 78 WEDLOCK. In Russia, especially among the lower classec, the nuptial ceremonies, all and singular, are based upon the idea of the degradation of the female. When the parents have agreed upon the match, the bride is examined by a number of women to see if she has any bodily defect. On her wedding-day she is crowned with a garland of wormwood, to denote the bitter- ness of the marriage state. She is exhorted to be obedient to hijr husband, and it is a custom in some districts for the newly married wife to present the bridegroom with a whip, in token of submission, and with this he seldom fails to show his au- thoiity. In Italy, young virgins are systematically bartered and sold by their parents, and young people are married every day who never saw one another before. Concubinage is a con- slant remedy for these ill-advised and deceitful marriages, and the peculiarly Italian term cicisbeo indicates the indem- nity which custom presciibes for the fair sex fettered to hus- bands unloved. In France, at least among the higher classes, marriage is looked upon not so much as a matter of affection as of inter- est, and the sacredness of the tie is proportionately slender. As for the actual marriage, it is well-known this is perform- ed in two ceremonies — one at the mairie (mayor's office), the other at the church. Both at the mairie and at the church marriages are performed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Satur- day in every week : at the mairie from nine in the morning to five in the evening; at the church from six in the morning till one in the afternoon. The marriage at the mairie is of a f.trictly civil character, and is often performed on the same lay as the other, but sometimes one or two days beforeliand. It must, however, precede the other, though strict Catholics look on it as a mere legal formality, and as no marriage at all in a proper sense. The maire can, if he pleases to honor per- sons of importance, perform the marriage in his drawing-room ; but all the doors of the house must be open down to the street, so that all the Avorld may enter if they please. In England, marriage is looked upon much in the same light as with us. Though not, as in Catholic countries, a sacrament MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AKD CEREMONIES. 79 of the Church, but merel}' a civil contract, it is generally cele- brated as a religious ceremony, and most frequently, even among Dissenters, by a clergyman of the Established Church. Maeeiage IX ITS Legal Aspects. In England, though marriage is considered as merely a civil contract, it can be entered into only in certain ways and after certain preliminaries have been gone through with. Persons have two forms of contracting marriage from which to choose. It may be with or without a religious ceremony ; and if with a religious ceremony, it may be performed either h\ the Established Church, or in a dissenting chapel. If the narriage is to take place in the church, there must be either the publication of the bans of marriage for three preceding successive Sundays, or a certificate, which dispenses with publication. The marriage must take place in the church, the marriage service of the Church of England being read over, and this must be done in canonical hours — that is, between eiirht and twelve o'clock a.m. — in the presence of witnesses. If the marriage take place in a dissenting chapel, the minister may use his own or any form of service, but the superintendent re- gistrar of the district must be present as one of the witnesses. If there is to be no religious ceremony, the marriage must take place in the office of the superintendent registrar, and in the presence of witnesses, both parties exchanging the decla- ration that they take each other for husband and wife ; and in all cases the marriage must be registered. In Scotland, marriage is not only entirely a civil contract, but it may be entered into with the same freedom as any other contract, by word of mouth or by writing, at a moment's no- tice ; no preliminary declaration, and no form or ceremony being necessary. Marriages, however, generally take place after the publication of the bans in the parish church, somo religious ceremony being performed either by a clergyman of the kirk or by a minister of some other denomination. MaiTiage throughout the United States is simply a civil contract, the basis of which is the mutual consent of the par- ties, followed by the act of living together as husband and 80 WEDLOCK. wife. It is therefore legally complete on the declaration of the parties, in the presence of witnesses, that they take each other as husband and wife, or words to that effect, and sub- sequent cohabitation. Idiots ; lunatics ; and persons related by consanguinity oi affinity, within the degrees prohibited by law ; infants under the age of consent (in most of the States, fourteen for males, and twelve for females) ; and persons already married, and not legally divorced, are incompetent to marry. No particular ceremony is requisite, nor is it generally re- quired that marriage be performed by any particular person ; but in so7ne States it must be performed by either a clergy- man or a magistrate. In some States, also, a registration of intention or a certificate is required. In practice, marriages are generally performed by clergymen or by magistrates. Marriage Ceremony of the Episcopal Church. At the day and time appointed for Solemnization of Matrimony, the Persons to be married shall come into the body of the Church, or shall be ready in some proper honse, with their friends and neighbours; and there standing together, the Man on the right hand, and the Woman on the left, the Minister shall say, Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony ; which is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable among all men : and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly ; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, so- berly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. And also speaking unto the Persons who are to be married, he bhall say, I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do noAV confess it. For be ye well assured, that if any persons are joined together otherwise than as God's Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful The Minister, if he shall have reason to doubt of the lawfulness of the proposed Marriage, may demand sufficient snr«>tyforhis indemnification: but if no impediment Bhull be alleged, or suspected, the Mi)iister shall say to the Man, M., wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND CEIiEMONlES. SI lOve lier, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in liealth and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live? The Man shall answer, I will. Then shall the Minister say unto the Woman, N., wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony ? Wilt thou 3bey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health : and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long aa ye both shall live ? The Woman shall answer, I will. Then shall the Minister say. Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man ? Then shall they give their Troth to each other in this manner. The Minister, re- ceiving the Woman at her father's or friend's hands, shall cause the Man with hia right hand to take the Woman by her right hand, and to say after him as followeth, I, M., take thee N.jto my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for w^orse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance ; and thereto I plight thee my troth. Then shall they loose their hands; and the Woman with her right hand taking the Man by his right hand, shall likewise say after the Minister : I, ]Sr., take thee M., to my ^'cdded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for riclier for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, ac cording to God's holy ordinance ; and thereto I give thee my troth. Then shall they again loose their hands ; and the Man shall give unto the Woman a Ring. And the Minister taking the Ring shall deliver it unto the Man, to put it upon the fourth finger of the Woman's left hand. And the Man holding the Ring there, and taught by the Minister, shall say. With this Ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow : In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Gliost. Amen, Then the Man leaving the Ring upon the fourth finger of the Woman's left hand, th« Mioiister shall say, Let US pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed by thy Name. Thy king- dom come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our ti-espasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation ; Bui deliver us from evil. Amen. O Eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind. Giver of all Bpii-itual grace, the Author of everlasting life; Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy 4* S2 WEDLOCK. Name; that, as Isaac and Rebecca '.ived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made, (Avhereof this Ring given and received is a tolcen and pledge,) and may ever remain in perfect love and peace together, and live according to thy laws ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Th(m shall the Minister join their right hands together, and say, Tliose whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Then shall the Minister speak unto the company : Forasmuch as M. and IST. have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth, each to the other, and have de- clared the same by giving and receiving a Ring, and by joining hands ; I pronounce that they are Man and Wife, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. And the Minister shall add this Blessing: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep } ou ; the Lord mercifully with his favour look upon you, and Pll you with all spiritual benediction and grace ; that ye may so live together in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life ever- lasting. Amen. Marriage Ceremony of the Roman Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, marriage is a sacrament " confer- ring grace to sanctify the lawful union of man and wife, and to enable them to bring up their offspring piously." It can be conferred only on the baptized. Where neither party is bap- tized, the man-iage is null. "Where one party, though bap- tized, belongs to any schism or heresy, the church reluctantly consents to the union, and in the ritual withholds her blessing, says no mass, and does not permit the marriage to be solem- nized in the church." Ritual for the Celebration of Matrimony. The Priest, vested in a surplice and white stole, accompanied by at least one Aco- lyte, to carry the book and vessel of holy water, and by two or three witnesses, asks tho man and the woman separately, as follows, in their own tongue, concerning their consent. And first he asks the Bridegroom, who must stand at the right hand of the woman : X., wilt thou take K, here present, for thy lawful wife, according to the rite of our holv Mother the Church ? E. I will. Then the Priest asks the Bride; IST., wilt thou take K, here present, for thy lawful husband, accord Ing to the ri:e of our holy Mother the Church? i2. I wi'l MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AXD CEREMONIES. 83 They then join right hand?-, and the Priest says : Ego conjungo vos in matrimo- I join you together in marriage, aium, in nomine Patris, •{• et Filii, in the name of tlie Father, »J« and et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Then he sprinkles them with holy water. TtLs done, the Bridegroom places upon the book a ring, which the Priest b.( gayiug: V. Adjutorium nostrum in no- mine Domine. i?. Qui fecit coelum et terram. V. Domine, exaudi orationem meam. jB. Et clamor mens ad te veniat. V. Dominus yobiscum. B. Et cum spiritu tuo. Oremus. Benedic, 4* Domine, annulum hunc, quern nos in tuo nomine be- nedicimus, 4< ut quae eum gesta- verit, fidelitatem iutegram suo sponso tenens, in pace et voluntate tua permaneat, atque in mutua charitate semper vivat. Per Chris- tum Dominum nostrum. E. Amen. Then the Priest sprinkles the ring with holy water, in the form of a Cross ; and the Bridegroom, having received the ring from the hand of the Priest, places it on the middle finger of the left hand of the Bride, the Priest saying : In nomine Patris •{•, et Filii, et In the name of the Father »J«, and Spiritus Sancti. Amen. of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. This done, the Priest adds : V. Our help is in the name of the Lord. H. Who hath made heaven and earth. V. Lord, hear my prayer. B. And let my cry come unto thee. V. The Lord be with you. B. And with thy spirit. Let us pray. Bless, 4< O Lord, this ring, which we bless *{< in thy name, that she who shall wear it, keeping true faith unto her spouse, may abide in thy peace and will, and ever live in mutual charity. Through Christ our Lord. B. Amen. V Confirma hoc, Deus, quod )j')eratus es in nobis. B. A templo sancto tuo quod est in Jerusalem. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Pater noster, etc. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. B. Sed libera nos a malo. V. Salvos fac servos tuos. V. Confirm, O God, that which thou hast wrought in us. B, From thy holy temple which is in Jerusalem. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Our Father, etc. And lead us not into temptation B. But deliver us from eviL F. Save thy servants. H-i wedlc>ck:. E. Deus mens, sperantes in te. V. Mitte eis, Domine, aiixilium .1e sancto. It Et cle Sion tuere eos. V. Esto eis, Domine, turris for- litudinis. Ji. A facie inimici. V. Domine, exaudi oratiouem tneam. B. Et clamor mens ad te veniat. Oremus. Respice, quaesumus, Domine, su- per hos famulos tuos, et institutis tuis, qnibus propagationem liuma- ni generis ordinasti, benignus as- Biste, ut qui te auctore juuguntur, te auxiliaute serventur. Per Ctiris- tum Dominum nostrum. Amen. B. Who liope m tliet, O my God. V. Send them help, O Lord, from the sanctuary'. B. And defend them out of Sion. V. Be unto them, O Lord, a tow- er of strength. B. From the face of the enemy. V. Lord, hear my prayer. B. And let my cry come untu thee. Let us pray. Look, Lord, we beseech thee, upon these ihy servants, and gra- ciously assist thine own institu- tions, whereby thou hast ordained the propagation of mankind, that they who are joined together by thy authority may be preserved by thy help. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. The benediction, which is withlielcl in case of tlie parties is a heretic, is as follows : Then the Priest, returning to the middle of the Altar, says : Libera nos, etc., as usual ; but before he blesses the people, he turns to the Bride and Bridegroom, and Bays : Deus Abraham, Deus Isaac, et Deus Jacob sit vobiscum, et ipse adimpleat benedictionem suam in vobis: ut videatis filios filiorum v^strorum, usque ad tertiam et quartam generationem ; et postea vitam asternam habeatis sine fine, adjuvante Donuno nostro Jesu Christo : qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen. Then he sprinkles them with holy water May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- cob, be with you, and himself fulfil his blessing upon you ; that you may see your children's children unto the third and fourth genera- tion: and may afterwards have everlasting life, without end, by the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth God, world without end. Amen. ; and having said the Placeat tibi sanctj Tfinitas, etc., he gives the Benediction, and reads the last (xO?pel, as usual. Marhiage in the Greek Church. ThQ promts (bridegroom), when arrived at church, sends to inform of it \i\^ promise (bride) ; and the moment slie entei-a MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. S- the church, the singing of a psahn begins. When that is over, ihep^re (father) of the young man takes him by the hand and leads him toward the bride. The priest gives then to each a randle, to serve as a light to guide their path. He asks them whether they are willing to marry. When they say yes, he gives them his blessing ; prayers are said ; the nuptial rings are exchanged three times, and put on the fourth finger of the right hand. Then the priest joins their hands and leads them forward to be placed on a piece of pink satin spread on the floor, which means that they tread on the same ground. Prayers are again offered ; they then give the oath of loving and being faithful to one another during life. The moment the}' step on the satin, two young men advance (generally the nearest relations or intimate friends) to hold crowns over the heads of the bride and groom ; which means that they are crowned upon earth, and must together become worthy of the eternal crown of glory. The priest again joins their hands and leads them three times round an altar on which reposes the gospel, which means that they must not part on the jour- ney of life. Afterward they drink thrice of the same cup, which signifes that they must during life drink together of pleasure and pain. After this last emblematic sign, the Gospel is read, about the marriage in Cana ; and before it, the Epistle where it is mentioned that the wife must fear her husband, and they always take care to proclaim that as loud as possible. When the ceremony is over, the priest permits the new mar- ried pair to bestow on each other the seal of love, a bacio ; wliich is, however, no other than the gentleman kissing the lady's hand, and she his cheek. The Jewish Ceremony. Tne Jews have a regular and uniform marriage ceremony. The contracting parties stand up under a canopy, both vailed, and a cup of wine is given them to drink. The bridegroom places a ring upon the finger of the bride, saying, " By this i-ing thou art my spouse, according to the custom of Moses and the children of Israel." The marriasje contract is then read and given to the bride's parents or nearest relations ; after S6 WEDLOCK. which another cup of wine is blessed six times by the rabbi; and the bridegroom and bride partake; when the remainder is emptied, and the husband dashes the cup against the wall in perpetual remembrance of the destruction of the temple at eTerusalem. Quaker Marriage. The regulations of the Society forbid young persons asso- ciating together Avith a view to matrimony without the con- sent of parents. Before marriage, the parties ap^^ear in a meeting and state that, with Divine permission and the ap- proval of Friends, they intend marriage with each other. The meeting then ai3points a committee to see that there are no similar engagements between them and others, and about a month afterward, if i-eported clear, they proceed. In a public meeting for worship, after a considerable time of silence, they rise, and taking each other by the hand the man solemnly says : " In the presence of the Lord and this assembly, I take to be my wedded wife, promising, with Divine as- sistance, to be unto her a loving and faithful husband until death shall se])arate ns." The woman then repeats the same form, with the necessary, change of terms to adapt it to her case. A formal certificate setting forth these facts is then produced and read, and the parties sign it, and as many of the company as desire to do fco, subscribe their names as witnesses. The Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and other de- nominations of Christians generally, have no established mar- riage ceremony, but in all cases the parties give their verbal consent to the act of taking each other as husband and wife, when the minister pronounces them such, and asks God's bless- ing upon the union in a brief prayer. An Exhortation. In the words of St. Paul, I exhort you, who are a husband, to love your wife, even as you love yourself. Give honor to her, as the more delicate vessel ; respect the delicacy of her frame and the delicacy of her mind. Continue through life the same attention, the same manly tenderness, which in youth MARRIAGE CUSTu.MS AND CEREMOiNIES. 87 gained her affections. Reflect, that, though her bodily charma are decayed as she is advanced in age, yet that her mental charms are increased ; and that, though novelty is worn off, yet that habit and a thousand acts of kindness have strength- ened your mutual friendship. Devote yourself to her ; and after the hours of business, let the pleasures which you most highly prize be found in her society. I exhort you, who are a wife, to be gentle and condescend- ing to your husband. Let the influence which you possess over him arise from the mildness of your manners and the discretion of your conduct. While you are careful to adorn your person with neat and clean apparel, — for no woman can long preserve affection if she is negligent on this point, — '^e still more attentive in ornamenting your mind with meek- ness and peace, with cheerfulness and good-humor. Lighten the cares and chase away the vexations to which men in their commerce with the world are unavoidably exposed, by rendering his house pleasant to your husband. Keep at home ; let your employments be domestic, and your pleasures do- mestic. To both husband and wife I say : Preserve a strict guard over your tongues, that you never utter anything which is rude, contemptuous, or severe ; and over your tempers, that you never appear sullen and morose. Endeavor to be perfect yourselves, but expect not too much from each other. If any oftense arise, forgive it ; and think not that a human being can be exempt from faults. — Dr. Freeman. A Marriage Prayer. O Lord, we thy servants haye now entered into a new re- lation to each other, the holy estate of matrimony. We humbly implore thy blessing upon us, that we may faithfully perform the vow and covenant betwixt us, and may for ever remain, as long as we live, in perfect love and peace together, always living according to thy holy law. Teach us by thy good spirit to bear with each other's infirmities, to love each otlier with a pure, fervent, and sincere affection, next in degree to that we owe thee. Grant us, if it please thee, health of 8S WEDLOCK. body and soundness of mind, and enable us to promote the joy and to alleviate the sorrows of each other; to love our parents, relatives, and friends with increased affection; and finally, grant, O Holy Father, that this new and most inti- mate connection, by thy special blessing, may minister abund- antly to our comfort and happiness here on earth, and, above all, serve the better to prepare us for a happy immortality in tliy kingdom above. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. — Judge, Smith. Advice to the Married. Should erring nature casual faults disclose, "Wound not the breast that harbors your repose ; For every grief that breast from you shall prove Is one link broken in the chain of love. Soon, with their objects, other woes are past, But pains from those we love are pains that last Though faults or follies from reproach may fly, Yet in its shade tlie tender passions die. Love, like the flower that courts the sun's kind ray, Will flourish only in the smiles of day ; Distrust's cold air the generous plant annoys, And one chill blight of dire contempt destroys. O shun, my friend, avoid that dangerous coast Where peace expires and fair affection's lostl By wit, by grief, by anger urged, forbear The speech contemptuous and the scornful aii — Dr. John langhornA Marriage Hymns. I. When on her Maker's bosom The new-born earth was laid, And nature's opening blossom Its fairest bloom displayed ; When all with fruits and flowers The laughing soil was dressed, And Eden's fragrant bowers Eeceived their human guest, — No sin his face defiling, The heir of nature stood. And God, beuignlv smiling, Beheld that all was good. MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES. 89 Yet iu that hour of blessing A single want was known, — A wish the heart distressing, — For Adam was alone. O God of pure affection, By men and saints adored, O give us thy protection Around this nuptial board I May thy rich bounties ever To wedded love be shown. And no rude hand dissever "Whom thou hast linked in one 1 —Bisliop Ee^r. II. Not for the summer's liour alone, When skies resplendent shine. And youth and pleasure fill the throne, Our hearts and hands we join ; But for those stem and wintry days Of sorrow, pain, and fear. When Heaven's wise discipline doth make Our earthly journey drear. Not for this span of life alone, Which like a blast doth fly, And as the transient flowers of grass, Just blossom, droop, and die ; But for a being without end, This vow of love we take. Grant us, O God, one home at last, For thy great mercy's sake 1 — Mrs. &g dcure corner to make room for the brilliant but scentless exotics. Wives are not unfrequently treated after a similar fashion ; and perhaps it would be well for their fastidious " lords and masters " to jot down the following lines upon the tablets of their memories : " As the myrtle, whose perfume enriches the bower, Is prized far beyond e'en the gaudiest flower ; So a wife, who a household can skillfully rule, Is a jewel of price to all men — save a fool." Inordinate Affection. Love of husband or wife must not be allowed to draw our hearts away from God. Rev. George Jarvis Geer, D.D., of St. Timothy's church, New York, in one of his sermons truly and beautifully says^ "St. Paul draws an illustration from holy connubial love, to •et forth more clearly the love of Christ for the Church. Jle draws a parallel between them : ' So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nour- isheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.' But the love of God is to be sacred above every other affection. Without Him, no other objects of love would have been given to us, nor would they be preserved to us a single moment, nor 5 9S WEDLOCK. would we have any capability whatsoever of loving. All things in the kingdom of God, in the universe, are beautiful only as proper proportion and due relation are maintained. An inordinate affection is an affection out of place — out ot proportion — one which throws its betters in the shade. You may hold a very small object so near to the eye as to shut out the light of the sun ; so you may bring a trifling object so very near to your heart — you may make so much of it — you may love it so intensely that the love of God wall be impos Bible." SCEIPTURAL IXJUXCTIONS. Plusbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them Let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife even as himself. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it. Ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowl- edge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life. Kejoice with the wife of thy youth, and be thou satisfied always with her love ; for she is thy companion and the wdfe of thy covenant. Wives, submit j^ourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Clu'ist is the head of the Church. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the conversation of the wives, w^hile they behold your chaste conversation, coupled with fear. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well. ^ virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. ETHICS uir MARRIAGE. 99 A prudent wife is from the Lord. The heart of her hus- band doth safely trust in her; she will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She look- eth well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her blessed : ler husband also, and he praiseth her. — The Scriptures, Duties at Home. You who have taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and kind companionship, have you given to her all of your time which you could spare, have you endeavored to make amends to her for the loss of these friends? Have you joined with her in her endeavors to open the minds of your children and give them good moral lessons? Have you strengthened her mind with advice, kindness, and good books ? Have you spent your evenings with her in the cultivation of intellectual, moral, or social excellence ? Have you looked upon her as an immortal being, as well as yourself? Has her improvement been as much your aim as your own ? Has your desire been to " love her," as St. Paul commands you, and to see her " holy and without blemish ? " Has your kind word soothed the irritation of her brow ? Has your arm sup- ported her in the day of trial and trouble? Have you truly been a helpmate to her whom you have sworn before God to love and cherish ? Husband ! husband ! shut not your heart against these words. You are her senior, you have mixed more in the world, and you have gained knowledge of human nature, and thus of human weakness. Let this knowledge add to your desire to serve, to assist, and to cherish her in all Christian virtues. Let your children have the example before them of parents bound by one tie, one hope, united here and forever, whom no cross can sever, and whose pure minds cast a bright reflection upon all around. You whose married life has been short, aid and counsel your young wives. Let their troubles be yours, and their joys also. Rejoice with them in their happy trifles, soothe them in their sadness. Spare them all the hours you can from business, for it is their 100 WEDLOCK. due. And, wives ! thank your husbands for it, and feel that your lot is a blessed one. Tliere is a picture, bright and beautiful, but nevertheless ^rue, where hearts are united for mutual happiness and mutual improvement; where a kind voice cheers the wife in her hour of tJ-ouble, and where the shade of anxiety is chased from the husband's brow as he enters his home ; where sickness is soothed by watchful love, and hope and faith burn brightly. For such there is a great reward, both here and hereafter, in their own and their families' spiritual happiness and growth, and in the blessed scenes of the world of spirits. And, wives ! do you also consult the tastes and dispositions of your husbands, and endeavor to give to them high and noble thoughts, lofty aims, and temporal comfort. Be ready to welcome them to their homes; gradually draw theii thoughts while with you from business, and lead them to the I'egions of the beautiful in art and nature and the true and the divine in sentiment. Foster a love of the elegant and re- JBned, and gradually will you see business, literature, and high moral culture blending in "sweet accord." Mutual Help. It was thus, surely, that intellectual beings of different sexes were intended by their great Creator to go through the world together: thus united, not only in hand and heart, but in principles, in intellect, in views, and in dispositions ; each pursuing one common and noble end, — their own improve- ment, and the happiness of those around them, — by the differ- ent means appropriate to their situation ; mutually correcting, sustaining, and strengthening each other; undegraded by all practices of tyranny on the one hand, and of deceit on the other; each finding a candid but severe judge in the under- standing, and a warm and partial advocate in the heart of their companion ; secure of a refuge from the vexations, the follies, the misunderstandings, and the evils of the world in the arms of each other, and in the inestimable enjoyments of undisturbed confidence and unrestained intimacy. — Lady Raohel Ru9seU. ETHICS OF MARRIAGE. 101 Lei us Love One Another. Let us love one another ; not long may we stay- in this bleak world of mourning ; some droop while 'tis day ; Othei*s fade in the noon, and few linger till eve; O, there breaks not a heart but leaves some one to grieve 1 The fondest, the purest, the truest that met Have still found the need to forgive and forget; Then, O, though the hopes that we nourished decay, Let us love one another as long as we stay ! Then let's love one another, 'midst sorrows the worst. Unaltered and fond as we loved at the first ; Though the fals'e wing of pleasure may change and forsake, And the bright urn of wealth into particles break. There are some sweet affections that wealth can not buy, That cling but still closer when son-ow draws nigh, And remain with us yet, though all else pass away ; Then let's love one another as long as we stay ! — Charles Swain. How Conjugal Harmony is Sometimes Lost. In true marriage, when all the conditions are favorahle, and husband and wife spend much of their time together, there is a natural tendency to assimilate. Loving each other, and admiring eacli other's qualities, they insensibly take on each other's characteristics, and tinally grow into a strong per- sonal resemblance to each other. Examples of this conjugal resemblance, in couples who have lived long in happy mar- riage relations, may be pointed out in almost every neighbor hood. The harmony between such married people, instead of being lost or broken up by constantly recurring discords, becomes, year by year, sweeter and more complete ; but there are cases in which the opposite result takes place. A good degree of congeniality may exist at the time of marriage, but may afterward be lost. Instead of climbing the hill of life hand in hand, as they should, they become separated in the crowd, and one is left far behind. They no longer see thinga from the same point of view, and the unity of thought and feeling which existed at first is destroyed. Sometimes the wife, confined at home by domestic duties; 102 WEDLOCK. debarred by maternity and the care of her children from mingling in society ; deprived, mainly by lack of time and opportunity, of the advantages of lectures and books; and finally, perhaps, losing her taste for intellectual pursuits, re- mains stationary, or rather deteriorates, intellectually, while tlie husband, mingling constantly in society with cultivated pec pie, brought into daily contact with the great movements of the day, reading, thinking, and attending lectures, is con- stantly advancing — gaining new ideas, new views of life, new interests, and new aspirations. The congeniality which drew them together in the beginning no longer exists. Harmony is lost. Instead of growing toward each other, they have grown far apart — become mentally strangers to each other. In other cases it is the husband who fjills behind in the j( arney of life. Giving himself up entirely to business ; spend- ing his days in his counting-room ; going home fatigued, list- less, and indisposed to study, conversation, or thought, he neglects books, loses his interest in the new ideas and move- ments of the age, and instead of leading onward and upward the mind of his intelligent and perhaps ambitious wife, leaves her to find in others the intellectual companionship she craves. Relieved mainly from household cares by a housekeeper and servants, she reads, thinks, goes into society, mingles with cultivated and progressive people, and is constantly advanc- ing in the path of mental improvement. There is the same loss of harmony as in the other case, and the ^nal results are genei-ally more disastrous. The husband can tolerate intel- lectual inferiority on the part of the wife, though it may cans*, him to seek elsewhere the sympathy he needs in his pursuits and aspirations; but the wife is in danger of despising the in- ferior husband, and the bonds which link her to him some- times become intolei-nble, and are perhaps sundered, to the utter ruin of the happiness of both. Young married couples should think of this in time. Re- member that growth is a law of nature. But if the conditions are unfavorable we become dwarfed and deteriorate, instead of improving. You sliould strive to attain the conditions requisite for mental progress, and to equalize them so as tc ETHICS OF MARRIAGE. 103 grow up together in mind, as it were, keeping step in the on- ward march of life. There can be no solid and satisfactory happiness in the conjugal relation without a close sympathy in thought and feeling. To secure this, you must marry con- genial partners ; and to retain it, you must perpetuate the haraionious conditions existing at marriage by equal advant- ages, so far as possible, for mental improvement after marriage. Be together as much as possible ; read the same books and periodicals ; talk about what you read ; attend lectures ; go together into society, or spend your evenings together at home ; and in all things help each other to be true and good, t<> grow in grace, and in that knowledge which maketh wise jDto salvation. I saw two clouds at morning, Tinged with the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on. And mingled into one : I thought that morning cloud was blest, It moved so sweetly to the west. I saw two summer currents Flow smoothly to their meeting, And join their cc)urse, with silent force, In peace each other greeting: Calm was their course, through banks of green. While dimpling eddies played between. Such be your gentle motion. Till life's last pulse shall beat ; Like summer's beam and summer's stream Float on, in joy, to meet A. cala.er sea, where storms shall cease, - A. pure r sky, where all is peace. —Brcdnoird. XI. ttcoxitt Marriages. Bat loved he never after ? Came there none To roll the stone from his sepulchral heart, And sit in it an angel ?—J5ai/ey. TlIEOllY AND PRACTICE. FIEKE is a very genei-al theoretical opposition to secoiul marriages on tlie part of those who look upon the union of husband and wife from the stand- point of sentiment alone. " It is a union of souls," they say, " as well as of bodies, and as these souls are im- mortal, death can not dissolve it. We can love but once • If the love of the heart be blighted, it buddeth not again ; If that pleasant song be forgotten, it is to be learned no more." Marriage may be a union of souls — we believe it is such in its highest phase, and that it may, in a certain sense, link to each other in heaven those M'hom it bound on earth ; but as they there " neither marry nor are given in marriage," we in- fer that the spiritual tie which Avill there unite congenial souls has little in common with our earthly relations, and may be entirely consistent with several mortal loves and mariiages ; for it is not true, as experience daily proves, that men and women love but once; and a second love, or even a third love, may be as strong, as pure, and as constant, if not so ardent, as a first love. A circumstance which tells with more force, perhaps, than anv aro-ument we can urge against the opponents of second marriao-es is the f\ict that the most eminent of them have in- dorsed such unions practically, thus re})udiating their own teachings ; and it may be tHir !<> flaim that those who, rejoie- SECOND MARRIAGES. 105 ing in a first marriage or anticipating one, write able articles or cutting philippics against second marriages, utterly neutral- ize their own writings, not to say repudiate and disapprove them, when they enter a second time into the marriage relation, especially if that second marriage prove a happy one. Historical Facts. Among the ancient Greeks a widow seldom contracted a second marriage, although not expressly forbidden to do so. When one did so, she waited at least five years or more in widowhood. It is possible that they did not generally iind matrimony so pleasant a state as to be anxious to return to it. In India, according to Madame Ida Pfeifter, the girls of every family are betrothed when they are only a few months old ; and should the bridegroom that is to be die immediately after, the child is considered a widow, and can not marry aojain. The estate of widowhood is considered a Gjreat mis- fortune, since it is believed that only those women are placer' in it who in some state of pre-existence had deserved such punishment. The suttee^ or immolation of the widow on the funeral pile of her husband, was formerly common, but has been abolished through the influence of the British Govern- ment. The laws of Moses encouraged and regulated the marriage of widows. If a man died childless, his brother was expected to marry his widow, and thus pei-petuate the family name. The Apostle Paul, too, wdiile he exhorts the churches to honor them who are " widows indeed," also exhorts the younger widows to marry. (1 Tim. v. 4.) At the present time, among civilized nations, second mar- riages are almost universally allowed, if not always approved ; 60 that tlie verdict of the world is certainly in their favor. A Case Supposed. Suppose a man and a woman marry for companionship and for love ; if they have ofl^spring, they generally have pleasure in the protection, rearing, maintenance, and education of that offspring, for the parentive pleasure does not end with the 5^ 106 WEDLOCK. parental act, but follows the offspring through all its develop- ment, culture, establishment, and life. If by some accident or disease one of the parties be removed at the end of the first month of the first year of the marriage, — and to make the case strong, we will suppose that no fruit of the marriage has re- Bulted, — what shall the surviving companion do ? Let us still further suppose two persons widowed in the same manner, one a male, tlie other a female — shall they wander solitary througli life ? Who will they serve by so doing ? In the life to come " they neither marry nor are given in marriage," and the one who has gone hence will have no occasion to com- plain ; and if this widowed husband and widowed wife are adapted to each other, and might have formed an appropriate Ar-st marriage, whom do they wrong by being married ? and if by marriage each can be rendered happy in companionship and in the parental relation, as well as in the conjugal, why hsall they not marry ? Are there any scientific or moral ob- jections ? We do not see any ; and it is not complimentary to the institution for those who have had experience in it to re- fuse a favorable opportunity to re-enter its sacred halls. Such conduct is calculated to give the impression that they have not found the marriage relation a pleasant one. Second Love. Who shall say that a well-organized man or woman can not love a second time ? If there be ^ny such, let them live singly. There are some who marry unwisely at first, and, having lost their yoke-fellow — we can not say mate — may pos- sibly, yea, probably, marry a second time happily. It is true that some marry well once, but make a bad second marriage ; but this 7-esult is simply incidental to human or finite action. If all first marriages could be shown to be happy, and all, or nearly all, second marriages unhappy, we would say a case was made against second marriages; but we venture an opinion, and have better reason than we may state for believ- ing the opinion to be true, that second marriages, arranged according to more ma'ure judgment, are quite as likely to be happy as the first. When persons marry who are igno- SECOND MARRIAGES. 107 rant of the organization and real disposition of each other, each exj^ects unalloyed happiness ; all the ills of life are m be left behind at the altar. In time they awake to their disap- pointment, find themselves mated to a frail mortal like them- solves, with ill-temper and perverse tendencies; and this fret? them. Each expects more from the other than is reasonal>le under the circumstances, and not receiving it, the courtship, with all its gentleness and self-sacrifice, is not made perennial, as had been hoped. Mutual recrimination is the result, and sometimes a whole lifetime is embittered by this mutual dis- appointment, mutual ill-nature, and foolish fault-finding. Profiting by Experience. Should either one of these persons be left in widowhood and re-marry, no sublime expectations of unalloyed bliss are enter- tained, and the person resolves to avoid the errors of the first marriage, viz., the first sharp word, the first unkind remark, the first ungenerous inference or exaction. Let us suppose a widower marries a widow, and each enters the relation with this idea — " I will not fall into the errors of my first marriage," and for ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years there is not so much disagreement between them as either had in the first mar- riage in a single year, who shall say that the last marriage ♦lid not bring any better conditions for happiness than the first? but the experience of the first taught each forbearance and self-control. Indeed, many persons marry a worse com- panion than their first, and live ten times more agreeably, be- cause more reasonable in their own conduct. Late Second Marriages. But it may be asked. What of persons who have lived in one marriage until a family has been raised and settled, and when the ardor of youthful love and the promptings of nature to obey the first commandment, to " replenish the earth," have passed? In regard to such msivr'mges, co?n2?cmionship may be a sufficient reason. Why should a man and his wife re main together in the marriage relation after they have raised a family and sent it forth into the world ? It would be an 108 WEDLOCK. Bwered, for companionship. If raising a family is the only ob- ject served by marriage, then, when the family is raised, why not separate ? This is true with wolves, — their mating con- tinues until the whelps can take care of themselves ; -while the lion and eagle, nobler than the wolf, remain through life con- stantly in companionship. If after a family be raised one of the companions die, and if companionship be desirable, why may not the surviving one marry for the sake of that serene companionship which be- longs to marriage in middle or advanced life ? We can see no valid objection. We have seen very many second and even third marriages, men and women, fifty-five or sixty years old, living ten or twenty years together, a kind of happy " Indian summer," and seeming to enjoy each other's society quite as well as they who have " clam the hill thegither." The Meddling of Relatives. It will generally be found that second marriages in which there is difficulty, disagreement, or disturbance, owe such disturbance to their children, who feel themselves interested in their parent's estate, or the disagreement is fomented by the friends of the children outside of the family respecting property. There is nothing more common than for a pert miss of fifteen or a beardless boy of eighteen, who have been cradled in parental affection, setting up theii raw will and judgment against a father in the prime of manhood, who is left lonely, because he chooses to marry again. Four or five yviivs at most will generally send the daughter to a home of her own ; another year or two makes a man of the boy, when he will marry as he chooses, possibly without the advice of either father or friends. These children may foar, perchance, that another brood of children will divide the property, no dollar of which they ever earned, while the father, who has strong love for his children, has carefully educated, reared, guided, and sustained them to maturity. Such children are much to blame for calling in question such a father in refer- ence to any honorable course of liis ; and public sentiment SECOND MARRIAGES. 109 created to hiS disadvantage by children or the friends of the first wife is, we think, execrable. About Step-Mothers. Step-mothers are spoken against, and sometimes they de- Berve it; but we think they must be superhuman to escai>e criticism, surrounded as they generally are by such ungenei ous critics. Step-mothers, we repeat, are spoken against, and we may be permitted to remark that we know not a few in- stances in which a second mother in all respects was a bettei mother to the step-children than their own would have been. Tlie step-mother had a better temper, a better judgment, more affection, more wisdom, and more everything that the child needed ; and for that child the day its father brought a step- mother into his house was the dawn of light, joy, and pros perity. We approve of good second marriages — those which are properly adjusted by a wise selection of partners — and we ap- prove of no other kind for first marriages. We think there is no law of nature against second marriages, and we regard that man or woman as supremely narrow-minded and selfish who exacts a promise on the dying bed from the survivor never again to marry. There are quite as many men and women who, on their death-bed, counsel the survivor to marry, and, in certain instances, even kindly suggest to one to take their place. Those who inveigh against second marriages generally have that exclusiveness of love and that element of jealousy which teaches them that in case civil law. And in such cases the State, by virtue of that authority by which she protects the lives, the property, and the public order of her citizens, may justly separate the husband and wife, and deliver the oppressed party from all legal rights and claims held by the oppressor; but tlie State is not hereby justified in granting absolute divorce. It may and should decree a legal separation, because the mar- riage contract is a legal contract ; but it is more than a legal contract, it is a divinely appointed joining together of God, and what God has joined together let not man put asunder, except as God himself declares the union annulled. The State may declare null and void the legal claims of a wrong-doer over the oppressed party, for the State is to a great extent the creator and preserver of these legal claims. The power of the State in these cases justly extends to a divorce a mensa et thoro, and no further. Beyond this the divine law prevails. The State goes too far when for such causes it declares such a dissolution of the bond as permits either of the parties to marry again during the lifetime of the other. Absolute Divorce. "There remains the third ground for interference on the part of the State ; namely, the right of the State to annul absolutely the marriage, when its whole moral significance has been subverted by connubial infidelity. On this ground all arc agreed, and the laws of man are sanctioned by the higher laws of God. But here still are grave questions, which we have not space to discuss, and on which we can only affirm our own conviction ; first, that the law should be equally emphatic in condemning connubial infidelity on the part of the husband as on the part of the wife ; and secondly, that a divorce a vin- culo matrimonii, by which the marriage is utterly dissolved, should either confer the right of remarriage only on the inno- cent person, or the statute law should make provision for the punishment of the crime of adultery ; otherwise it is not dif- ficult to see the danger of inducing the commission of adultery SEPARATION AND DI\ORCE. li'o as a moans of dissolving a hated marriage, and bringing about a union with a new and preferred partner." Legal Rights op Married Women. At common law, the husband by marriage becomes ]to8- sessed of tlie wife's entire property, and from thencefortli it is entirely subject to his control; but the larger number ol the States of our Union have passed acts allowing marriftl women the exclusive use and enjoyment of all property owned by them at marriage, and all that may be acquired by them afterward. Sir, I desire you to do me right and justice, And to bestow your pity on me, for I am a most poor woman and a stranger, Bom not of your dominions — having here No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance Of eqnal friendship and proceeding. — Shakspeara XIV. It is not good for man to be aione.^Bible. Bachelorism among the Ancients. HE Spartans caused bachelors to be whipped by the women, and considered them unworthy to serve the republic or to contribute to its honor or progress ; Lycurgus excluded them from all military and civil employments, and the women of Lacedemon took them on the first day of spring, in each year, to the temple of Juno, and flogged them at the foot of the statue of that goddess. The Romans imposed fines on bachelors, and sought by various restrictions upon celibacy and by premiums on marriage to discourage bachelorism. It is only in modern times that celibacy has been deemed honorable and praiseworthy, or that it has been extensively adopted as a matter of choice. The teachings and example of St. Paul, who, personally, but not in his character of an in- spired teacher, discouraged marriage, have no doubt had their influence, both directly and through the celibate priesthood, and other orders bound by the vow of chastity, organized by the Roman Catholic Church. The late Prince Albert of England placed the evils arising from the celibacy of ^he priests in a very striking light in the following sententious words, uttered a short time before his death : " When our ancestors shook ofiT the yoke of a dom- ineering priesthood, they felt that the keystone of that won- derful fabric which has grown up in the dark times of the middle ages was the celibacy of the clergy, and shrewdly foresaw their reformed faith and newly won religious liberty CELIBACY. 127 TfTould, on the contrary, only be secure in the hands of a clergy united with the people by every sympathy, national, personal, tnd domestic. Great Britain has enjoyed for 300 years the olessing of a Church Establishment which rests upon this basis, and can not be too grateful for the advantages afforded by the fact, that the Christian ministers not only preach the doctrines of Christianity, but live among their congregations, an example for the discharge of every Christian duty, as hus- bands, fathers, and masters of families, themselves capable of fathoming the whole depth of human feelings, desires, and dif- ficulties." The Shakers. It is well known that we have among us a sect of practical religionists who make celibacy one of the main points of their faith and practice. The Shakers assume the existence of two orders — the reproductive and the non-reproductive ; the natu- ral and the spiritual, each having its own laws, the latter de- pendent upon, and supplemental to, the former; that the human mind, under the laws of progress and improvement, tends inevitably toward celibacy; and that this inherent ten- dency is a perpetual prophecy of the coming spiritual order, of which Jesus was the first perfect specimen among men, and Ann Lee the first among women. The former inaugurated a celibate order which has left a history that all may read. First, Himself and twelve other men ; second, twelve men and their 8,000 converts from the Jews in two days ; third, Peter and Paul with their heathen or Gentile proselytes, accepting a celibate priesthood as being all they would attain to. " In the second coming of the Christ Spirit, Ann Lee inaugu- rated a more perfect celibate order, for the males and females, instead of coming under vows of perpetual chastity, and then being kept so separate that they could not infringe them, are all together as are brothers and sisters in a natural fiimily." For the purpose of propagating the species, there is still to exist, for a time at least, the lower or reproductive order — the world's people. " When a husbandman raises a crop of grain," a Shaker writer asks, " does he reserve cdl of it for seed or only a small 128 WEDLOCK. part thereof? Of what practical use to the farmer, as a life sustaiiier, is the portion of his various crops which he reserves for seed ? None at all ! Proved from the fact, that . if he continuously sowed and planted all that he raised, it would come to the same point as if he planted none at all — deaths They neither desire nor expect all men and women to be- come Shakers, but contend that if "millions of human beings should cease to propagate physically, the creative power, of which they are but the medium, would expend its forces in Bome new channel, on a higher plane, nearer its divine foun- tain, just as certainly as a river effectively dammed in its channel w^ould form a new one nearer its course. ' If any man be in Christ,' fully, ' he is a new creature,' and in consequence belongs to a new creation where the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man, any more than in the old creation. Reproduction in the one is physical — in the other, spiritual." * The Okubact of To-Dat. Celibacy is now increasing in the most highly civilizea communities to an extent which is truly alarming ; and every- body is asking " Why don't men marry ? " This growing evil is most prevalent and most severely felt in the great cities of the world, and especially London, Paris, Vienna, and New York. A newspaper correspondent, writing from Paris, says : " In former times, an unmarried man was obliged to exliaust his ingenuity in framing excuses for his condition. * Alas, I am yet the victim of betrayed affection.' *Alas, my villain of a notary has made away with all my fortune.' * Alas, I am like Werther, I am in love with a woman who is already married.' * Alas, I have suffered much.' * Alas, I am like An- tony — ^I dare not mention the name of her I love.' But no one ever dared to avow his final impenitence ; he appealed to the compassion of his friends for a temporary misfortune, and they, credulous, were willing to exclaim, * The poor fellow, he is a bachelor in spite of himself! ' "But all this is changed now," the writer adds, "and the • E. W. Evans, in the American Phrenological Journal. CELIBACY. 129 bachelor unblusliingly asseverates his voluntary celibacy, and his intention of remaining unmarried to the end of his days. 'I will not marry,' he says, ' because I wish to extend my youth to my last days.' ' I 'vill not marry, because it costs too much to dress a wife.' ' I will not marry, because I want to have peace at home.' 'I will not marry, because I want to be able to spend the evening where I please, without being obliged to give an account of myself.' ' I will not mairy, be- cause I dread a mother-in-law more than hydrophobia and eaithquake.' " Only one of these pretended reasons is worthy of any notice. The rest are the reasons of a man hi whom selhshness of tlie lowest kind governs every action, and whose higher natui-e has been stifled and suppressed. It is fortunate for the girls that such men decline to marry. But, young ladies, there are thousands of excellent young men who desire to marry, and who would make kind and loving husbands, but dare not take upon themselves the responsibilities of the marriage relation — "because it costs so much to dress a wife!" The extrav- agant habits now almost universal among young women are really preventing many of our best young men from marry- ing. Their incomes, though sufficient to !>upport a family in comfort, are utterly inadequate to supply the artificial wants of a fashionable wife ; and we venture to say that this ex- travagance on the part of the young women is one of the most formidable obstacles to marriage now existing in this country, esi)ecially in our cities. Let sensible young womeu take note and govern themselves accordingly. To wed, or not to wed ? That is the " question," Whether it's as well for a bach, to sutler ^hQ 'peculiarities of single life, Or take a loving damsel to the parson's And stand the consequences "i To eat, to sleep No more ? — Aye, there is much more ! Even a thousand unnatural " bonnets," Besides all tlie '' responsibilities" That flesli is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Which won't pay expenses. — Celibate, 6* IJ^O WEDLOCK. Celibacy and Health. Men and women are celibates in violation of Nature's laws. Every function of body and every faculty of mind was made to be exercised, and the non-exercise of any one of them ia always followed by evil effects, involving not only the organ or function immediately concerned, but all the others. The whole system participates in the derangement which super- venes. Two thousand years ago Hippocrates pointed out the dangers of celibacy, and many others since his time have reit- erated his warnings. Hufeland, in his "Art of Prolongino; Life," says: "All those people who have been very old were mariied more than once, and generally at a very late period of life. There is not one instance of a bachelor having attained to a great age. This observation is as applicable to the female sex as to the male sex, and hence it would appear that a certain abundance in the power of generation is favorable to longevity. It forms an addition to the vital power; and this power of procreation seems to be in the most intimate proportion to that of regenerating and restoring one's self; but a certain legularity and moderation are requisite in the employment of it, and marriage is the only means by which this can be pre served." Hufeland then gives the example of de Longueville, a Frenchman, who lived to the age of 110. He had been mar- ried to ten wives; his last wife he married when in his ninety- ninth year, and she bore him a son when he was in his hund- red and first year. Thomas Parr, who died at the age of 152, was twice married, the last time at the age of 120. When 102 years old he was forced to do penance for having seduced a young woman with whom he had fallen in love. Easton, m his "Human Longevity," records the case of Jonas Suring- ton, who lived to the advanced age of 159. He resided in a email village near Bergen, in Norway, and retained his facul- ties to the last. He was several times married, and left a young widow and several children. His eldest son was 10,1, and his youngest nine years old. Among women he gives the Instances of Mrs. Ecklesto;), who died at the age of 143, and CELIBACY. 131 the Countess of Desmond, who was 145 years old. The con- dition, as to marriage, of Henry Jenkins, aged 169, and Peter Tortun, 185, is not given. Alexander Meyer, in his "Rapports Conjugaux," gives the results of. careful inquiries in respect to the relative mortality of religious celibates as compared with that of the laity of both sexes. He ascertained that, during the period of ten years comprised between sixteen and twenty-five years of age, the mc>rtality among those of both sexes who have taken the vow of chastity is at the rate of 2.68 per 100, while it is only 1.48 per 100 among the laity of both sexes. During the ten years from thirty-one to forty inclusive, the mortality is 4.40 per 100 among the former, and but 2.74 per 100 among the laity. Dr. Stark, Registrar-General of Scotland, finds, according to his recently published memoir, that, in that country, the death-rate of the bachelors between the ages of twenty and twenty-five years is double that of the married men. As the age increases the difference between the death-rates of the married and unmarried decreases; but it still shows a marked advantage in favor of the married men at each quinquennia' period of life. Why Married People Live Longest. Dr. Hall, in one of his excellent " Health Tracts," gives the following as the reasons why marriage is favorable to health: 1st. Bachelors are always in a state of unrest ; they feel unsettled. 2d. If indoors after supper there is a sense of solitariness, inducing a sadness, not actual melancholy, with all their de- pressing influences ; and many, many hours in the course of tlie year are spent in gloomy inactivity, which is adverse to a good digestion and a vigorous and healthful circulation. 3d. His own chamber or house being so uninviting, the bachelor is inclined to seek diversion outside, in suppei-s with fiionds, in clubs which are introductories to intemiDcrance and licentiousness, or to those more unblushing associations wliich under the cover of darkness lead to sj^eedy ruin of health and 132 WEDLOCK. morals ; and when these are gone, the way downward to an untimely grave is rapid and certain. On the other hand, marriage lengthens a man's life : 1st By its making home inviting. 2d. By the softening influences which it has upon the character and the afiections. 3d. By the cultivation of all the better feelings of our na- ture, and in that proportion saving from vice and crime. 4th. There can be no healthful development of the physical functions of our nature without marriage ; it is necessary to the perfect man, for Divinity has announced that it was " not good for a man to be alone." 5th. Marriage gives a laudable and happifying object in life, the provision for wife and children, their present comfort and future welfare, the enjoyment in witnessing their happi- ness, and the daily and hourly participations in affectionate interchange of thought, and sentiment, and sympathy ; these are the considerations which antagonize sori'ow and lighten the Inirdens of life, thus strewing flowers and casting sunshine all along its pathway. Celibacy and Crime. Voltaire said : " The more married men you have, the fewer crimes there will be. Marriage renders a man more virtuous and more wise. An unmarried man is but half of a perfect being, and it requires the other half to make things right ; and it can not be expected that in this imperfect state he can keep the straight path of rectitude anymore than a boat with one oar, or a bird with one wing can keep a straight course. In nine cases out of ten, where married men become drunk- ards, or wiiere they commit crimes against the peace of the community, the foundation of these acts was laid while in a single state, or where the wife is, as is sometimes the case, an unsuitable match. Marriage changes the current of a man's feelings, and gives him a center for his thoughts, his affec- tions, and his acts. Here is a home for the entire man, and the counsel, the affections, the example, and the interest of his * better half keep him from erratic courses, and from fall- CELIBACY. 133 tog into a thousand temptations to which he would otherwise be exposed. Therefore the friend to marriage is the friend to society and to his country." Whatever may be said of Voltaire's theology, his statement on the marriage question is certainly correct. Statistics prove that a large majority of our criminals, State prison convicts, etc., are unmarried. Think of this, young men; and if you wish to escape all that is bad, try to form a partnership with a good woman, and you will be secure. Testimony of an Old Maid. Marriage is an occasion on which none refuse to sympathize. Would that all were equally able and willing to understand 1 V>^ould that all could know how, from the first flow of the af fections till they are shed abroad in all their plenitude, the purposes of their creation become fulfilled. They were to life like a sleeping ocean te a bright but barren and silent shore. When the breeze from afar awakened it, new lights began to gleam, and echoes to be heard ; rich and unthought-of treasures were cast up from the depths ; the barriers of individuality were broken down ; and from henceforth they who choose may "hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." Would that all could know how, by this mighty impulse, new strength is given to every power, — how the intellect is vivified and enlarged, — how the spirit becomes bold to explore the path of life, and clear-sighted to discern its issues ! Higher, much higher things than these are done even in the early days of this second life, when it is referred to its Author, and held at his disposal. Its hopes and fears, some newly created, some only magnified, are too tumultuous to be borne unaided. There is no rest for them but in praise or in resignation ; and thus are they sanctified, and prayer invigorated. Thus does human love deepen the divine; thus does a new earthly tie knit closer that which connects us wnth Heaven ; thus does devotedness teach devotion. Never did man so cling to God for anything which concerns himself, as for the sake of one he loves better than himself. Never is his trust so willing as on behalf of one whom he can protect to a certain extent, but 134 WEDLOCK. no further. Kjne can so distinctly trace the course of Prov- idence as tliey who have been led to a point of union by difierent paths ; and none are so ardent in their adoration as thoy who rejoice that that Providence has led them to each other. To none is life so rich as to those who gather its treasures only to shed them into each other's bosom; and to none is heaven so bright as to those who look for it beyond the blackness and tempest which overshadow one distant por- tion of their path. Thus does love help piety ; and as for that other piety which has humanity for its object, must nol that heart feel most of which tenderness has become the ele- ment ? Must not the spirit which is most exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with hope and fear wherever found ? How distinctly I saw all this in those who are now sanctifying their first Sabbath of wedded love ! Yet how few who smiled and wept at their union looked in it for all that might be found ! — Miss Martineau. Testimony of a Bachelor. I have observed that a mariied man, falling into misfor- tune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits are soothed by domestic endearments, and self-respect kept alive by finding that, al- though all abroad be darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home of which he is monarch; whereas a single man is apt to run to waste and self-neglect, to fall to ruins, like some deserted mansion for want of an inhabitant. — Washmgton Irviiig. Old Maids. The reader of the preceding pages need not be told here that we consider singleness a great evil. If the well-consti- tuted and healthy man remain single, it is generally his own fault. The reasons he ofters for his bachelorism are, with few exceptions, fallacious; but what shall the poor girl do, when " nobody comes to woo ? " She may be healthy, well-develoj> ed, warm-hearted, loving, and in every way fitted for wifely and motherly duties, but she can not accept till she is asked, CELIBACY. 135 an J wnile so many young men decline to marry, it is evident that, at least, an equal number of young women must, per- force, remain single. The case is a hard one, but not so hard as that of the woman who is mated with a brute in human shape?, or even with a worthy man who is unsuited to her in organization, habits, and notions of life. A late writer says : "To be the mother of great and good men or women is a fate worthy of any woman. She who rears a child fit to be a citizen of this great republic makes a noble contribution to the glory of God and the progress of humanity. All praise, then, to the loving, faithful mothers of the land ! Their mis sion may well be coveted by right-thinking, earnest souls. " But when we see young women looking forward to this (ihange in their state as to something that is to release them from all responsibility, when they regard it as achieving for them entire independence of the labors and liabilities of life, and when we see them, as a consequence, eager only to secure a husband, even neglecting, in their eagerness, to require with him a truly manly character, when on this account we see so many lovely girls throwing themselves away upon miserable semblances of men, imworthy the companionship of any re- spectable woman — when we see all this, we can not help feeling that there is a weakness somewhere." Something Worse than Singleness. Is it really such a terrible thing to go through the world single?' I know that God in his mercy, as well as in his wis- dom, has made the heart of woman to abound with the most unselfish aifection. But surely there are objects, infinite in number, upon which this affection may be exercised, so that the heart need not remain utterly void. Indeed, we may say far more than this. Let any human beins: really 2:0 forth in the exercise of true affection for God's rational creatures, and there will rise up not one, but hundreds of responding hearts, worthy of the affection that appeals to them. Ah ! old maids are not the most withered of earth's flowers. The emptiest, ghastliest hearts are those of women who have bartered their love for some unworthy thing — for an establishment, for a 136 AYEDLOCK. mustache, and a coat that belongs to the tailor, or for the pliantom that promises a relief from the doom of beii/g an old maid. These are the saddest wrecks. A Roll of Honor. *' Let us then call over the names of a few of tlie women who have become eminent as contributors to the sum of human happiness, or the cause of good morals, and seeif any of them were members of the sisterhood of Old jNIaids. Fif>m the distant past we have the name of the gifted ITypatia, devoting her powers with a calm earnestness to the investigation of Bcientific truth, and finally sacrificing her life to what she cherished as true and i-ight. And Hypatia died at forty-five, unmarried. Next is the multitude of noble women who, in the early ages of Christianity, and down through the terrible darkness of the middle ages, amid tlie upheaval of the Roman empire, and the long, bloody anarchy that followed it, devoted the best energies of their loving souls to the duty of nursing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and in gen- eral of relieving the distresses of the poor, the unfortunate, and the suffering — Sisters of Mercy in very deed. And these were wedded only to their divine work. In our own times we have Mary Lyon, accomplishing by her own self-sacrificing, energy the beneficent purpose, conceived by herself, which had been pronounced impracticable by the men she had con- sulted, but which stands to-day an honorable testimony to thp Christian benevolence that welled up in the lieart of an olrl maid. And what multitudes of the poor, the insane, and the helpless, in our country, have reason to invoke blessings upon that noble friend of theirs, mighty in her gentleness, Dorothea Dix, who passed from State to State like an angel of mercy, arousing even hardened politicians to a strange appreciation of their duties to the unfortunate, and leaving in her wake substantial tokens of her regard in the form of asylums for the lunatic, the orphan, the blind, and the dumb? And Dorothea Dix still bears her maiden name. In our accounts of the Cn- mean war w^e have read of the good deeds of Florence ISTight- imxale, until we have endowed her '.n our own minds \^ith ^ CELIBACY. 137 Rort of angelic excellence and loveliness, as she flitte " Nothing but the skies and thee." 1 must say good-night. Write very soon, and, in the meao time, let th heart rest in the full assurance that I am Tlxine own Fanny. LOVE LETTERS. 163 Napoleon to Josephine. Marmirolo, July, 17, 1796, 9 tead of consoling me under it. My wounded heart seeks another consolation. Governed by these feelings, which have in every age and region of the world actuated the human mind, I seek relief, and I find it in the soothing hope and con- Bolatory opinion, that a benevolent wisdom inflicts the chas- tisement, as well as bestows the enjoyment, of human life; that superintending goodness will one day enlighten the dark- ness which surrounds our nature and hangs over our prospects ; that this dreary and wretched life is not the whole of man ; that an animal so sagacious and provident, and capable of such proficiency in science and virtue, is not like the beasts THE MODEL WIFE. 178 that peiish; that there is a dwelling-place prepared for the spirits of the just; and that the ways of God will yet be vin- dicated to man. The sentiments of religion, which were im- planted in my mind in my early youth, and which wore nv vived by the awful scenes which I have seen passing before ray eyes in the world, are, I trust, deeply rooted in my heart by this great calamity." The Wife's Influence. Rev. George W. Burnap has some excellent thoughts on the marriage relation, and his views of the mission and in fluence of the wife are so true and so happily expressed that we can not forbear to quote the following passages : " The good wife ! How much of this world's happiness and prosperity is contained in the compass of these two short words ! Her influence is immense. The power of a wife, for good or for evil, is altogether irresistible. Home must be the seat of happiness, or it must be forever unknown. A good wife is to a ilian wisdom, and courage, and strength, and hope, and endurance. A bad one is confusion, weakness, discomfiture, despair. No condition is hopeless when the wife possesses firmness, decision, energy, economy. There is no outward prosperity which can counteract indolence, folly, and extrav agance at home. Ko spirit can long resist bad domestic in- fluences. Man is strong, but his heart is not adamant. He delights in enterprise and action, but to sustain him he needs a tranquil mind and a whole heart. He expends his whole moral force in the conflicts of the world. His feelings are daily lacerated to the utmost point of endurance by perpetual collision, irritation, and disappointment. To recover hi^ equanimity and composure, home must be to him a place of repose, of peace, of cheerfulness, of comfort ; and his soul renews its strength, and again goes forth with fresh vigor to encounter the labors and troubles of the world. But if at home he find no rest, and there is met by a bad temper, sul- lenness, or gloom, or is assailed by discontent, complaint, and reproaches, the heart breaks, the spirits are crushed, hope vanishes, and the man sinks into total despair. 174 WEDLOCK. "Let women know, then, that she ministers at the very fountain of life and happiness. It is her hand that lades out with overflowing cup its soul-refreshing waters, or casts in the branch of bitterness which makes them poison and death. ITer ardent spirit breathes the breath of life into all enterprise. 1 ler patience and constancy are mainly instrumental in carry- ing forward k) completion the best human designs. Her more delicate moral sensibility is the unseen power which is ever at work to purify and refine society. And the nearest glimpse of heaven that mortals ever get on earth is that do- mestic circle which her hands have trained to intelligence, virtue, and love, which her gentle influence pervades, and of which her radiant presence is the center and the sun." The Ornament of a Meek and Quiet Spirit. Crates was a heathen philosopher; but many professed Christians may well blush for their want of sense and religion in view of such sentiments as the following, ascribed to him by Plutarch : " Neither gold, nor emeralds, nor pearls grace and orna ment a woman, but all those things which cleaily express and set ofi:' her gravity, regularity, and modesty. The faithful wife will not sufler herself to be led astray by the vain and foolish fashions of the times, nor will she waste the substance of her husband by an extravagant expenditure of his income in dress, equipage, etc., but she will strive to be lovely in his sight, and in the estimation of all by whom she is surrounded, by wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit." The philosopher does not condemn a proper attention to dress, en the part of the wife, nor do we; but only the folly and extravagance of pernicious fashions, which many allow to usurp the place of neatness, taste, modesty, and good sense — the true ornaments of the soul. The Duty of Cheerfulness. All are not equally endowed with the element of hopeful- ness. Some are naturally buoyant and cheerful, generally looking on the bright side of things, while others see life in its more serious and somber aspects ; nor can even the mer^ THE MODEL WIFE. 175 riest heart be always free from sadness and despondency. Affliction and sorrow come to all. There is a time to weep, even as there is a time to rejoice. Still, cheerfulness is a duty; and a large capacity for its sunny manifestations is of the greatest value in a wife. The model wife cultivates this disposition, and her presence is hailed with delight by all. To her husband she is like sunshine — a source of both light and warmth in his home ; and though her countenance may be occasionally overshadowed with gloom (as whose is not?) and her eyes darkened with tears, the fit of sadness is brief as an April shower. Soon she gladdens those around her with her cheerful smiles, and drives away the dark clouds of despondency with the melody of song. Who shall tell the miportance of this temper in a wife to a husband's peace and happiness? In the midst of the cares and pei-plexities of life, the toils of business, the pangs of disappointment, and all the ills incident to humanity, it would greatly add to the sorrows of a husband if, when he found time to be at home, instead of being soothed and encouraged by the gentle words and cheerful smiles of a true-hearted, loving wife, he should be constantly annoyed by the murmurings and complainhigs of a dissatisfied, ill-tempered woman. " A cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine." To such a wife as we have described, the husband in his hours of despondency may address himself in the words of the "Bard of Avon:" " When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen eartli). sings hymns at heaven's gate : For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings." 176 WEDLOCK. Purity and Modesty. The molel wife does not throw off the modest reserve that made lier so charming as a maiden. She feels that the wife should be as jjure in heart and as free from every ap- pearance of boldness or forwardness as the unmarried woman, and she quickly and decidedly rebukes any indelicate allu- sions or impure conversation that may be attempted in her presence. The purity of her heart is manifested not only in her conversation, but in the simplicity and modesty of her dress and the propriety of her general deportment. She not only avoids all intercourse with those from whom she appre- hends danger in this respect, but she does not suffer her mind And heart to be polluted by the pernicious literature of the day, in the shape of sensational novels and romances. In the midst of all the onerous and responsible du- ties of her position, it is given her to be clothed in a spotless robe of innocence, as well as to be " all glorious within." * Order and Neatness. Knowing how great a charm neatness and good order give to both the person and the household arrangements, the model wife makes it a matter of conscience to keep herself, her clothing, and lier house clean, well ordered, and modestly but tastefully adorned. She tries to be more attractive, if possible, after marriage than before, and to make her home pleasanter to her husband than any other place. A minister, who has traveled extensively, and had ample oppoilunities to observe the great difference that exists in this respect among the people, and the sad effects sometimes produced by the culpable neglect of these apparently small but really very important matters, truly says : " It too often occurs that those who before marriage were scrupulously neat and clean, become disgracefully negligent in a very short time. When I have visited some places, and have looked at the wife and children, I have soon understood ♦ " Marriage as it Is, and as it Should Be.' THE MODEL WIFE. 1T7 why the husband was seldom at home in his leisure hours. Alas for him ! he had been captivated by youthfulness and beauty, and he thought he had married one who would be to him a pleasant companion ; but he found himself permanently united to a lazy, slovenly creature, whose want of cleanlinesa with regard to herself; her children and her habitation was a source of continual mortification and sorrow\" * Industry and Economy. Riches do net furnish any valid excuse for idleness and ex- travagance. Industry and economy are duties incumbent on all, whatever their station in life. The world's work must be done. Each should do his or her share. " The poor we have always with us." If we need not to be saving in order to guard ourselves against future want, we should still practice econ- omy, for the purpose of having the more to spare for the worthy children of poverty. But with the majority, industry and economy are essential to comfort and success in life; and the faithful wife of the poor man, or the man of moderate means, considers it her duty to help, in her way, " to make both ends meet"— to keep the family expenses within the income. She avoids extravagance in dress and in furniture, expensive luxuries in food — often as hurtful as they are costly — provides economically, but healthfully, for her table, and strives in every way to aid her husband in laying by a poilion of his earnings for the future. No wonder he esteems her as a "treasure," in every sense.f Her opposite — the ex- travagant, the frivolous, and the immodest wife — is thus sketched by the poet : " Her women, insolent, and self-caressed. By vanity's unwearied finger dressed, ♦ Riyley. i The New York Times, speaking of the great and growing evil of female extrava- gance, says : " It is hard to think it— harder to write it— but, nevertheless, it is plain, honest triitU. They ai*e the money maelstroms— they, and their silks, wines, carpets, hang- lugs, and eqtiipages— and in them are swallowed up the millions that are reported iu our financial disasters. Psalms for their souls— liturgies of sorrow — requiems of death- anything iu the way of thunder and lightning would be, just now, the next thing to a Gospel, if it coulJ arouse our women to arrest the enormous drafts tUey an making on the exchequer of the world." 8* 178 WEDLOCK. Forget the blush that virgin fears impart To modest cheeks, and borrow one from art; Curled, scented, furbelowed, and flounced around, With feet too delicate to touch the ground, They stretch the neck and roll the wanton eye, And sigh for every fool that passes by." — Cowper. Health aot) Habits. The faithful wife does not destroy her health by a life of luxurious ease, or by a willful neglect of the laws which gov- ern her being. She does not injure her constitution by ex- cessive indulgence in the pleasures of the table, by midnight revelingSj neglect of exercise in the open air, or by any sensual indulgence whatever. She regards her health and strength as talents committed to her by Heaven, wdiich she may not undervalue or heedlessly cast away without incurring the displeasure of God. " Instead of running, night after night, to the haunts of fashionable folly, and thus laying the foundation for consump- tion and a host of fatal diseases, she will retire early, rise with the lark, and find her pleasures in the face of day, in those healthful employments of body and mind which are in harmony with the laws of her being." — Bayley, The Model Wife of the Olden Time. " Who can find a virtuous woman ? for her price is above jubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil : she will do him good, and not evil, all the days of his life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her blessed : her husband also, and he praisGth her. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain ; but a "svoraan that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." — Provierhs. With this admirable picture from the Good Book w€ close our delineation of the model wife — the fitting^ conv THE MODEL WIFE. 179 paiiion of the true and faitliful husband sketched in a previous chapter. Cheerful, industrious, modest, pure, affectionate;, devoted, faithful, and truly religious, she moves in iht charmed circle of home with " Grace in her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love." Woman's Constancy. She loved you when your home and heart Of fortune's smile could boast ; She saw that smile decay, — depart, — And then she loved you most. Oh, such the generous faith that glowB In woman's gentle breast ; 'Tis like that star that stays and glows Alone in night's dark vest ; That stays because each other ray Has left the lonely shore, A.ud that the wanderer on his way Then wants her light the more. — L. E LawtOfK XXI. Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours. By sweet experience know That maiTiage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the good A Paradise below.— Cotton. PLA.IN Talk with a Young Man. ^r^Sj' GOOD lady, Mrs. H. T. Stone, who, we are sure, is /^O- as liberally endowed with heart as she evidently is with brain, writes as follows to Cousin Anna's young " beau." " How strangely events do shape themselves ! When I first saw you at your father's well-spread table nine years ago, neither of us dreamed that we would ever meet in Aunt Je- mima's parlor. Of course we all know why you were there: you were frank enough to tell me that you admired Anna, and ever had since you first saw her. Now I presume you and I see two Annas, or one Anna in different lights, for be assur- ed, my friend (and I hope we are really friends), J am your senior by a few years, and believe it a truth that Love is blind. "That Anna is pretty and intelligent no one can deny. " Youth is always beautiful," your mother once remarked to me as we were sewing in the hall, and I have since thought that she was at that moment recalling the lines — 'See how on the faltering footsteps of decay youth presses, ever gay and beautiful youths *' But however lovely the spring, it is human nature to long for the fullness of summer, then to desire the fruitful autumn, MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 181 and before we are aware, an icy breath comes, and winter is upon us. And in life the seasons come but once; so let me entreat you cherish the present, and prepare that summer of yc'ir life which will yield you a happiness deep and lastin^^. *' You will laugh, I know, when I say tliat 'tis not improbable that you do not fully see how many pleasant circumstances .xmspire to make life look bright and the course run smoothly. We do not know how sw^eet sweetness is until we taste the bitter, and bitterness of heart never is forgotten. In a home where abundance is a rule, you have not felt a tinge of real want ; even when away in the army, you knew that in the pleasant home there w^as the good father ready to help you at any moment. Pleasures of Courtship. " To-night you are probably sitting in Aunt Jemima's parlor again. You are ^vell dressed, the pretty black horse at the gate is shining from its well-kept stable, the new buggy is polished and trim, Anna is neatly dressed, and as sweet as a Scotch rose (to me they are the sweetest of all roses), and it would be strange if you did not enjoy yourself. " And in the home you left an hour ago, how is it ? If your sister does have a beau, I hope he is as near perfection as a man can come, for she is a rare girl. But perhaps she is reading some good book of which the table is always full, and your sedate brother is of course reading something deep and wise, he always does, and your father is meditating. Do re- member, my dear friend, it is autumn with him, and he mourns * For the tender grace of a day that is dead, And the sound of a voice that is stilV " You w^ill have a swift ride home, at a late hour, a short, happy sleep, which will begin with an airy dream of Anna, and end with Anna too. The farm- work will all go on ; sister will have a nice breakfast and later a good diimer; you will work briskly all the forenoon, running up to your room before dinner to play a few notes on the flute, and build another Bmall castle in the air for Anna, and so the days go on. 182 WEDLOCK. Too Young to Marri "While you are there to-night, though, A.unt Jemima is obliged to think what she will have for breakfast, and will wish she had a new carpet for the parlor, and wonder in her heart whether she had better stop your coming or let it go on — go on to the wedding-day, you see, don't you ? Anna will not be fit to marry for three years, at least. True, she can cook, and bake, and sew neatly, but she is too young to take the many cares of married life. Only a few days after I left you, when Aunt Jemima had gone out for a visit, she came home to find Anna had entirely forgotten to feed the pig or milk the cow ; and the cow had laid down in the darkness and couldn't be found. Aunt Jemima scolded, and Anna could only say she forgot, I half believed she was thinking of you, foi she knew that the cow needed milking, as much as her own face needs washing every morning. I could forgive it all, for it Is surely spring with her, and she is too tender to bear the sweat and burden of the summer. Good Advice. " Suppose, after a reasonable time, you are married. Doe^ the thought send a thrill of joy to your heart ? I hope so, for love is akin to Heaven, and true love bears and wears long. Still, if you should ever come home at night, after leaving Anna at home to do the evening work, with your head giddy, and your breath smelling of cigars — and something more, what would she think? I predict there would be a sudden gush of tears, and then a reproach in a toi>e that would cut like a razor. What could you say? Would you fire up and say, * What the d — 1 are you making such a fuss about ? I only had a little spree with some of the boys up town.' "Anna might possibly wish herself back with her mother, for very few husbands are as tender of their wives as mothers are of their daughters, and you would ask if a married man could not have a little fun once in a while. I answer No. The place of amusement which draws a man away from his family is no place for you. Marriage is a religion ; there arc MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 183 aaily crosses which both should bear; and after the well-si)ent youth comes the joy of middle life, and with the joy new cares and sorrows; dear ones die, dear ones grow around us ; by and by comes a twinge of age, and we remember that ' we all do fade as a leaf.' "Do you see any meaning in all this? Be not hasty, and if you ever doubt the wisdom of any step, do not make the step. A-bove all, seek true wisdom, till you find it. ** It is not for Anna's sake that I write thus, it is for the sake of yourself, and your mother. If I only could talk to you as she could. I went to see her grave before I came back here, for I had never seen where they laid all that was mortal of her who was so excellent a friend, and daughter, and wife, and a mother. Don't seek your enjoyment altogether away from home. You owe it to them all to be a confiding brother and son. Love, like charity, begins at home. Go to see Anna if it is mutually pleasant, but do not go too often. And act yourself out naturally ; we are too apt to wear a mask in love- making. When we get our better clothes and ride away, we are apt to leave some of our naughty self at home with the garments of sober toil and vexation. " Do you believe that ? Now tell me what you think of all I have said." A Congratulatory Letter. "My dear Friends — I most heartily congratulate you on being married. But in your joy at the consummation of your wishes, do not forget that your happiness both here and here- after depends — O how much ! — upon each other's influence. An unkind word or look, or an unintentional neglect, some- times leads to thoughts which ripen into the ruin of body and Boul. A spirit of forbearance, patience, and kindness, and a determination to keep the chain of love bright, are likely to develop corresponding qualities, and to make the rough places of life smooth and pleasant. Have you ever reflected periously that it is in the power of either of you to make the other utterly miserable? And when the storms and trials of life come, for come they will, how much either of you can do 184 WEDLOCK. to calm, to elevate, to pni-ify the troubled spirit of the other and substitute sunshine for the storm? How much of the happiness or unhappiness of home depends on the disposition ? Home, — how many associations Avith it ! How the lonely and l)ereaved heart yearns for it ! How it rises in remembrance when the sands of life are nearly run, and the sun is just set- ting- ! " I can not look upon marriage in the light in which many seem to regard it, — merely as a convenient arrangement in society. To persons of benevolence, intelligence, and refine- ment, it must be something more, — the source of the greatest possible happiness or of the most abject misery, — no half-way felicity. In your case the prospect appears as bright as can be expected under any circumstances. You have not had the folly to discard common sense. You have endeavored to study charitably and carefully the peculiarities of each other's habits, dispositions, and principles, and to anticipate somewhat the inconveniences to which they may lead. And as you are determined to outdo each other in making personal sacrifices, and to live by the spirit of the Saviour, you have laid a foun- dation for happiness which it is not likely will be shaken by the joys or sorrows, the prosperity or adversity, the riches or poverty, or by the frowns or flattery, of the world. "I need not tell you how many or how warm hearts are in- terested in your welfare, nor how many wishes and prayers are uttered for your happiness. ISTow do not be so selfish in your enjoyment as never to let any one share it with you, but write often, that all of us may be partakers also. Farewell God bless you I May the rainbow of promise never set on your prospects till you form a purer union with angels ! " — John L. Sibley. Whom do Great Men Marry? Women, of course. But they show the same diversity of taste that is seen in the lower ranks, and on the whole make worse mistakes. They, however, generally show the same sense in choosing wives that they show in managing other people's affairs, whether it be good or bad. MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONLiL MATTERS. 185 John Howard, the crreat philanthropist, married his nurse She was altogether beneath him in social life and intellectual capacity, and besides this, was fifty-two years old while ho was but tw^enty-five. He would not take " No " for an answer, and they were married, and lived happily together until her death, which occurred two years afterward. Peter the Great, of Russia, married a peasant girl. She made an excellent wife and a sagacious empress. Humboldt married a poor girl because he loved her. Of course they were happy. Shakspeare loved and wed a farmer's daughter. She was faithful to her vows, but we could hardly say tlie same of the gi-eat bard himself Like most of the great poets, he showed too little discrimination in bestowing his affection on the other sex. Byron married Miss Milbank to get money to pay his debts. It turned out a bad shift. Robert Burns married a farm girl with whom he fell in love while they worked together in the plow-field. He, too, w^as irregular in his life, and committed the most serious mis- takes in conducting his domestic affairs. Milton married the daughter of a country squire, but lived with her but a vshort time. He was an austere, exacting, literary recluse ; while she was a rosy, romping country lass that could not endure the restraint imposed upon her, and so they separated. Subsequently, however, she returned, and they lived tolerably happy. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were cousins, and about the only example in the long line of English monarchs wherein the marital vows were sacredly observed and sincere affection existed. Washington married a widow with two children. It is enough to say of her that she was worthy of him, and that they lived as married folks should, in perfect harmony. John Adams married the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman. Her father objected on account of John's being a lawyer; he had a bad opinion of the morals of the profession. Thomas Jefferson married Mrs. Martha Skelton, a childless 186 WEDLOCK. widow, but she brought him a large fortune in real estate. After the ceremony she mounted the horse bchijd him and they rode home together. It was late in the evening, and they found the fire out. But the great statesman bustled around and rebuilt it, while she seized the broom and soon put things in order. It is needless to say that they were hajDpy, though Jefferson died a poor man on account of his extreme liberality and hospitality. Benjamin Franklin married the girl who stood in hor father's door and lausjhed at him as he wandered throusfh the streets of Philadelphia with rolls of bread under his arms, and his pockets filled with dirty clothes She had occasion to be happy when she found herself the v/ife of such a great and good man. It is not generally known that Andrew Jackson married a lady whose husband was still living. She was an educated but amiable woman, and was most devotedly attached to the old warrior and statesman, who, with all his roughness and Bternncss, was a tender and faithful husband. John C. Calhoun married his cousin, and their children were neither diseased nor idiotic, but they do not evince the talent of the great "States' rights" advocate. Edward Lytton Bulwer, the English statesman and novelist, married a girl much his inferior in position, and got a shrew for a wife. She is now insane. Gen. Sam Houston lived happily with a squaw wife. Ed- win Forrest, the great tragedian, married a beautiful actress, from whom he was divorced. Gen. Fremont married the daughter of Thomas H. Benton, against the latter's wish, which obliged him to elope with her on a stormy night. The union proved a happy one in spite of the squally beginning. Horace Greeley married a schoolmistress whose sense and goodness satisfied him. Gen. Sherman married the daughter of Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, who was a member of Gen. Taylor's cabinet. This alone would have been a good start in life for any young man. Jeff. Davis, for his first wife, won the hand of Zachary Tay- lor's daughter ; and Gen. Grant married a Miw* Pent, of St, MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. tST LoiLS. She apparently has more sense than slow, and is therefore fit for a President's wife. One of the Girls of the Period. *' She lies abed in the morning, until nearly the hour of noon, Then comes down snapping and snarling because she was called so soon. Her hair is still in the papers, her cheeks all dabbled with paint, Remains of her last night's blushes before she intended to faint. She dotes upon men unshaven, and men with the ' flowing hair ;' She's eloquent over mustaches, they give such a foreign air. She talks of Italian music, and falls in love with the moon. And if but a mouse should meet her, she sinks away in a swoon. Her feet are so very little, her hands are so very white, Her jewels so very heavy, and her head is so very light. Her color is made of cosmetics, though this she never will own ; Her body's made mostly of cotton, her heart is made wholly of stonft She falls in love with a fellow, who swells with a foreign air ; He marries her for her money — she marries him for his hair ; One of the very best matches — both are well suited in life, She's got a fool for a husband, and he's got a fool for a wife." Something to Do. In America we have no idle class. Every one who is able to do anything is expected to have a business of some kind — to perform some useful service. Certain families become wealthy either through their own exertions or by inheritance, BO that their own necessities do not compel them to labor, but custom and the spirit of our institutions require them to con tinue in their business, or engage in some pursuit calculated to benefit society and their country ; and the Christian relig- ion, as well as the fact that we grow in bodily strength, health, and in mental capacity by exercise, demands that we be constantly and fully occupied. We should wear out in action, not rust out in indolence. If there be more matri- monial felicity in this than in monarchical countries, may it not be attributed to the fact that here every one has some- thing to do, while there, the aristocracy live comparatively idle lives. Is it not a fact that the Satan of our unregulated nro Densities, kent under control by the active and indus- 188 WEDLOCK. tiiotis, gains ready ascendancy over the indolent and, surely " Finds some mischief still For idle hands to do?" In marriage, as in single life, those who are most fully oc- cupied are always happiest. We do not mean constant drudgery — the life of the treadmill — but healthful and useful activity in some honorable pursuit, such as will contiibute to tlie strength of the body and the clearness and vigor of the mind. An hour among the flowers, shrubbery, and fruits of the garden, feeding the chickens, the birds, the lambs, or looking after somebody's poor children — what an appetizer these things would be to any young lady of wealth, and how much more healthful than yawning in bed till noon ! Besides, when thus occupied, there is no time to nurse seltish jealousies, indulge wild fancies, or give way to morbid imaginations ; and domestic tranquillity would often be secured where it is not now, simply by having something to do. " To train the foliage o'er the sunny lawn ; To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page ; To lend new flavor to the fruitful year, And heighten nature's dainties ; in their race To rear the graces into second life ; To give society its highest taste ; Well-ordered homes, man's best delight, to make, With every care-eluding art, And by submissive wisdom, modest skill, To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten afl the toils of human life ; This be the female dignity and praise." Hotel and Club Life. The gregarious life of our great hotels, for which so many abandon the quiet and comfort of home, is not favorable to matrimonial happiness. The domestic faculties should all have the necessary facilities to work together harmoniously. Connubial love and family affections imply a home in which they are to be exercised — a domestic altar and a sacred hearth-stone. The semi-public life of a hotel does not furnish these, while it holds out a thousand temptations to fashion able dissipation, late hours, and immoral associations. MISCELLANEOUS MAT1UM0XL\L MATTERS. lvS9 Our club-rooms and secret societies, open to men alone, are also unfavorable to domestic happiness and to the moi-als of the stronger sex. They withdraw husbands from the re- straints of home, and allow their perverted appetites to get the ascei/dency. In such places they use language less i-eiincc than at home; they indulge their appetites more grossly: they smoke and drink, and, pei'haps, gamble; none of whitli would be thought of were their wives and daughters presenu We would discountenance all such assemblies where ladies may not also be present. Husbands and wives go to church, to lecture-rooms, to con- cert-halls, and to other places together ; why not every- where? If husbands would secure their own highest enjoy- ment through life, let them continue as much as possible in the society of their own wives; and if wives would keep up in the march of intellect, in growth of mind, and become one in interest with their husbands, let them take part in their labors (through sympathy, at least), in their cares, in their pleasures, in their hopes, in their prayers, and in theii faith in God, and the realities of that immortality which thej aspire to share with them. Conjugal Resemblances. That husbands and wives who have lived long and in true love relations with each other often look alike, as well as to assimilate in character, has often been remarked, though the spiritual law which governs this gradual but certain approxi- mation of kindred beings to each other has seldom been ex- plained, or even thought of, in coimection with the phenctm- enon. This mysterious conjugal resemblance is admirably illustrated in the following sketch, from the pen of Dr. Dixon, of this city : " Many years ago, when pursuing our thankless task of visit- ing the sick in the highways and byways of the city, Ave used to meet an aged couple walking arm-in-arm down one of our main streets, and always engaged in cheerful conversation. ITiis was the more remarkable, for they were evidently very old, and though scrupulously clean, very poor. The man 190 WEDLOCK. was over eighty, and the woman at leait seventy, and he was completely blind. The corneal or pellucid part of both eyes liaving become opaque from violent inflammation, one of tnem protruded, being what surgeons call, in their nomencla- ture, staphylomatous. Notwithstanding this, the old man was actually handsome. His other features were noble and placid. He was evidently a gentleman and a Christian. That face could not deceive. His companion resembled him in so remarkable a degree, excepting the poor eyes (hers were large and blue, and very expressive, as she evidently saw well, wearing no glasses), as to induce me to conclude they were sister and brother. This evident devotion to each other struck a sympathetic chord that compelled me involuntarily, after several months' notice of them every morning, to raise my hat and bid them good-morning. This being kindly returned, in due time begot a passing remark about the weather. Finally, my curiosity could wait no longer, and, with an apology for the freedom, I begged him to tell me whether their close resemblance in features indicated the relationship of sister and brother. I shall never forget the reply, and I hope no young couple who may find the demon of domestic life darken their early love will fail to remember it. Casting his sightless orbs upon his companion, while every other feature showed the soul that welled up in his breast, he replied : ' Why, my dear sir, she is my wife. We have lived together nearly fifty years, but I have not seen her for thirty.' Then, musing a moment — for I w^as sorry I had asked the question, and was silent — he continued : ' Well, I have heard it so often, it must be so; yet, how strange it is! for when I first knew her she was a beautiful young creature, and her eyes were very bright. Dear Sue, can it be? Do I resemble you?' " Several years after, when I had removed from that part of the city, I was requested to see a poor old woman, ill with cholera, whose husband h id died that morning. In a north- em suburb of the city, in a little frame house, I found the dead body of my old blind friend, decently laid out by the hands of kind neighbors. He had expired that morning. In miscella:>eous matrimonial matters. 191 the front room (they had but two) hxy his dear old com- panion, ah-eady nearly pulseless. She knew me instantly, and smiled when I took her hand. On inquiry, she said she had no pain, but felt very weak. She had taken her bed only that morning. There was actually no symptom of cholera, noi indeed any other disease. The shock of her husband's death w as too much for her, and she was about to die from pure exhaustion. I gave some wine and ammonia, which the kind friends had provided, and looked round the neat room. On a clean little pine table, spread w4th a snowy cloth, lay a Bible, a pair of old silver spectacles, and several pairs of shoes, some unbound. They told the story — poA^erty and love, industry and faith in God. She read my thoughts: ' You said we looked alike,' she whispered, ' and he often spoke of it. I could never understand it, unless it was be- cause I thought of him so much. He was very patient, doctor. Although he suffered dreadfully, he only seemed to murmur because he couldn't see me; but he will soon see me now — soon, very soon. Don't you think so, doctor?' I told her I thought she would die, but I could not say how soon. We would keep the body as long as possible. 'Thank you, doc- tor,' she replied, ' you know what I want. Don't separate us.' I assured her it should be as she wished. I called again the same day. She was dead. They brought the dead body to her bedside, and she held the hand in hers till all was still. I have not a doubt he has seen her. Such love could only originate and end in heaven." EXTEAVAGANT HaBITS. "The first step toward curing an evil," the New York TrVmne says, " is the indication of its cause. If it be true, as we continually hear it repeated, that the marriage institu- tion is coming into disrepute, that young men avoid it, that an increasing number of those who do not avoid it cease to respect its laws and purposes, and undermine its foundations while they support its superstructure, it is worth while to ask what there is in our modern views and practices to encourage Buch a state of things; for there must be something, and 192 WEDLOCK something that is neither local nor incidental. The common explanation is, that our extravagant habits of life render mar- riage impossible at the period when it is most attractive and desirable, namely, in youtli. In a word, young people can not aftbrd to marry. Well, if they can not afford it, they will net ilo it, as a rule. We all know that weddings are few in har I limes, and it is better that they should be. It is certainly a foolishness, and it comes very near being a crime, to incur ex- traordinary and indefinite expense when ordinary expenses are only too heavy. But they who are in this predicament are seldom in it for a long time ; and while they are in it they cast no despite on marriage. They would marry if they could, and the prudence that forbids their marrying forbids their living unregulated lives. Most of those who practice selibacy on the pretext of economy are persons who could afford very well to marry if they would be content to begin life with simple, honest, wholesome comfort, to be increased as life went on. But they must have everything at once. They must start where their parents left off. They must dash away at top speed, with horns blowing, and streamers flying, and the eyes of their fashionable friends looking admiringly on. It is not prudence that restrains these people. It is not thrift or foresight. It is simply vanity. They love their pleasure too much to forego any portion of it for the satisfac- tion of matrimony. Love in a cottage, or on a flat, or ofl* the Avenue, is not to their taste. They must have love and an establishment. Moderation and matrimony are seldom incompatible. Magnificence and matrimony commonly are. " Extravagance, no doubt, is the grand foe of wedlock. But extravagance has its cause, and that cause is the love of pleasure. This is a predominant feature of our society — not of ours peculiarly, but of ours more universally than of any other. Matrimony stands immediately in the way of this passion. It restricts freedom ; it limits the range of desire ; it divides the purse ; it diminishes the means of indulgence ; ..t involves thought for others ; it implies care ; it suggests self-restraint and denial ; all very unpleasant things for bi'ight young hearts to contemplate. There are delights to be given MISCELLANEOUS MATRLAIONLVL MATTERS. 103 up, and llnngs undelightful to be accepted. In our 'u munity, pleasure is open to all. Everybody aspires to opu leiiee, if he does not have it, and thinks luxury his right. Im- aginations are heated, and desires are glowing, opportunit} is various, and gratificatioi>* are close at hand, and brilliant livers set the example which is infectious. Tl rough all classes wedlock pulls in these gaudy kites. Childbirth is painful. It mars beauty ; it destroys bloom ; it takes away the softness of the flesh ; it renders the wife less attractive to the eye than the mistress was. ^ The mother must stay at liome in the nursery instead of going to the opera, thf» theater, or the ball. She must watch her children when she would rather drive with her husband, and must hear thcni cry when she would infinitely prefer hearing him read or talk. Children are expensive, too ; the more of them there are, the fewer bronzes and pictures. There must be the fewer laces and jewels, the fewer cloaks and hats, the fewer journeys, the fewer dinners, and suppers, and merry-makings. And so childbirth is avoided, if possible by honest means, but, these failing, by means dishonest. The poor find the door-steps of the rich a convenient* substitute for foundling hospitals Avhei'e these do not exist. The rich find other less cruel means ot* delivering tliemselves from an incumbrance which interferes with the enjoyment of their existence. These enjoyments may not be coarse or low ; they may be refined and intel- lectual ; but whetlier they be one or the other, they are en joyments, and are prized as enjoyments. And as enjoynu-nls they have the eflect to render distasteful the duties and cares of married life. They prevent young people from entering into wedlock, and they tempt them, having entered in, to abuse it The Dictates of Passiox. "But behind this passion for pleasure is another feeling ^vhich we are deeply convinced is woi-king against the insti- tution of marriage. We call it a feeling, for with most it is little more than a feeling, though with many it is a faith and a philosoply. Faith, philosophy, feeling, whichever it be, it amounts to an assertion of the claims, not to say the prerog- 9 lyi WEDLOCK. atives, of instinct, or of equal sanctity with those of con* Bcience. The element of passion has come into honor; and as the law of the passions is lawlessness, it is not strange that it sliould inaugurate its new dispensation by spoken as ^A'ell as unspoken protest against an institution whose de- sign and efifect is to submit the strongest of all the passions to regulation by calling in the authority of the State and tbe decree of the Church to sustain its pretensions. All institu- tions and usages are assailed by these powers of license with vehemence proportioned to their antiquity and their repress- ive character. But no institution confronts instinct so directly and so imperiously as this institution of matrimony. The doctrine of elective affinities meets with no mercy ^t its hands ; and the disciples of the doctrine are summarily con- signed to the worst perdition it has at its disposal. One wife, and absolute fidelity to her, ' in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, for richer for poorer, for better for worse,' is the matrimonial requirement, and a very hard re- quirement it is for eager, craving, restless, fickle human nature to acquiesce in. Attraction does not pull steadily in such long and narrow ways. The charm of variety makes itself felt. Stolen delights will be snatched at when possible, and quick-witted imaginations will always be ready with good reasons for seizing and enjoying them. There is a rush for Indiana. There are long files of divorce cases; separa- tions are frequent, and concubinage, outside of wedlock and inside of it, is so common that it is rarely mentioned. There is no denying or concealing the fact that, under our principle of liberty, which adopts human nature, the lower elements in it, which have from time immemorial been repressed by ar- bitrary rule, make bold to arraign the rule that has repressed them, and insist on their right to obey their own law of impulse, regardless of consequences. Oneida communities and such like experiments are legitimate outgrowths from this slimy region of our theory — and they have their genteel parallels in civilized society — which will practice what it will never avow. It is a phase of our social experience whicli we »nust pass through, very disagreeable, very disgusting, very MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 195 alarming, but incidental after all, and transient. We have no fear that marriage is about to be abolished. It has too many friends among the wise and prudent to be exposed to a dangerous peril" A Love Story with a Moral. I. Asking Pa. — "And so you want to marry my daughter, young man?" said farmer Bilkins, looking at the young fel- low sharply from head to toes. Despite his rather indolent, effeminate air, which was mainly the result of his education, Luke Jordan was a fine-looking fellow, and not easily moved from his self-possession ; but he colored and grew confused beneath that sharp, scrutinizing gaze. " Yes, sir ; I spoke to Miss Mary last night, and she referred me to you." The old man's face softened. " Molly is a good girl, a very good girl," he said, stroking his chin with a thoughful air, "and she deserves a good hus- band. What can you do ? " The young man looked rather blank at this abrupt inquiry. " If you refer to my abilities to support a wife, I can aseurc you — " " I know that you are a rich man, Luke Jordan, but I take it for granted that you ask my girl to marry yow, not your prop- erty. What guarantee can you give me, in case it should be swept away, as it is in thousands of instances, that you could provide for her a comfortable home ? You have hands and brains — do you know how to use them? What can you do?" This was a style of catechism for which Luke was quite un- pre})ared, and he stared blandly at the questioner without gpeaking. "I believe you managed to get through college — have you any profession ? " " No, sir ; I thought — " " Have you any trade ? " "No, sir; my father thought that with the wealth I should inherit I should not need any." 190 WEDLOCK. " Your father thought like a fool, then. He'd much bettor have given you some honest occupation and cut you off with a shilling — it might have been the making of you. As it is, what are you fit for? Here you are, a strong, able-bodied young man, twenty-four years old, and never earned a dollar in your life ! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And you want to many my daughter. Now, I've given Molly as good advantages for learning as any girl in town, and she hasn't thrown 'em away; but if she didn't know how to work, she'd be no daughter of mine. If I choose, I could keep more than one servant; but I don't, no more than I choose that my daughter should be a pale, spiritless creature, full of dyspepsia, and all sorts of fine-lady ailments, instead of the smiling, bi'ight-eyed, rosy-checked lass she is. I did say that she should not marry a lad that had been cursed with a rich father ; but she has taken a foolish liking for you, and I'll tell you what I'll do ; go to work, and prove yourself to be a man ; perfect yourself in some occupation — I don't care what, if it be honest — then come to me, and, if the girl be willing, she shall be yours." As the old man said this he deliberately rose fi'ora the settle of the porch and went into the house. II. Maey will Wait. — Pretty Mary Bilkins was waiting to see her lover down at the garden gate, their usual trysting- place. The smiling light faded from her eyes as she noticed his sober, discomfited look. "Father means well," she said, as Luke told her the result of liis application. "And I'm not sure but he's about right, for it seems to me that every man, rich or poor, ough* to have «ome occupation." Then, as she noticed her lover's grave look, she said, softly, — " Never mind, — I'll wait for you, Luke." Luke Jordan suddenly disappeared from his accustomed haunts, much to the surprise of his gay associates. But wher- ever he went, he carried with him those words which were like a tower of strength to his soul : " I'll wait for you, Luke." HI. A Trade. — One pleasant, sunshiny morning, late in October, as farmer Bilkins was propping up the grapevine in MISCELLANEOUS MATRBIONIAL LETTERS. 197 his front yard, that tlireatened to break down with the weight of its liixurioi/s burden, a neat-looking cart drove up, from uhich Luke Jordan alighted with a quick, elastic step, quite in contrast with his formerly easy, leisurely movements. " Good -morning, Mr. Bilkins. I understood that you wanted to buy some butter tubs and flour barrels. I think I have some that will just suit you." "Whose make are they?" asked the old man, as, opening the gate, he paused by the wagon. " Mine," replied Luke, with an air of pardonable pride. Mr. Bilkins examined them one by one. " They'll do," he said, coolly, as he set down the last of the lot. What will ye take for them?" *'What I asked you for six months ago to-day — your daughter, sir." The roguish twinkle in the old man's eyes broadened into a smile. "You've got the right metal in you, after all," he cried, " Come in, lad — come in. I shouldn't wonder if w^e made a trade after all." Nothing loth, Luke obeyed. " Molly ! " bawled Mr. Bilkins, thrusting his head into the kitchen door. lY. EntePw Molly. — Molly tripped out into the entry. The round white arms were bared above the elbows and bore traces of the flour she had been sifting. Her dress was a neat gingham, over which was tied a blue checked apron ; but she looked as winning and lovely as she always did wherever she was found. She blushed and blushed and smiled as she saw Luke, and tijcn, turning her eyes upon her father, waited dutifully to hear what he had to say. The old man regarded his daughter for a moment with a quizzical look. "Moll, this young man — mayhap you've seen hira before — has brought me a lot of tubs and barrels, all of his own make —a right good article, too. He asks a pretty steep piice for Vm, but if you are willing to give it, well and good; and 1 3 ^ WEDLOCK. hark yc, my girl, whatever bargain you make, your fathei will latiry." As Mr. Bilkins said this he considerately stepped out t the room, and we will follow his example. But the kind of bargain the young people mnde can be readily conjectured by the speedy wedding that followed. Luke Jordan turned his attention to the study of medicine^ of Avhich profession he became a useful and influential mem ber; but every year, on the anniversary of his marriage, li* delights his mother-in-law by some specimens of the ha\idi- craft by which he won what he declares to be the bett and dearest wife in the world. Growing Old Together — Beauit of Age " The most beautiful face that ever was," Aloxandei Smith Bays, " is made yet more beautiful when there is laid upon it the reverence of silver hairs. Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lyt- ton speaks in one of his novels of a man ' who was uglier than he had any business to be ; ' and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking, or the reverse, as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work. Beauty is not the monopoly of blooming young men and white-and-pink maids. There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age. Grace be- longs to no period of life, and goodness improves the longer it exists. I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness — a beauty much more seldom met ; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around his knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade. Husband and wife 'who have fought the world side by side, who have made common stock of j^y. Of sorrow, and aged together, are not unfrequently found curiously alike in personal appearance and in pitch and tone of voice — just as twin pebbles on the beach, exprsed to the same tidal influences, are each other's alier ego. He baa MISCELLANEOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 1^9 gained a feminine something which brings his manhood into full relief. She has gained a masculine something which acts as a foil to her womanhood. Beautiful are they in life, those pale winter roses, and in death they will not be divided. When death comes, he will not pluck one, but both." Don't Marry a Drunkard. There is no more important problem in medical science than that of the production of physical degeneracy in children, by the intemperance of parents, and it is one peculiarly ap- propriate for discussion at the present time. The London Lancet says : " A novel point in the consideration of this (Subject was lately brought under the notice of the Patholog- ical Society, by Dr. Langdon Down. This gentleman ex- hibited a case of arrest of development and growth in a child five years of age, who had only the intellectual condition of one of nine months. She weighed 22 lbs., and measured 2 ft 3 in. There was no deformity, but the child preserved its in fantile character. Dr. Down called attention to this case as a typical one of a species of degeneracy of which he had seen several examples. They all possessed the same physical and mental peculiarities ; they formed, in fact, a natural family. He had known them to live to twenty-two years, still remain- ing permanent infants — symmetrical in form, just able to stand by the side of a chair, to utter a few monosyllabic sounds, and to be amused with childish toys. Dr. Down (who naturally, from lai-ge and rare experience gained at Earlsworth, speaks with peculiar authority on such a matter) had found so close a resemblance between the instances, even to the extent of facial expression and contour, that he had been led to regard this variety of degeneracy to have unity of cause. In several cases he had had strong grounds for holding the opinion that these children were procreated duiing the alcoholic intoxica- tion of one or both progenitors. In the case presented to the Society, there were no antecedent hereditary causes of de- generacy to be discovered. The first child was healthy; then the husband became an habitual drunkard, and there is reason to believe that the second and third children were begotten 200 WEDLOCK, during intoxication, and they were both cases of this peculiar arrest of gro\vth and development. The husband then entered on an industrious and sober career, and the fourth child, no\V fifteen months old, is bright and normal in every respect. Dr. Down pointed out that these cases were an entirely dif- feient class from those which arise from being the ofFspiing of parents who had become degenerate from chronic alcohol- ism. The question here broached is a very important one foi the physician and the philanthropist." A YouxG Lady's Soliloquy. Uselessly, aimlessly drifting through life, What was I born for ? " For somebody's wife," I am told by ray mother. Well, that being true, " Somebody" keeps himself strangely from view. And if naught but marriage will settle my fate, / believe I shall die in an unsettled' state. For, thougli I'm not ugly — pray, what woman is? — You might easily find a more beautiful phiz ; And then, as for temper and manners, 'tis plain He who seeks for perfection will seek here in vain. Nay, in spite of these drawbacks, my heart is perverse, And I should not feel grateful, " for better or worse," To take the first booby that graciously came And offered those treasures — his home and his name. I think, then, my chances of marriage are small; But why should I think of such chances at all ? My brothers are all of them younger than 1, ■ Yet they thrive in the world — why not let me try? I know that in business I'm not an adept, Because from such matters most strictly I'm kept But — this is the question that puzzles my mind — Why am /not trained up to work of some kind ? Uselessly, aimlessly drifting through life. Why should I wait to be " Somebody's wife ? " * • This young lady's question is a pertinent one ; and though her mother is qnlt« right, no doubt, in regard to her proper destiny, there is no good reason tvhy she Bhonld hi; " drifting about" in the way described, waiting for "somebody" to turn np. She shcnild set herself resolutely to work at something. Show her ability to rake care ol herself, and, ten to one. "somebody" will very kindly "propose" to pave her the trouble, by "engaging" her to take care of Jiim! We advise all those fnir ones similarly situated to try it. JSnSCELLAA'EOUS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 201 Burton's Reasons for Maeriaoe. In Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy " there are twelve reasons in favor of marriage, of which the tirst six are as fol- lows : — 1. Hast thou means ? Thou hast one to keep and increase it. 2. Hast none? Thou hast one to help to get it. 3. Art in prosperity? Tliine happiness is doubled. 4. Art in adversity? She'll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden, to make it more tolerable. 5. Art at home? She'll drive away melancholy. 6. Art abroad ? She looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully avcI comes thy return. At avhat Age they Married. Should question arise about the right age for marrying (though the devoted pair generally fancy they know all about that point better than any outsiders), the novelist can plead precedent by selecting some one of the various examples here- to annexed : "People about to marry, who wish to know the proper age, are referred to the following examples : Adam and Eve, ; Shakspeare, 18; Ben Jonson, 21 ; Benj. Fi-anklin and Mozart, 24 ; Kepler, Fuller, Johnson, Burke, Scott, 2G ; Tycho Brahe, Byron, Washington, Bonaparte, 27; Penn and Sterne, 28; Linnasus and Nelson, 29; Burns, 30; Chaucer, Hogarth, and Peele, 82; Wordsworth and Davy, 33; Aristotle, 36; Sir William Jones and Wellington, 37 ; Wilberforce, 38; Luther, 42 ; Addison, 44 ; Wesley and Young, 47 ; Swift, 49 ; Buffon, 55; Old Parr, last time, 120. If Adam and Eve married be- fore they were a year old, and the veteran Parr buckled with a widow at 120, bachelors and spinsters may Aved at any age they like, and find shelter under great names for either early or late unions." Too Much Marrying. *' A great deal has been said and written of late," the editor of the Liberal Christian says, " about the alarming increase 202 WEDLOCK in tlie number of divorces applied for, and the facility \^'ith which they are obtained. This unpleasant symptom betokens a diseased social and domestic condition, a wrong something either in the habits of the community, or in the hearts of our people, or in the atmosphere of our time, or in all of them. A great many wise suggestions have been made as to the w^ay of curing the disorder, and pairing every man and woman, and tucking them snugly away in a domestic berth of some sort for life, if they will only have the good sense and the manners to stay thei-e. " But the trouble is, they won't stay there. And what is worse, in many instances it is not wise nor right for them to stay there. The seat of the difficulty lies a good deal deeper down in our customs and ways of thinking than these social Solomons seem to imagine. It is not in the facility with which people get divorced, but in the facility with which they get married, that the mischief inheres. It is not the unmar- rying, but the marrying — the marrying without proper con- sideration, marrying from wrong motives, with false views and unfounded expectations, marrying without knowing w^ho or what — that causes all the disturbance. And there is alto- gether too much of such marrying. Marriage is a thing of quality and degree. A marriage of the blood is usually a short-lived affair, while a marriage of the brain or of the heart is life-long. AVhen man and woman marry all over and clean through, every faculty and sentiment of each finding its com- plement and counterpart in the other, separation is impossible. But when they are only half married, when only a third part of them is married, when they are married only in their in Btincts, or their imaginations, or their fortunes, the unmarried part of both of them is very apt to get uneasy and rebel, and they find a Bedlam w^here they look for Elysium. There is altogether too much marrying by forms of law those who, at the most, are only a third or half married in other ways. And there is altogether too much urging, and coaxing, and alluring young people into the most important and sacred of all human relations, before they are prepa*ed for its responsibilities or moved to assume its burdens, and by MISCELLANEOUS^ MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 203 those who ought to know better and act with more considera tion. We make too much of marrying and being married, until it is thought by many people somewhat of a disgrace for a woman to pass througli life alone ; when, in fact, the life of many a single woman is poetry, romance, rapture even, in comparison with that of many a wife. So there is a vast deal of marrying with very little real marriage ; a vast deal of dis- content, heart-ache, misery, infidelity, and unmarrying at the last. What we want is not a more stringent divorce law, but a better understanding of the divine law which forbids the marrying of those not already one; not less unmarrying, but less marrying where there is no real marriage. And, above all, let there be no inciting or bribing those to marry who are not drawn to each other and held inseparably together by qualities of mind and souk" Village Wedding in Sweden. I will endeavor to describe a villasre weddingr jn Sweden. It shall be in summer time, that there may be flowers; and in a southern province, that the bride maybe fair. The early songs of the lark and of chanticleer are mingled in the clear morning air, and the sun, the heavenly bridegroom with yel- low hair, arises in the south. In the yard there is a sound of voices and trampling of hoofs; horses are led forth and saddled. The steed that is to bear the bridegroom has a bunch of flowers on his forehead, and a garland of corn flowers about his neck. Friends from the neighboring farms come riding in, their blue cloaks streaming in the wind; and finally the happy bridegroom, with a whip in his hand, and a monstrous nosegay in the breast of his blue jacket, comes from his cham- ber; and then to horse, and away toward the village where the bride always sits and waits. Foremost rides the spokesman, followed by some half-dozen village musicians. Xext comes the bridegroom between his two groomsmen, and then forty or fifty friends and wedding guests, half of them, perhaps, with j^istols and guns in their hands. A kind of baggage wagon brings up the rear, laden 204 WEDLOCK. with food and drink for these merry pilgrims. At the en- trance of every village stands a triumphal arch, laden with flowers, and ribbons, and evergreens, and as they pass beneath it, the wadding guests fire a salute, and the whole procession t;tops, and straight from every pocket flies a black-jack, filled with punch or brandy. It is passed from hand to hand among the crowd; provisions are brought from the wagon, and after eating and drinking and hurrahing, the procession moves for- ward again, and at length di-aws near the house of the bride. Four heralds ride forward to announce that a knight and his attendants are in the neighboring forest, and ask for hos- pitality. " How many are you ? " asks the bride's father. " At least three hundred," is the answer, and to this the last replies, "Yes, w^ere you seven times as many you should all be welcome, and in token thereof receive this cup." Whereupon each herald receives a can of ale; and soon after the whole jovial company come streaming into the far- mer's yard, and riding round the maypole which stands in the center, alight amid a grand salute and flourish of music. In the hall stands the bride with a crown upon her head and a tear in her eye, like the Virgin Mary in old church paintings. She is dressed in a red boddice and kirtle, with loose linen sleeves. There is a girded belt around her waist, and around her neck strings of golden beads and a golden chain. On the crown rests a wreath of wild roses, and below it another of cypress. Loose over her shoulders falls her tlaxen hair, and her blue innocent eyes are fixed on the ground. " Oh, thou good soul ! thou hast hard hands, but a soft 1m art! thou art poor; the very ornaments thou wearest arc not thine ; the blessings of Heaven upon thee ! " vSo thinks the parish priest, as he joins together the hands of the bride and bridegroom, saying in a deep and solemn voice : " I give thee in marriage this damsel, to be thy wed- ded wife in all honor, to share the half of thy bed, thy lock and key, and every third peimy which thou mayest possess, or may inherit, all the rights which L^hland's laws provide^ and holy king gives," MIS(;ELLANE0US MATlUMO^ilAL MATTERS. 205 And the dinner is now served, and the bride sits between Lhe bridegroom and the priest. The spokesman delivers an oration, after the ancient custom of the fathers. He inter- lards it well with quotations from the Bible, and invites the Saviour to be present, as at the marriage feast of Cana of Galilee. The table is not sparingly set forth. Each makes a long arm, and the feast goes cheerily on. Punch and brandy pass around between the courses, and here and there a pipe is smoked, while waiting for the next dish. They sit long at the table; but as all things must have an end, so must a Swedish dinner. Then the dance begins. It is led off by the bride and priest, who perform a solemn min- uet toojether. Not until midnit]fht comes the last dance. The girls form a circle round the bride, to keep her from the hands of the married women, who endeavor to break through the magic circle and seize their new sister. After a long struggle they succeed, and the crown is taken from her head, and the jewels from her neck, and her boddice is unlaced, and kirtle taken off; and like a vestal virgin clad all in white she goes, but it is to her bridal chamber, not to her grave ; and the wedding guests follow her with lighted candles in their hands. Wedding Gifts. The custom of making marriage presents, with their preten- tious display before the wedding guests, is generally regarded as a nuisance, though the custom still flourishes, in the sheep- like disposition of people to follow the fashion. The New Church Independent has these good words on the subject: " Once, only those who were related to the young couple b) ties of blood or affection made gifts; now a false ceremonial has replaced the old, honest impulse of the heart. Very ot\en those who are not sensitive about paying actual debts blush the deepest red at the bare idea of entering the gny bridal-rooms without silver or plated ware. It becomes the ronsr, o» duty of those who are truly generous, and sincere, and st to abstain from a practice which weak people have not cour- age to quit without the example of nobler characters. Jf every pair contemplating marriage would resolve to issue on 206 WEDLOCK. the wedding cards ' No presents will be received/ a l^iicficeLt reform would instantly take place ; it has begun already in some towns : selfish couples and grasping parents would be- conicj ashamed to angle in the pockets of acquaintances for valuables. We know that many a bride would feel it a sacri- fice not to receive beautiful gifts. God pity such a one, for slie will be poor forever unless she learns to value royal spir- itualities before material splendors which are infiltrated with social falsehood and moral degradation. The childish little bride should remember that a piano laden with shining silver is not so great a gain as she imagines, for she must pay back wlien the time comes, or be considered ' consumedly mean.' A wedding may take place in the family of an acquaintance to whom she is indebted at a time of pecuniary embarrass- ment; if such a time never comes, the money might still be better appropriated in relieving actual want. A conscientious deviation from custom, when it is injurious to the public good, is genuine charity to the neighbor ; it is genuine, because it requires some self-sacrifice to be misjudged, and to go steadily onward in the path of right, upborne by no enthusiasm." A Marriage Exhortation. My brother! remember thou, not only that the man is the head of the woman in authority, but, also, that thou art for thy wife the excellency of human nature, her all, — all that shall ever be hers of that fondness, that heroism, that unsus- pecting confidence, that noble manner of thinking, so dear to woman ; and of which virtues she has this day been believ- ingly married to thyself as the archetype. My sister ! remember thou that of thy husband thou art his whole possession in the delicacy and tenderness of woman- kind, — his all of female worth. Remember that in gentle en- durance thou art for him his Griseldis ; in trustworthiness, his Lucretia ; in humble beneficence, his Dorcas ; his Penelope in faithfulness ; his Laura in loveliness of character; and in self- Bacrificing live his Alcestis. MIfeCELLAKEOUS MATRIMOlsIAL MATTERS. 207 Make Home Happy. It is a duty devolving upon every member of a family tii endeavor to make all belonging to it happ^. This may, with a very little pleasant exertion, be done. Let every one con- tribute something toward improving the grounds belonging to their house. If the house is old and uncomfortable, let each exert himself to render it better and more pleasant. If it is good and pleasant, let each strive still further to adorn it. Let flowering shrubs and trees be planted, and vines and vroodbines be trailed around the windows and doors; add interesting volumes to the family library ; take a good paper ; purchase little articles of furniture to replace those which are fast wearing out; wait upon and anticipate the wants of each ; and ever have a pleasant smile for all and each. Make home happy. Parents ought to teach this lesson in the nursery and by the fii-eside, and give it the weight of their precept and example. If they should, ours would be a hap- pier and a more virtuous country. Drunkenness, profanity, and other disgusting vices would die away ; they could not live in the influence of a lovely and refined home. Does any one think, " I am poor, and have to work hard to get enough to sustain life, and can not find time to spend in making^ our old house more attractive ? " Think again. la there not some time every day which you spend in idleness, or smoking, or mere listlessness, which might be spent about your homes ? " Flowers are God's smiles," said Wilberforce ; and they are as beautiful beside the cottage as the palace, and may be enjoyed by the inhabitants of the one as well as the other. There are few homes which might not be made more beautiful and attractive. Let all study to make their resi- dence so pleasant that the hearts of the absent ones shall go back to it as the dove did to the ark of Noah. "The pilgrim's step m vain Seeks Eden's sacred ground; But in home's holy joys again An Eden may be found." 208 WEDLOCK. The Bride. AVc now (in marriage) see woman in that sphere for which she was originally intended, and which she is so exactly litted to adorn and bless, as the wafe, the mistress of a home, the eolace, the aid, and the counselor of that one for whose sake alone the world is of any consequence to her. She is to gn from a home that she has known and loved, where she has been loved and cherished, to one to which she is an utter stranger. Her happiness is to be subjected to those on whose characters, tempers, principles she can make no calculation. And what is to assure her of the faith of him wdio has swom at the altar to cherish and protect her ? She may, in the blindness of affection, have given her heart to one who will wring and break it; and she may be going to martyrdom, where pride and prudence will alike deny her the poor solace of complaint. Yet she is willing to venture all. Morganatic Marriages. Everybody has heard the term " morganatic marriages," and many people suppose that marriages of this kind are a species of concubinage, in which the kings and princes of Europe are fond of indulging. This is not the case, however. A morganatic marriage is just as binding upon the parties aa any other marriage. The term is derived from the German Morgengahe^ w^hich means a dowry. It signifies a matrimonial contract in which one of the parties is greatly superior in i-ank to the other. If it be the bride who is of inferior rank, she agrees that she and her childreji shall be entitled neither to tlie rank nor th^ estate of Jier husband, and that the dowry which is settled upon her at the time of the marriage shall be accepted in lieu Vail other privileges. If the man be the in- ferior, he gives assent to similar conditions. In the bridal ceremony the party of superior rank gives the left hand in- stead of the right, to the other — hence these marriages are sometimes styled " left-handed." Marriage Maxims. A good Avife is the greatest earthly blessing. A man ia MISCELLANEOUS MATRBIOXIAL MATTERS. '2o\) what bis wife makes him. It is the mother wlio molds the cliaracter and destiny of the child. Make marriage a matter of moral judgment. jNEarry in your own religion. Marry into a different blood and temper- ament from your own. Marry, if practicable, into a family which you have long known. Xever both manifest anger at once. Never speak loud to one another, unless the hause is on fire. Never reflect on a past action which was done with the best judgment at the time. Let each one strive to yield oftenest to the wishes of the other. Let self-abnegation be the daily aim and effort of each. The very nearest approach to domestic felicity on earth is in the mutual cultivation of absolute unselfishness. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed ; and even then prelude it with a kiss, and lovingly. Never taunt with a past mistake. Neglect tlie whole world besides rather than one another. Never allow a request to be repeated. "I forgot," is never an accept- able excuse. Never make a remark at the expense of the other. It is a meanness. The beautiful in heart is a million times of more avail in securing domestic enjoyment than the beautiful in person or manners. Do not herald the sacrifices you make to each other's tastes, habits, or preferences. Let all your mutual accommodations be spontaneous, whole-souled, and free as air. A hesitating, tardy, or grum yielding to the wishes of the other always grates upon a loving heart, like Milton's "gates on rusty LiuGjes turning^." Whether present or absent, alone or in company, speak up fjr one another cordially, earnestly, lovingly. If one is angry, let the other part the lips only to give a kiss. Never deceive, for the heart once misled can never wholly trust again. Consult one another in all that comes within the experience, and observation, and sphere of the other. Give your warm- est sympathies for each other's trials. Never question th« 210 WEDLOCK. integrity, truthfulness, or religiousness of one another. En- courage one another in all the depressing circumstances under vvhich 3'ou may be placed. By all that can actuate a good citizen, by all that can melt the heart to pity, by all that can move a parent's bosom, by every claim of a common humanity, see to it that at least one l)arty shall possess strong, robust, vigorous health of body and brain j else let it be a marriage of spirit ; that only, and no further. , A Novel and Beautiful Marela.qe Ceremony. Since the Chapter on Marriage Customs and Ceremonies was in type, the following somewhat odd but singularly ap- propriate and beautiful marriage ceremony has fallen under our observation, in Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' "Men, Women, and Ghosts," and we give it a place here : " Appealing to your Father, who is in heaA^en, to witness your sincerity, you .... do now take this woman, whose hand you hold — choosing her alone from all the world —to be your lawfully wedded wife. You trust her as your best earthly friend. You promise to love, to cherish, and to protect her ; to be considerate of her happiness in your plans of life ; to cultivate for her sake all manly virtues ; and in all things to seek her welfare as you seek your own. You pledge yourself thus honorably to her, to be her husband in good faith, so long as the providence of God shall spare you to each other. " In like manner, looking to your heavenly Father for his blessing-, you .... do now receive this man, whose hand you hold, to be your lawfully w^edded husband. You choose him from all the world as he has chosen you. You pledge your trust to him as your best earthly friend. You promise to love, to comfort, and to honor him ; to cultivate for his sake a'.l womanly graces; to guard his reputation, and assist him in his life work; and in all things to esteem his happiness as your own. You give yourself thus trustfully to him, to be his wife in good faith, so long as the providence of God shall spare you to each other." €lSOl!:LLS.Ni!:uCS MATRIMONIAL MATTERS. 211 Wedlock. U holy powci- of pure, devoted love I And 0, thou lioly, sacred name of home ! Prime bliss of earth ! Behind us and before, Our guiding-star, our refuge ! When we plunge, Loose from the safeguard of a father's roof, On life's uncertain flood exposed and driven, 'Tis the mild memory of thy sacred days That keeps the young man pure. A father's eye, A mother's smile, a sister's gentle love, The table, and the altar, and the hearth, In reverend image, keep their early hold Upon his heart, and crowd out guilt and shame. Then, too, the hope, that in some after day These consecrated ties shall be renewed Li him, the founder of another house. And wife and children — earth's so precious name*— Be gathered round the hearth where he himself Shall be the father — O, this glowing hope. With memory coworking, lightens toil. And renders impotent the plots of earth To waip him from his innocence and faith ! —Henry Wa/re^ Jr XXII. lo^frg of f 0b^ mxi Carriage, Ask not how much I love thee. Do not question why ; I have told thee the tale, In the evening pale. With a tear and a sigh. I told thee when love was hopeless. But now he is wild and sings That the stars above Shine ever on Love, Though they frown on the fate of kings. —Barry CormotA Love's Seasons. OST tliou idly ask to hear At what gentle seasons Nymphs relent, when lovei*s near Press the tenderest reasons ? Ah ! they give their faith too oft To the careless wooer ; Maidens' hearts are always soft, — Would that men's were truer I Woo the fair one when around Early birds are singing ; When, o'er all the fragrant ground, Early herbs are springing ; AVhen the brookside, bank, and grove, All with blossoms laden, Shine with beauty, breathe of loye, — Woo the timid maiden. Woo her when, with rosy blush, Summer eve is sinking ; When, on rills that softly gush, Stars are softly winking • When, through boughs that knit the bower Moonlight gleams are stealing; Woo her, till the gentle hour Wake a geutler feeling. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 21J Woo her wlien autumnal dyes Tinge the woody mountain ; When the dropping fohage lies In the weedy fountain. Let the scene, that tells how fast Youth is passing over. Warn her, ere her bloom is past, To secure her lover. Woo her when the north- winds call At the lattice nightly ; When, within the cheerful hall, Blaze the fagots brightly ; While the wintry tempest round Sweeps the landscape hoary, Sweeter in her ear shall sound Love's delightful story. — WiUiam CuUen Bryami, Juliet's Conpession. Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face ; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke ; but farewell compliment I Dost love me ? I know thou wilt say — Ay ; And I will take thy word : yet, if thou swear'st Thou mayst prove false ; at lovers' perjuries, They say, Jove laughs. O, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully : Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo ; but, else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ; And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light ; But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, My true love's passion : therefore pardon me ; And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered. — 6hak»pewr§, 214 WEDLOCK. One Kiss Before We Pabt One Mss before we part I But one ! for love's sweet sake I To sweeten, for my heart, The pain of this mistake. Your hand is in my own, But your head is turned away; For the first time and the last, One little kiss, I pray I Nay ; though you love me not, And stab me, saying " Friend I "• Nay ; though I be forgot Before a fortnight's end — Still, let me kiss the lips That traitors are to love— What ! nothing but your hand I And that within its glove ? Because the past was sweet; Because you are so dear; Because no more we meet In any future year — Be kind, and make me glad, Just for a moment's space- Think I I shaU be so sad, And never see your face ! One kiss before we part I And so you nothing meant? Though I be gone, your heart Will keep its old content Nay, not your cheek — your lip§— I claim them as my right — Small guerdon for great love — Before we say good-night Ah 1 shy, uplooking eyes I Not true— though blue and ran*-* How dare you feign surprise To know I hold you dear ? What coyness will not yield. Yet boldness, sure, may take- Well, then ; if not for Love's, One kiss — for Friendship's sake POETRY OF LOVE AXD MARRIAGE. 215 One kiss before we part I One little kiss, my dear 1 One kiss — to help my heart Its utter loss to bear. One kiss — to check the tears My manhood scarce can stay ; Or thus— I make it " Yes ! " While you are saying " Nay I " — Howa/rd Olyiydon A Home in the Heart. O, ask not a home in the mansions of pride, Where marble shines out in the pillars and walls I Though the roof be of gold, it is brilliantly cold. And joy may not be found in its torch-lighted halls. But seek for a bosom all honest and true, Where love, once awakened, will never depart; Turn, turn to that breast, like the dove to its nest, And you'll find there's no home like a home in the heart. O, link but one spirit that's warmly sincere, That will heighten your pleasure, and solace your care,— Find a soul you may trust, as the kind and the just, And be sure the wide world holds no treasure so rare 1 Then the frowns of misfortune may shadow our lot, The cheek-searing tear-drops of sorrow may start, But a star never dim sheds a halo for him Who can turn for repose to a home in the heart* —Eliza Coo\ Move Eastward, Happy Earth. Move eastward, happy Earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow ; From fringes of the faded eve, O happy planet ! eastward go ; Till over thy dark shoulder glow Thy silver sister-world, and rise To glass herself in dewy eyes That watch me from the glen below. Ah I bear me with thee, smoothly borne ! Dip forward under starry light. And move me to my marriage-mom. And round again to happy night I — Alfred Tennyson iiit> WEDLOCK True Beauty. Let other bards of angels sing, Bright suns without a spot ; But thou art no such perfect thing ; Rejoice tliat thou art not ! Heed not though none should call thee fail— So, Mary, let it be, If naught in loveliness compare With what thou art to me. True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose vail is unremoved 'Jl heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved. ^ William Ward9*Dtrif\ Plain, but Plighted. and Jill are pretty girls, Plump and well to do — In a cloud of windy curls ; Yet I know who Loves me more than curls or pearls. I am not pretty, not a bit — Thin, and sallow-pale : When I trudge along the street I don't need a vail ; Yet I h^ve one fancy hit Jess and Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys; Yet it's I who wear the ring. Jess and Jill will mate some day, Surely, surely — Ripen on to June through May, While the sun shines make their hay. Slacken steps demurely ; Yet even there I lead the way. — Christina Georffina HoiMttK POETRi' OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 217 This Woeld. Let's take this world as some wide scene, Through which, in frail but buoyant boat, With skies now dark and now serene, Together thou and I must float. Beholding oft, on either shore, Bright spots where we should love to stay; But Time plies swift his flying oar, And on we speed, far, far away. Should chilling winds and rains come on, We'll raise our awning 'gainst the shower, Sit closer till the storm is gone, And, smiling, wait a sunnier hour. And if that sunnier hour should shine, We'll Imow its brightness can not stay, But, happy while 'tis thine and mine. Complain not when it fades away. So reach we both, at last, that fall, Down which life's currents all must go ; The dark, the brilliant, destined all To sink into the void below. Nor even that hour shall want its charms, If, side by side, still fond we keep. And calmly, in each other's arms Together linked, go down the steep. — ThorruM Moon The Doorstep. The conference-meeting through at last, We boys around the vestry waited To see the girls come tripping past Like snow-birds willing to be mated. Not braver he that leaps the wall By level musket-flashes litten. Than I, who stepped before them all Who longed to see me get the mitten. But no, she blushed and took my arm 1 We let the old folks have the highway. And started toward the Maple Farm Along a kind of lovers' by-way. 10 218 WEDLOCK. I can't remember what we said, *Twas nothing worth a song or story ; Yet that rude path by which we sped Seemed all transformed and in a glory. The snow was crisp beneath our feet, The m >on was full, the fields were gleaming; By hood and tippet sheltered sweet. Her face with youth and health was beaming The little hand outside her muff— O sculptor, if you could but mold it I So lightly touched my jacket-cuff. To keep it warm I had to hold it To have her with me there alone — 'Twas love and fear and triumph blended. At last we reached the foot- worn stone Where that delicious journey ended. The old folks, too, were almost home ; Her dimpled hand the latches fingered, We heard the voices nearer come. Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. She shook her ringlets from her hood And with a " Thank you, Ned," dissembled. But yet I knew she understood With what a daring wish I trembled. A cloud passed kindly overhead, The moon was slyly peeping througli It, Yet hid its face, as if it said, " Come, now or never ! do it I do it I** My lips till then had only known The kiss of mother and of sister. But somehow, full upon her own Sweet, rosy, darling mouth — I kissed her Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still O listless woman, weary lover I To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill Fd give — but who can live youth over T — Edmwnd Clarenes Stedmem POETRY OF LOVE ATO MARRIAGE. 210 IVIan's Reqihrements. Love me, sweet, with all thou art- Feeling, thinking, seeing; Love me in the lightest part, Love me in full being. Love me with thine open youth. In its frank surrender ; With the vowing of thy mouth, "With its silence tender. Love me with thine azure eyes, Made for earnest granting ; Taking color from the skies, Can Heaven's truth be wanting ? Love me with their lids, that faU Snow-like at first meeting; Love me with thy heart, that all The neighbors then see beatmg. Love me with thy hand, stretched on% j^eely— open-minded ; Love me with thy loitering foot,— Hearing one behind it. Love me with thy voice, that turns Sudden faint above me ; Love me with thy blush, that burns When I murmur, " Lcyve me/" Love me with thy thmking soul- Break it to love-sighmg ; Love me with thy thoughts, that roll On through living, dying. Love me in thy gorgeous airs. When the world has crowned theei Love me kneelmg at thy prayers, With the angels round thee. Love me pure, as musers do, Up the woodlands shady ; Love me gaj^ly, fast and true. As a winsome lady. 220 WEDLOCK. Through all hopes that keep us bravo. Further off or nigher, Love me for the house and grave, — And for something higher. Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear Woman's love no fable, /will love thee — half a year, — As a man is able. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning A Woman's Question. Before I trust my fate to thee, Or place my hand in thine. Before I let thy future give Color and form to mine. Before I peril all for thee — Question thy soul to-night for me. I break all slighter bonds, nor feel A shadow of regret : Is there one link within the past That holds thy spirit yet? Or is thy faith as clear and free As that which I can pledge to thee ? Does there within thy dimmest dreams A possible future shine. Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe, Untouched, unshared by mine ? If so, at any pain or cost, O, tell me before all is lost I Look deeper still : if thou canst feel. Within thy inmost soul, That thou hast kept a portion back. While I have staked the whole. Let no false pity spare the blow, But in true mercy tell me so. Is there within thy heart a need That mine can not fulfil ? One chord that any other hand Could better wake or still ? Speak now, lest at some future day My whole life v ither and decay. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. :^"2i Lives there within thy nature hid The demon-spirit, change, Shedding a passing glory still On all things new and strange ? It may not be thy fault alone, — But shield my heart against thine own. Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day And answer to my claim, That fate, and that to-day's mistake — Not thou — had been to blame ? Some soothe their conscience thus ; but thou Wilt surely warn and save me now. Nay, answer not, — I dare not hear — The words would come too late ; Yet I would spare thee all remorse, So, comfort thee, my fate : Whatever on my heart may fall, Remember, I would risk it all I — Adelaide Ji'*-- Prater Kiss Me Softly. Da me 6a«ia.-~CATtJixu8. Kiss me softly and speak to me low — Malice has ever a vigilant ear : What if Malice were lurking near? Kiss me, dear ! Kiss me softly and speak to me low. Kiss me softly and speak to me low- Envy, too, has a watchful ear : What if Envy should chance to hear f Kiss me, dear ! Kiss me softly and speak to me low. Kiss me softly and speak to me low : Trust me, darling, the time is near When lovers may love with never a fear ; Kiss me, dear 1 Kiss me softly and speak to me low. — John Qodfrey Sura, 222 WEDLOCK Deifting. Well, summer at last is over, Gone like a long, sweet dream, And I am slowly waking, As I drift along the stream. This dohe far niente Has been too much for me . Nothing done on my picture, Except that doubtful tree I I went to the glen with Gervase, And sketched one afternoon. And would have made sunset studies But for the witching moon I The moon did all the mischief; The moment I see it shine, With a pretty woman beside me, My heart's no longer mine I But have I really lost it? Or has it slipped away, Like a child beguiled by summer. Who will come home tired with p ay f I wonder if I am feeling The passion of my life ? Do I love that woman, Alice, Enough to call her wife f I think so, but I know not; I only know 'tis sweet To lie, as I am lying. In sunset, at her feet. Watching her face, as, thoughtfU, She leans upon her hand. (Is it herself or me^ now ; She seeks to understand?) While overhead the swallows Fly home, with twittering cries, And througli the distant tree-tops The moon begins to rise. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 223 If we could only stay so, In such a happy dream, I would not for worlds awaken, But di-ift along with the stream 1 —R H. Stoddard, Love Song. Softly day fkints and dies, Smking from sight ; Up through the dreamy skies Climbeth the night. Shadows begin to rove In the blue halls above ; Shut out the world, my love— Thou art my light. My heart was like a barque Drifting at sea, Lost in the mist and dark, Ere I loved thee. Stars that ne'er set nor rise, Constant to polar skies, Such are thy beacon eyes, Shining for me. Sweetly together, love, Our lives are twined ; I am thy heart, my love, Thou art my mind. I can but see through thee, Thou may'st but feel through me^ Perfect in one are we, As God designed. What I may lack thou hast; Want is unknown Since we have come at last, Each to our own, Sceptered and crowned thou art. King of one happy heart ; Surely no power shall part Thee from thy throne. '•^Annie L. Muzsejf, 22i WEDLOCK. Come, Rest in this Bosom. Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer ! Thougli the herd have fled irom thee, thy home is still here; Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last O, what was love made for, if 'tis not the same Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame? I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart — I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. Thou hast called me thy Angel in moments of bliss, And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this — Through the furnace, unshiinking, thy steps to pursue, And shield thee, and save thee, or perish there too. — Tlumias Moin^ Were I but his Own Wipe. Were I but his own wife, to guard and to guide him, 'Tis little of sorrow should fall on my dear ; I'd chant my low love-verses, stealing beside him. So faint and so tender his heart would but hear ; I'd pull the wild blossoms from valley and highland ; And there at his feet I would lay them all down ; I'd sing him the songs of our poor stricken island, Till his heart was on fire with a love like my own. There's a rose by his dwelling, — I'd tend the lone treasure. That he might have flowers when the summer would come ; There's a harp in his hall, — I would wake its sweet measure, For he must have music to brighten his home. Were I but his own wife, to guide and to guard him, 'Tis little of sorrow should fall on my dear; For every kind glance my whole life would award him, — In sickness I'd soothe and in sadness I'd cheer. My heart is a fount welling upward forever 1 When I think of my true love, by night or by day, That heart keeps its faith like a fast-flowing river, Which gushes forever and sings on its way. I have thoughts full of peace for his soul to repose in. Were I but his own wife, to win and to woo : O sweet, if the night of misfortune were closing, To rise like the morning star, darling, for you ! — Mary Downtng. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 225 The Maiden's Choice. Genteel in personage, Conduct, and equipage ; Noble by heritage, Generous and free ; Brave, not romantic ; Learned, not pedantic; Frolic, not frantic, — This must he be. • Honor maintaining, Meanness disdaining, Still entertaining. Engaging, and new ; Neat, but not finical ; Sage, but not C3Tiical ; Never tyrannical. But ever true. —Henry Fieldir^g, Love's Philosophy. The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever, With a sweet emotion ; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one another's being mingle ; — "Why not I with thme ? See ! the mountains kiss high heaven, And the waves clasp one another; No sister flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sun.iglit clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; — What are all these kissings worth. If thou kiss not me ? —Percy Bysshe SheUey. 10* 226 WEDLOCK. The Wish. O, could I one dear being find, And were her fate to mine but joined By Hymen's silken tie, To her myself, my all, I'd give, For her alone delighted live, For her consent to die. Together should our prayers ascend, Together humbly would we bend, To praise the Almighty's name* And when I saw her kindling eye Beam upward to her native sky, My soul should catch the flame. Thus nothing should our hearts divide, But on our years serenely glide, And all to love be given ; And, when life's little scene was o'er, We'd part to meet and part no more, But live and love in heaven. Beware 1 (fbou thb oebkah.) I know a maiden fair to see : Take care ! She can both false and friendly be : Beware 1 Beware I Trust her not ; She is fooling thee 1 She has two eyes so soft and brown ; Take care ! She gives a side-glance and looks down Beware ! Beware 1 Trust her not ; She is fooling thee I And she has hair of a golden hue : Take care ! And what she says it is not true : Beware 1 Beware I Trust her not ; She is fooling thee I POETRY OF LOVE xVXD MARRIAGE. 22^ She lias a bosom as white as snow : Take care 1 She knows how much it is test to show : Reware I Beware I Trust her not ; She is fooling thee ! She gives thee a garland, woven fair Take care 1 It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear: Beware ! Beware I Trust her not ; She is- fooling thee I — Henry WadsiDorth LongfdHc/iS Wife and L She who sleeps upon my heart Was the first to win it ; She who dreams upon my breast, Ever reigns within it ; She who kisses oft my lips Wakes the warmest blessing ; She who rests within my arms Feels their closest pressing. Other days than these shall come, Days that may be dreary ; Other hours shall greet us yet. Hours that may be weary ; Still this heart shall be thy home Still this breast thy pillow, Still these lips meet thine as oft Billow meeteth billow. Sleep, then, on my happy heart, Since thy love hath won it ; Dream, then, on my loyal hearts "None but thou bast done it ; And when age our bloom shall change, With its wintry weather, May we in the sell-same gravft Sleep and dream together. 228 WEDLOCI^. Laura, my Darling. Laura, my darling, the roses have blushed At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is Imshed ; Our murmuring babe to your bosom has clung, And hears in his slumber the song that you sung ; I watch you asleep with your arms round him thrown, Your links of dark tresses wound in with his own, And the wife is as dear as the gentle young bride Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side. Laura, my darling, our sail down the stream Of Youth's summers and winters has been like a dream; Years have but rounded your womanly grace, And added their spell to the light of your face ; Your soul is the same as though part were not given To the two, like yourself, sent to bless me from heaven,— Dear lives, springing forth from the life of my life, To make .you more near, darling, mother and wife 1 Laura, my darling, there's hazel-eyed Fred, Asleep in his own tiny cot by the bed. And little King Arthur, whose curls have the art Of winding then* tendrils so close round my heart, — Yet fairer than either, and dearer than both. Is the true one who gave me in girlhood her troth : For we, when we mated for evil and good, — What were we, darling, but babes in the wood ? Laura, my darling, the years which have flown Brought few of the prizes I pledged to my own. I said that no sorrow should roughen her way, — Her life should be cloudless, a long summer's day. Shadow and sunshine, thistles and flowers, Which of the tAvo, darling, most have been ours? Yet to-night, by the smile on your lips, I can see You are dreaming of me, darling, dreaming of ma Laura, my darling, the stars, that we knew In our youth, are still shining as tender and true: The midnight is sounding its slumberous bell, And I come to the one who has loved me so well. Wake, darling, wake, for my vigil is done : What shall dissever our lives which are one? Bay, while the rose listens under ner breath, " Naught until death, darhug, naught until death 1 " —Edmund Clarence Stedmcm. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. ^29 Kisses and Kissing. Mrst time he kissed me, but he only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write : And ever since it grew more clear and white, Slow to tJie world-greeting, quick with its *' O list " When the angels speak. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair. 0, beyond need 1 That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown With sanctifying sweetness did precede. The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state ; since when, indeed, I liave been proud and said, " My love, my own." — Elizabeih Barrett Browning. The Amulet. Your picture smiles as first it smiled ; The ring you gave is still the same ; Your letter tells, O changing child 1 No tidings since it came. Give me an amulet That keeps intelligence with you, — Red when you love, and rosier red ; And when you love not, pale and blue. Alas ! that neither bonds nor vows Can certify possession ; Torments me still the fear that love Died in its last expression. — Balph Waldo Emeraotk Thee. The violet loves a sunny bank, The cowslip loves the lea, The scarlet creeper loves the elm ; But 1 love — thee ! The sunshine kisses mount ar d vale, The stars they kiss the sea. The west winds kiss tl e clover blooms; But I kiss— thee I 230 WEDLOCK. The oriole weds his mottled mate, The lily's bride o' the bee, Heaven's man-iage-ring is rcund the earth : Shall I wed— thee ? — Janus Bayard Taylor. Too Much to Do. (FROM THE GERMAN OP HEINB.) I fain would linger near thee ; But when I sought to woo, Thou hadst no time to hear me — Thou hadst " too much to do." I told thee, shortly after, That all thine own I'd be; And with a peal of laughter Thou mad'st a courtesy. At last thou didst confuse me More utterly than this ; For thou didst e'en refuse me A trifling parting kiss. Fear not that I shall languish, Or shoot myself, — oh, no 1 Tve gone through all this anguish, My dear, long, long ago. — Charles Godfrey LdanA. Roses. I have placed a golden Ring upon the hand Of the blithest little Lady in the land ! When the early roses Scent the sunny air She shall gather white ones To tremble in her hair I Hasten, happy roses ! Come to me by May ! In yoHir folded petals Lies my wedding-day. —Thomas BaMtj Aldrich. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARillAGE 2^1 Fairer than Thee. Fairer than thee, beloved, Fau-er than thee I — There is one thing, beloved Fairer than thee. Not the glad sun, beloved, Bright though it beams ; Not the gi-een earth, belovec Silver with sti-eams ; Not the gay birds, beloved, Happy and free : Yet there's one thmg, beloved Fairer than thee. Not the clear day, beloved. Glowing with light ; Not (fairer still, beloved) Stax-crowned night Truth in her might, beloved. Grand in her sway ; Truth with her eyes, beloved Clearer than day. Holy and pure, beloved, Spotless and free, Is the one thing, beloved. Fairer than thee. Guard well thy soul, beloved, Truth, dwelling there, ^halfshadow forth, beloved. Her image rare. Then shall I deem, beloved. That thou art she ; And therVU be naught, beloved. Fairer than thp^ 2£J2 WEDLOCK. Marriage. I hold the perfect mating of two souls, Through wedded love, to be the sum of uliss. When Earth, this fruit that ripens as it rolls In sunlight, grows more prime, lives will not miss Their counterparts, and each shall find its own; But now with what blind chance the lots are thrown I Yet bonds of gold, linked hands, and chancel vows, Even spousal beds, do not a marriage make. When such things change the soul that never knows Love's mating, little vantage shall it take, Wandering with alien feet throughout the wide. Hushed temple, over those who pine outside ! — Edmund Clarence Stedman Love-Letters Made of Flowers. An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss — This art of writing billet-doux In buds, and odors, and bright hues I In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks ; In puns of tulips ; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies; Uttering, as well as silence may, The sweetest words the sweetest way. How fit, too, for the lady's bosom ! The place where billet-doux repose 'em. What delight in some sweet spot Combining love with garden plot. At once to cultivate one's flowers And one's epistolary powers ! Growing one's own choice words and fanciefl In orange tubs, and beds of pansies ; One's sighs, and passionate declarations, In odorous rhetoric of carnations ; Seeing how far one's stocks will reach, Taking due care one's flowers of speech To guard from blight as well as bathos, And watering every day one's pathos I A letter comes, just gathered. We Dote on its tender brilliancy. POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGK 233 Inhale its delicate expressions Of balm and pea, and its confessions Made witli as sweet a maiden's blush Afc ever morn bedewed on bush : CTis in reply to one of ours, Made of the most convincing flowers.) Then, after we have kissed its wit, And heart, in water putting it (To keep its remarks fresh), go round Our little eloquent plot of grr und, And with enchanted hands compose Our answer, — all of lily and rose, Of tuberose and of violet, And little dcirling (mignonette) ; Of look at me and call me to you (Words, that while they greet, go through you)* Of thongJdSj o^ flames^ forget-me-not^ Biidewort, — in short, the whole blest lot Of vouchers for a lifelong kiss — And literally, breathing bliss ! — Leigh Hunt, The Lady's Yes. ^ Yes ! " I answered you last night; " No ! " this morning, sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light, Will not look the same by day. When the tabors played their best- Lamps above, and laughs below— Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for ges or fit for no. Call me false or call me free, — Vow, w^hatever light may shine, No man on th}- face shall see Any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both : Time to dance is not to woo Wooer light makes fickle troth ; Scorn of me recoils on you. Leani to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high ; Bravely, as foi life and death,— With 8 loyal gravity. 234 WEDLOCK. Lead her from the festive hoards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her by your faithful words. Pure from courtship's llatteries. By your truth she shall be true, — Ever true, as wives of yore ; And her Yes, once said to you, Shall be Yes forevermore. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Neatness. I love to see thy gentle hand Dispose, witli modest grace, The household things around thy home, And " each thing in its place." And then thy own trim, modest form Is always neatly clad ; Thou sure wilt make the tidiest wife That ever husband had. No costly splendors needest thou, To make thy home look bright ; For neatness on the humblest spot Can shed a sunny light. The Lakgess of Thy Lovh The lark that nestles nearest earth To heaven's gate nighest sings ; And, loving thee, my lowly life Doth mount on lark-hke wings. Thine eyes are starry promises ; And affluent above All measure, in its blessing, is The largess of thy love. Merry as laughter 'mong the hills, Spring dances at my heart ; And at my wooing, Nature's soul Into her face will start. The queen-moon, in her starry bowcp, Looks happier for cur love ; A dewier splendor fills the flower, And mellower coos the dove, POETRY OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 235 My heart may sometimes blind mine eyes With utterance of tears — Yet feels no pang for thee, beloved, But all the more endears ; And if life comes with cross and care, Unkno%ATi in years of yore, I know thou'lt half the burden bear, And I am strong once more. -Gerald Massey. Lucy. Lucy is a golden girl ; But a man, a wiaTi, should woo her! They who seek her shrink aback, "When they should, like storms, pursue her. All her smiles are hid in light ; All her hair is lost in splendor ; But she hath the eyes of Night, And a heart that's over-tender. Tet, the foolish suitors fly (Is't excess of dread or duty?) From the starlight of her eye. Leaving to neglect her beauty ! Men by fifty seasons taught Leave her to a young beginner, Who, without a second thought, Whispers, woos, and straight must win her. Lucy is a golden girl I Toast her in a goblet brimming I May the man that wins her wear On his heart the rose of women ! — Barry Cornwall Cheery Ripe. Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe ! I cry. Full and fair ones — come and buy ! If so be you ask me where They do gn)w ? — I answer. There, Where my Julia's lips do smile : There's the land, or cherry-isle, Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow. — Rob&rt H&rmk. 236 WEDLOCK. Alexis Calls Me Ceuki, (trots. THB SPANISH OP lOLESIAS.) Alexis calls me cruel : The rifted crags that hold The gathered ice of winter, He says, are not more cold ; When even the very blossoms Around the fountain's brim, And forest walks, can witness The love I bear to him. I would that I could utter My feelings without shame, And tell him how I love him I Nor wrong my virgin fame. Alas ! to seize the moment When heart inclines to keart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part. If man come not to gather The roses where they stand. They fade among their foliage, — They can not seek his hand. ^William OuUen B^iiJL INDEX. PAGE Affections. The Social 9 A-ffeci ion, Renewal of 95 Inordinate 97 Adhesiveness 10 Amatlveness 11, 145 Age to Marry 22 " Difiercnce in 25 '' Beantyof 198 Attentions, Particnlar. 55 Admiration not Love 57 Addresses Declined 156 Aiesis Calls Me Cruel 23G Bible, The. on Marriage 7 Bargains, Matrimonial 30 Brepding In and In. 36 Bcecher. H. W., on Marriage 50 Beauty, True 216 Beware 226 Conjugality Celibacy 24, " and Health " and Crime Child. Mrs., on Marrying for Money.. Cousins, MaiTiage of Consanguineous Marriage, Singular Case of " " Facts in Relation to " " When Pei-missible. . Conjugal Selection, Law of. " Harmony " Resemblances Congeniality, Mental Courtship " Pleasures of Courting Visits . Charitjj 92, Confidence in Love Cheerfulness. Duty of Constancy, Woman's Cherry Ripe Divorce 114 " Laws of 115 Remedy for 119,201 " A Woman's Opinion of 121 Drunkard. Don't Marry a 198 Doorstep, The 217 Diifting 222 Education as a Matrimonial Qualifica- tion 15 " Should he S milar in Both 48 Bconomy 17 PAQE Engagements ... . 64 " 1-ong 65 " Ktiquette of 65 Ellen Jones' Love Afiair 70 Friendship (Adhesiveness) 10 Falling in Love 51 Forbearance 92 Fairer than Thee 231 Gleason, Mrs., on Divorce 121 Great Men, Whom they Marry 184 Girls of the Period 187 Health as a Matrimonial Qualifica- tion 14,178 Housekeeping 16 Habits, Good Essential 19 " Extravagant 191 How to Fall in Love 52 " " Win Love 54 Hone\Tnoon 95 Husband, The Model 166 Husbands. A Word to 96 Home Duties 99 " Love of 168 " How to Make it Happy 207 " in the Heart 215 Help, Mutual 100 Harmonv. Conjugal 101 Honor, Roll of 136 Hotel and Club Life 188 Inhabitiveness 12 Industry as a Matrimonial Qu-tl iica- tibn ..17,177 Jenny, How She was Won 61 Jealousy 110 Terrible Efl"ects of Ill Morbid 112 " Cause an i Cure of 112 John Anderson m y Joe 1 iO Juliet" 8 Coufessioi 113 Kate's Proposal 03 Kiss Me Softly 221 Kisses 229 Love, Parental 11 " and Fate 52 •' How to Win it 54 " Art of 54 '* May be Controlled 53 " not 10 be Aehamed of &> 238 IISTDEX. PAGE Love, Declarations of 60 " Romantic 62 " as a Law 90 " Second 106 " Signs of 143 " Unchangeable 157 Love- Aflairs— Should Parents Interfere 67 Love-Letters 148, 232 Love Story 195 Lo ve Sonor 223 Lottei-. Congratulatory 18.3 Little Things 169 Love's Seasons 212 •' Philosophy 225 Laura My Darling 228 Lucy 235 Marriage among the Ancients " Early " Motives for " of Consanguinity " Unhappy " International " Religious " Customs " Defined " Legal Aspects of " Ceremonies 80, ♦* in the Episcopal Church " " Roman Catholic Church " " Greek Church " Jewish •' Quaker " Exhortation 86, " Prayer " Hymns. " Ethicsof " and Health " Maxims Marriages, Hasty • " Morganatic Marrying for a Home " " Money " '■'• Love " " Beauty " Right Motive for " Too Much.. Carried. Advice to Man and Woman Contrasted Moral Principles .Mary Smith. Case of Monogamy Defined Matrimonial Fidelity Politeness Married Women. Legal Rights of Life. Poetry of Mormon System Mackintosh, Sir James Modesty Man's Requirements . . Maiden's Choice, The. 131 208 122 208 27 28 29 31 32 ! 201 88 9 20 69 79 91 93 125 212 138 171 176 219 225 PAOB Parental Love 11 Physiology, Knowledge of. Essential. 15 Physiologists, Opinions of 35 Position, Social 4S Popping the Question 59 " •■' " W^hen to Do it . 61 " ** " Ludicrous 63 Parents, Duty of 67 Parental Interference 68 Polygamy Defined 79 Ancient 138 Perfectionists, The 140 Proposal, A 155 Passion, Dictates of 193 Pantagamy Defined 79 at Oneida Creek 140 Poet's Wife, The 158 Plain, but Plighted 216 Right Age to Marrv 22, 201 Relatives, Meddling 108 Roll of Honor 136 Resemblances, Conjugal 189 Roses 230 Soundness, Physical and Mental 13 Social Endowments 14 Selection. Conjugal 44 Social Position 49 Swedenborg im Love 56 Scriptural Injunctions 98 Second Marriages 104 Facts About 105 " Love 106 Step-Mothers 103 Separation, Legal 123 Shakers, The 127 Singleness 135. 137 Sealing 139 Stone. Mrs. H. T., to Cousin Anna's Beau 180 Somethiiig to Do 187 Sweden, Village Wedding in 5103 Temptations of the Unmarried 24 Taints, Hereditary 39 Temperament 41 Trifling 55 Thee 229 Too Much to Do 230 The Largess of Thy Love 231 Women, May they Make Love 3, 56 Woman's Question, A ^ . 220 Wives. Lesson for 94 Wife, The Poet's 158 " Model 171 Influence of 173 W^edding Gifts. Wedlock World. This Were I but His Own Wife. Wish. The Wife and I 205 211 217 221 226 22^. NapoUon. Letters of 153 Newton. Rev. John, to his Wife 155 Neatness 176, 234 Old Maid, Testimony of 133 Yes, How a Lady Said It 15f OldMaids IM " The Lady's 2:33 Old Bachelor, Testimony of 134 Young Man. Plain Talk with 180 One Kiss Before We Part = . 214 , Young Lady, Soliloquy of 20U THE Science of a New Life. A Handsome 8vo volume, containing over 400 pag;es and 300 illustrations. A BOOK WELL WORTH POSSESSING BY EVERY THOUGHTFUL MAN AND WOMAN. 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