Chapter 13

12. HARD TIMES AND MATRIMONY.--Many persons, particularly young men, refuse to marry, especially "these hard time," because they cannot support a wife in the style they wish. To this I reply, that a good wife will care less for the style in which she is supported, than for you. She will cheerfully conform to your necessities, and be happy with you in a log-cabin. She will even help you support yourself. To support a good wife, even if she have children, is really less expensive than to board alone, besides being one of the surest means of acquiring property.

13. MARRYING FOR A HOME.--Do not, however, marry for a home merely, unless you wish to become even more destitute with one than without one; for, it is on the same footing with "marrying for money." Marry a man for his merit; and you take no chances.

14. MARRY TO PLEASE NO ONE BUT YOURSELF.--Marriage is a matter exclusively your own; because you alone must abide its consequences. No person, not even a parent, has the least right to interfere or dictate in this matter. I never knew a marriage, made to please another, to turn out any otherwise than most unhappily.

15. DO NOT MARRY TO PLEASE YOUR PARENTS. Parents can not love for their children any more than they can eat or sleep, or breathe, or die and go to heaven for them. They may give wholesome advice merely, but should leave the entire decision to the unbiased judgment of the parties themselves, who mainly are to experience the consequences of their choice. Besides, such is human nature, that to oppose lovers, or to speak against the person beloved, only increases their desire and determination to marry.

16. RUN-AWAY MATCHES.--Many a run-away match would never have taken place but for opposition or interference. Parents are mostly to be blamed for these elopements. Their children marry partly out of sprite and to be contrary. Their very natures tell them that this interference is unjust--as it really is--and this excites combativeness, firmness, and self-esteem, in combination with the social faculties, to powerful and even blind resistance--which turmoil of the faculties hastens the match. Let the affections of a daughter be once slightly enlisted in your favor, and then let the "old folks" start an opposition, and you may feel sure of your prize. If she did not love you before, she will now, that you are persecuted.

17. DISINHERITANCE.--Never disinherit, or threaten to disinherit, a child for marrying against your will. If you wish a daughter not to marry a certain man, oppose her, and she will be sure to marry him; so also in reference to a son.

18. PROPER TRAINING.--The secret is, however, all in a nutshell. Let the father properly train his daughter, and she will bring her first love-letter to him, and give him an opportunity to cherish a suitable affection, and to nip an improper one in the germ, before it has time to do any harm.

19. THE FATAL MISTAKES OF PARENTS.--_There is, however one way of effectually preventing an improper match, and that is, not to allow your children to associate with any whom you are unwilling they should marry. How cruel as well at unjust to allow a daughter to associate with a young man till the affections of both are riveted, and then forbid her marrying him. Forbid all association, or consent cheerfully to the marriage._

20. AN INTEMPERATE LOVER.--Do not flatter yourselves young women, that you can wean even an occasional wine drinker from his cups by love and persuasion. Ardent spirit at first, kindles up the fires of love into the fierce flames of burning licentiousness, which burn out every element of love and destroy every vestige of pure affection. It over-excites the passions, and thereby finally destroys it,--producing at first, unbridled libertinism, and then an utter barrenness of love; besides reversing the other faculties of the drinker against his own consort, and those of the wife against her drinking husband.

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FIRST LOVE, DESERTION AND DIVORCE.

1. FIRST LOVE.--This is the most important direction of all. The first love experiences a tenderness, a purity and unreservedness, an exquisiteness, a devotedness, and a poetry belonging to no subsequent attachment. "Love, like life, has no second spring." Though a second attachment may be accompanied by high moral feeling, and to a devotedness to the object loved; yet, let love be checked or blighted in its first pure emotion, and the beauty of its spring is irrecoverably withered and lost. This does not mean the simple love of children in the first attachment they call love, but rather the mature intelligent love of those of suitable age.

2. FREE FROM TEMPTATIONS.--As long as his heart is bound up in its first bundle of love and devotedness--as long as his affections remain reciprocated and uninterrupted--so long temptations cannot take effect. This heart is callous to the charms of others, and the very idea of bestowing his affections upon another is abhorrent. Much more so is animal indulgence, which is morally impossible.

3. SECOND LOVE NOT CONSTANT.--But let this first love be broken off, and the flood-gates of passion are raised. Temptations now flow in upon him. He casts a lustful eye upon every passing female, and indulges unchaste imaginations and feelings. Although his conscientiousness or intellect may prevent actual indulgence, yet temptations now take effect, and render him liable to err; whereas before they had no power to awaken improper thoughts or feelings. Thus many young men find their ruin.

4. LEGAL MARRIAGE.--What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? How absurd, how preposterous the doctrine that the obligations of marriage derive their sacredness from legal enactments and injunctions! How it literally profanes this holy of holies, and drags down this heaven-born institution from its original, divine elevation, to the level of a merely human device. Who will dare to advocate the human institution of marriage without the warm heart of a devoted and loving companion!

5. LEGISLATION.--But no human legislation can so guard this institution but that it may be broken in spirit, though, perhaps, acceded to in form; for, it is the heart which this institution requires. There must be true and devoted affection, or marriage is a farce and a failure.

6. THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY AND THE LAW GOVERNING MARRIAGE are for the protection of the individual, yet a man and woman may be married by law and yet unmarried in spirit. The law may tie together, and no marriage be consummated. Marriage therefore is Divine, and "whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." A right marriage means a right state of the heart. A careful study of this work will be a great help to both the unmarried and the married.

7. DESERTION AND DIVORCE.--For a young man to court a young woman, and excite her love till her affections are riveted, and then (from sinister motives, such as, to marry one richer, or more handsome), to leave her, and try elsewhere, is the very same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth--to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. First love is always constant. The second love brings uncertainty--too often desertions before marriage and divorces after marriage.

8. THE COQUET.--The young woman to play the coquet, and sport with the sincere affections of an honest and devoted young man, is one of the highest crimes that human nature can commit. Better murder him in body too, as she does in soul and morals, and it is the result of previous disappointment, never the outcome of a sincere first love.

9. ONE MARRIAGE. One evidence that second marriages are contrary to the laws of our social nature, is the fact that almost all step-parents and step-children disagree. Now, what law has been broken, to induce this penalty? The law of marriage; and this is one of the ways in which the breach punishes itself. It is much more in accordance with our natural feelings, especially those of mothers, that children should be brought up by their own parent.

10. SECOND MARRIAGE.--Another proof of this point is, that second marriage is more a matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children." "It's a bargain," is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, as to second marriage.

11. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.--Let this portion be read and pondered, and also the one entitled, "Marry your First Love if possible," which assigns the cause, and points out the only remedy, of licentiousness. As long as the main cause of this vice exists, and is aggravated by purse-proud, high-born, aristocratic parents and friends, and even by the virtuous and religious, just so long, and exactly in the same ratio will this blighting Sirocco blast the fairest flowers of female innocence and lovliness, and blight our noblest specimens of manliness. No sin of our land is greater.

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FLIRTING AND ITS DANGERS.

1. NO EXCUSE.--In this country there is no excuse for the young man who seeks the society of the loose and the dissolute. There is at all times and everywhere open to him a society of persons of the opposite sex of his own age and of pure thoughts and lives, whose conversation will refine him and drive from his bosom ignoble and impure thoughts.

2. THE DANGERS.--The young man who may take pleasure in the fact that he is the hero of half a dozen or more engagements and love episodes, little realizes that such constant excitement often causes not only dangerously frequent and long-continued nocturnal emissions, but most painful affections of the testicles. Those who show too great familiarity with the other sex, who entertain lascivious thoughts, continually exciting the sexual desires, always suffer a weakening of power and sometimes the actual diseases of degeneration, chronic inflammation of the gland, spermatorrhoea, impotence, and the like.--Young man, beware; your punishment for trifling with the affections of others may cost you a life of affliction.

3. REMEDY.--Do not violate the social laws. Do not trifle with the affections of your nature. Do not give others countless anguish, and also do not run the chances of injuring yourself and others for life. The society of refined and pure women is one of the strongest safeguards a young man can have, and he who seeks it will not only find satisfaction, but happiness. Simple friendship and kind affections for each other will ennoble and benefit.

4. THE TIME FOR MARRIAGE.--When a young man's means permit him to marry, he should then look intelligently for her with whom he expects to pass the remainder of his life in perfect loyalty, and in sincerity and singleness of heart. Seek her to whom he is ready to swear to be ever true.

5. BREACH OF CONFIDENCE.--Nothing is more certain, says Dr. Naphey, to undermine domestic felicity, and sap the foundation of marital happiness, than marital infidelity. The risks of disease which a married man runs in impure intercourse are far more serious, because they not only involve himself, but his wife and his children. He should know that there is nothing which a woman will not forgive sooner than such a breach of confidence. He is exposed to the plots and is pretty certain sooner or later to fall into the snares of those atrocious parties who subsist on black-mail. And should he escape these complications, he still must lose self-respect, and carry about with him the burden of a guilty conscience and a broken vow.

6. SOCIETY RULES AND CUSTOMS.--A young man can enjoy the society of ladies without being a "flirt." He can escort ladies to parties, public places of interest, social gatherings, etc., without showing special devotion to any one special young lady. When he finds the choice of his heart, then he will be justified to manifest it, and publicly proclaim it by paying her the compliment, exclusive attention. To keep a lady's company six months is a public announcement of an engagement.

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A WORD TO MAIDENS.

1. NO YOUNG LADY who is not willing to assume the responsibility of a true wife, and be crowned with the sacred diadem of motherhood, should ever think of getting married. We have too many young ladies to-day who despise maternity, who openly vow that they will never be burdened with children, and yet enter matrimony at the first opportunity. What is the result? Let echo answer, What? Unless a young lady believes that motherhood is noble, is honorable, is divine, and she is willing to carry out that sacred function of her nature, she had a thousand times better refuse every proposal, and enter some honorable occupation and wisely die an old maid by choice.

2. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOUNG LADY, never enter into the physical relations of marriage with a man until you have conversed with him freely and fully on these relations. Learn distinctly his views and feelings and expectations in regard to that purest and most ennobling of all the functions of your nature, and the most sacred of all intimacies of conjugal love. Your self-respect, your beauty, your glory, your heaven, as a wife, will be more directly involved in his feelings and views and practices, in regard to that relation, than in all other things. As you would not become a weak, miserable, imbecile, unlovable and degraded wife and mother, in the very prime of your life, come to a perfect understanding with your chosen one, ere you commit your person to his keeping in the sacred intimacies of home. Beware of that man who, under pretence of delicacy, modesty, and propriety, shuns conversation with you on this relation, and on the hallowed function of maternity.

3. TALK WITH YOUR INTENDED frankly and openly. Remember, concealment and mystery in him, towards you, on all other subjects pertaining to conjugal union might be overlooked, but if he conceals his views here, rest assured it bodes no good to your purity and happiness as a wife and mother. You can have no more certain assurance that you are to be victimized, your soul and body offered up, _slain_ on the altar of his sensualism, than his unwillingness to converse with you on subjects so vital to your happiness. Unless he is willing to hold his manhood in abeyance to the calls of your nature and to your conditions, and consecrate its passions and its powers to the elevation and happiness of his wife and children, your maiden soul had better return to God unadorned with the diadem of conjugal and maternal love than that you should become the wife of such man and the mother of his children.

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POPPING THE QUESTION.

1. MAKING THE DECLARATION.--There are few emergencies in business and few events in life that bring to man the trying ordeal of "proposing to a lady." We should be glad to help the bashful lover in his hours of perplexity, embarrassment and hesitation, but unfortunately we cannot pop the question for him, nor give him a formula by which he may do it. Different circumstances and different surroundings compel every lover to be original in his form or mode of proposing.

2. BASHFULNESS.--If a young man is very bashful, he should write his sentiments in a clear, frank manner on a neat white sheet of note paper, enclose it in a plain white envelope and find some way to convey it to the lady's hand.

3. THE ANSWER.--If the beloved one's heart is touched and she is in sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue friendly but not familiar.

4. SAYING "NO" FOR "YES."-If girls are foolish enough to say "No" when they mean "Yes," they must suffer the consequences which often follow. A man of intelligence and self-respect will not ask a lady twice. It is begging for recognition and lowers his dignity, should he do so. A lady is supposed to know her heart sufficiently to consider the question to her satisfaction before giving an answer.

5. CONFUSION OF WORDS AND MISUNDERSTANDING.--Sometimes a man's happiness, has depended on his manner of popping the question. Many a time the girl has said "No" because the question was so worded that the affirmative did not come from the mouth naturally; and two lives that gravitated toward each other with all their inward force have been thrown suddenly apart, because the electric keys were not carefully touched.

6. SCRIPTURAL DECLARATION.--The church is not the proper place to conduct a courtship, yet the following is suggestive and ingenious.

A young gentleman, familiar with the Scriptures, happening to sit in a pew adjoining a young lady for whom he conceived a violent attachment, made his proposal in this way. He politely handed his neighbor a Bible open, with a pin stuck in the following text: Second Epistle of John, verse 5:

"And I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that we had from the beginning, that we love one another."

She returned it, pointing to the second chapter of Ruth, verse 10: "Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him. Why have I found grace in thine eyes that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?"

He returned the book, pointing to the 13th verse of the Third Epistle of John: "Having many things to write unto you, I would not write to you with paper and ink, but trust to come unto you and speak face to face, that your joy may be full."

From the above interview a marriage took place the ensuing month in the same church.

7. HOW JENNY WAS WON.

On a sunny Summer morning, Early as the dew was dry, Up the hill I went a berrying; Need I tell you--tell you why?

Farmer Davis had a daughter. And it happened that I knew, On each sunny morning, Jenny Up the hill went berrying too.

Lonely work is picking berries, So I joined her on the hill: "Jenny, dear," said I, "your basket's Quite too large for one to fill."

So we stayed--we two--to fill it, Jenny talking--I was still.-- Leading where the hill was steepest, Picking berries up the hill.

"This is up-hill work," said Jenny; "So is life," said I; "shall we Climb it each alone, or, Jenny, Will you come and climb with me?"

Redder than the blushing berries Jenny's cheek a moment grew, While without delay she answered, "I will come and climb with you."

8. A ROMANTIC WAY FOR PROPOSING.--In Peru they have a romantic way of popping the question. The suitor appears on the appointed evening, with a gaily dressed troubadour under the balcony of his beloved. The singer steps before her flower-bedecked window, and sings her beauties in the name of her lover. He compares her size to that of a pear tree, her lips to two blushing rose-buds, and her womanly form to that of a dove. With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: Who are you, and what do you want? He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore. The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever.

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THE WEDDING.

1. THE PROPER TIME.--Much has been printed in various volumes regarding the time of the year, the influence of the seasons, etc., as determining the proper time to set for the wedding day. Circumstances must govern these things. To be sure, it is best to avoid extremes of heat and cold. Very hot weather is debilitating, and below zero is uncomfortable.

2. THE LADY SHOULD SELECT THE DAY.--There is one element in the time that is of great importance, physically, especially to the lady. It is the day of the month, and it is hoped that every lady who contemplates marriage is informed upon the great facts of ovulation. By reading page 244 she will understand that it is to her advantage to select a wedding day about fifteen or eighteen days after the close of menstruation in the month chosen, since it is not best that the first child should be conceived during the excitement or irritation of first attempts at congress; besides modest brides naturally do not wish to become large with child before the season of congratulation and visiting on their return from the "wedding tour" is over.

Again, it is asserted by many of the best writers on this subject, that the mental condition of either parent at the time of intercourse will be stamped upon the embryo hence it is not only best, but wise, that the first-born should not be conceived until several months after marriage, when the husband and wife have nicely settled in their new home, and become calm in their experience of each other's society.

3. THE "BRIDAL TOUR" is considered by many newly married couples as a necessary introduction to a life of connubial joy. There is, in our opinion, nothing in the custom to recommend it. After the excitement and overwork before and accompanying a wedding, the period immediately following should be one of _rest_.

Again, the money expended on the ceremony and a tour of the principal cities, etc., might, in most cases, be applied to a multitude of after-life comforts of far more lasting value and importance. To be sure, it is not pleasant for the bride, should she remain at home, to pass through the ordeal of criticism and vulgar comments of acquaintances and friends, and hence, to escape this, the young couple feel like getting away for a time. Undoubtedly the best plan for the great majority, after this most eventful ceremony, is to enter their future home at once, and there to remain in comparative privacy until the novelty of the situation is worn off.

4. IF THE CONVENTIONAL TOUR is taken, the husband should remember that his bride cannot stand the same amount of tramping around and sight-seeing that he can. The female organs of generation are so easily affected by excessive exercise of the limbs which support them, that at this critical period it would be a foolish and cosily experience to drag a lady hurriedly around the country on an extensive and protracted round of sight-seeing or visiting. Unless good common-sense is displayed in the manner of spending the "honey-moon," it will prove very untrue to its name. In many cases it lays the foundation for the wife's first and life-long "backache."

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ADVICE TO NEWLY MARRIED COUPLES.