Part 10
Affianced maiden, you have some departures to take and corners to turn. Your life has till now been frivolous, but has now become serious. You have no more need of toilet fineries; for “your market is made,” and you have work on hand far more important, namely, fitting yourself for your new duties. Find out what they demand of you, and set right about making a premium wife and mother. Both begin life anew. Forgetting the past, plant and sow now what you would gather and become always.
The Best of all Possessions.
Woman is man’s choicest treasure. That is the most precious which confers the most happiness. She is adapted to render him incomparably happier than any other terrestrial possession. He can enjoy luscious peaches, melting pears, crack horses, dollars and other things innumerable; but a well-sexed man can enjoy woman most of all. He is poor indeed, and takes little pleasure in this life, be his possessions and social position what they may, who takes no pleasure with her. All description utterly fails to express the varied and exultant enjoyments God has engrafted into a right sexual state. Only few experiences can attest how many and great, from infancy to death, and throughout eternity itself. All God could do He has done to render each sex superlatively happy in the other. Of all his beautiful and perfect work, this is the most beautiful and perfect. Of all his benignant devices, this is his most benign. All the divine attributes, all human happiness, converge in male and female adaptations to mutual enjoyments.
Each is correspondingly precious to the other. Man should prize many things, yet woman is his pearl of greatest price. He should preserve, cherish, husband many life possessions, but woman the most. He has many jewels in his crown of glory, but she is his gem-jewel, his diadem. What masculine luxury equals making women in general, and the loved one in particular, happy?
The Source of Miseries.
Beginning and conducting courtship as this chapter directs, avoiding the errors and following the directions it specifies, will just as surely render all superlatively happy as sun will rise to-morrow. Scan their sense. Do they not expound nature’s love-initiating and consummating ordinances? Are they not worthy of being put into practice? Discordants, can you not trace many of your antagonisms and miseries to their ignorant violation? Parents, what are they worth to put into your children’s hands, to forewarn them against carelessly, ignorantly, spoiling their marriage? Young ladies, what are they worth to you, as showing you how to so treat your admirers as to gain and redouble their heart’s devotion? Young men, what are these warnings and teachings worth to you? God in his natural laws will bless all who practice, curse all who violate them.
The conduct during engagement on the part of the gentleman should be marked by the utmost courtesy toward and confidence in the woman of his choice; a state of feeling which she should fully reciprocate.
In public their behavior toward one another should not be markedly different from that displayed by them toward other men and women of their acquaintance; save that the bridegroom-elect should be on the watch that not the slightest wish of the lady be unfulfilled.
As for the lady, while she is not expected to debar herself from accepting the customary courtesies extended by the gentlemen of her acquaintance, a slight reserve should mark her conduct in accepting them. At all places of amusement or entertainment she should appear either in the company of her _fiance_, or that of some relative.
She should never captiously take offense at her _fiance’s_ showing the same attention to other ladies that she, in her turn, is willing to accept from other gentlemen, and she should take the same pains to please his taste in trifles that he does to gratify her slightest wish.
This does not mean, though, that in the selfishness and blindness of love—and love is very blind and selfish sometimes—she is to shut herself up to his companionship at all times, excluding him from the family circle of which he is so soon to become a member, and “pairing off” on all occasions, thus rendering both the mark for silly jestings.
How to Cherish Love.
But, in sober matter-of-fact, that little ring of gold does not mean utter blindness. It does not mean that she is to devote her evenings exclusively to the chosen one, ignoring her family entirely. It does not mean that she is to accept valuable presents of all kinds at his hands, to expect him to give up all his friends for her sake, nor to confide all the secrets of the household to his keeping, but, as one wise woman says, to “guard herself in word and deed; hold his love in the best way possible; tie it firmly with the blue ribbon of hope, and never let it be eaten away by the little fox who destroys so many loving ties, and who is called familiarity.”
Neither is this counsel to be deemed over-cautious, since, alas! even “engagements” are sometimes broken in this uncertain world, and surely there is no womanly woman that would not in such an event reflect gladly, as she took up her life once more at the old point, that she had remembered these things.
A domineering, jealous disposition on either side before marriage is not the best possible guarantee for after happiness, and if these traits are clearly shown during an engagement, the individual who escapes from such thraldom before it is too late has shown conclusively that discretion which is, at times, the better part of valor.
Conduct Toward Parents.
The gentleman should exercise some tact in regard to his conduct toward the family of his betrothed. Marked attention should be shown toward the lady’s mother. He should accommodate himself as much as possible to the wishes, habits and ways of the household, and not being, as yet, a member of the family, he should not presume to show an intrusive familiarity of conversation.
The lady, on her part, should strive to show consideration, friendliness, and a desire to please the parents of her husband-that-is-to-be. Thus both will unite in the endeavor to overcome that loving jealousy so natural on the part of those who see the claims of another grown paramount in the heart of one of their number, and feel that these new links are fast becoming stronger than ties of blood and relationship.
The respective families should meet these advances with all kindness, and should also endeavor, in view of the new union pending between them, to make, if this be necessary, one another’s acquaintance as soon as convenient.
Length of Engagements.
Engagements should not be entered upon prematurely, a certain degree of acquaintanceship proving no mean preparation for an arrangement of this nature. But when an engagement is once formed it should not, in the majority of cases, be of an undue length. This is a matter to be settled by the wishes or the circumstances of the contracting parties.
It is oftimes the measure of wisdom, where the obstacle is lack of fortune, to risk some degree of deprivation, rather than submit to a long-protracted engagement; the man, as head of the new home, finding a fresh motive for ambitious striving, and both parties being preserved from that coolness of feeling too often attendant upon years of waiting. No homes are happier than those constructed on the principle of economy and patient effort.
Broken Engagements.
Not unfrequently does it occur that circumstances arise that render the dissolution of an engagement inevitable, and, as such a course, unless mutual, of necessity involves an injury to the feelings of one party, great care and delicacy should be employed in approaching the subject.
If the occasion should arise on the lady’s side, it must be remembered that she is not bound to declare any other reason than her own sweet will. It is better, however, for reasons to be frankly given, that the step may not be attributed to mere caprice on her part. On the side of the man the reasons must be strong, indeed, that can justify him in breaking a solemn engagement sought of his own free will, and urged by him upon the object of his choice. By thus releasing himself he not unfrequently leaves the lady in an embarrassing position before the public, not to mention the possible injury that may be inflicted upon the deepest feelings of her heart.
If the cause should arise from any fault on the part of the lady, a man of honor will ever preserve the strictest silence on the subject. If from sudden failure in his own fortunes he should feel himself in duty bound to relinquish his hope of present happiness lest he selfishly drag another down to penury, let the reason be carefully and clearly explained.
At the conclusion of an engagement let every gift, including the engagement ring, and all photographs and letters that have been exchanged between the two, be promptly returned by each that as little as possible may remain to remind of the days that are done. It is especially a point of honor on the gentleman’s part to retain nothing that the lady may have given, or written, him.
Etiquette of Married Life.
Marriage, to the elect, may be fitly termed a state of grace, but without a close observance of all the courtesies that tend to uplift everyday life in some degree above the narrowness of mere existence it may but too easily become what the old cynic declared it to be when he wrote, “Marriage is a feast in which the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.”
Mutual confidence and mutual respect are the two principal factors in the case. Without these there can be none of that harmony so necessary to happiness in the state matrimonial. And not only this, but they should strive to be mutually entertaining.
The pains they took during their engagement to be agreeable to one another at a time when they were by no means entirely dependent upon themselves for companionship, would surely not be amiss in rendering pleasant the years, and it may be decades of years, during which they must be to a great extent dependent upon each other for entertainment. The young man who spent so much time at the home of a certain lady that he was finally asked why, if he was in love with her, he did not marry her, uttered a sad truth when he answered, “Ah, but where then should I pass my evenings?” A reflection upon the agreeableness of married life that might easily be avoided by the exercise of care and tact on both sides.
The Art of Agreeableness.
Philip Gilbert Hammerton, in his _Intellectual Life_, wisely suggests: “A married couple are clearly aware that, in the course of a few years, their society is sure to become mutually uninteresting unless something is done. What is that something? Every author who succeeds, takes the trouble to renew his mind by fresh knowledge, new thoughts. So, is it not at least worth while to do as much to preserve the interest of marriage?”
The wife who dresses for her husband’s sake, who reads that she may qualify herself for conversation with him, who makes him the chief end of her cares, and the husband who brings home from the outside world some of its life and animation to share with her, who has a loving interest in all that she has done for his pleasure, and, if wealth be a stranger at their door, stands ready to lift the heaviest burdens from her shoulders, have solved for themselves the problem of married happiness, and found it to be a condition wherein every joy is doubled and every sorrow halved.
Duty Toward One Another.
Let the wife have no confidant as to the little shortcomings of her husband, over which love, as well as pride, should draw a sheltering veil. Never listen to an unkind tale of his past or present mistakes, and count all those who would seek thus to destroy your peace of mind as your bitterest enemies. Let the husband in his turn remember that an unkind or slighting word spoken of his wife, touches his own honor to the quick, and be instant in resenting the words that should never have been spoken in his presence.
Another point to be remembered in view of the duty of husband and wife toward one another, is with reference to attending church or entertainments. The wife has, in all probability, left a home where the different members of the household were ready to accompany each other whenever occasion served, and young friends were planning many a pleasant outing, and now she is wholly dependent upon her husband for all of these things. Let her beware, under these circumstances, of allowing herself to attend church, lecture, or any other evening entertainment, in the company of well-meaning friends. For the husband, once seeing that his wife can attend these places without his assistance, will soon, if such be his disposition, remain selfishly home at all times, or, if otherwise inclined, still more selfishly find his amusement in places widely foreign to his wife’s happiness or peace of mind. The carelessness of many well-meaning men in this respect is the cause of very much unhappiness that might be wholly avoided by a little consideration as to the utter dependence of the wife upon her husband for all these recreations.
Home Attire.
This is a subject that it should be unnecessary to touch upon, but, unfortunately, too many bright, pretty, carefully-dressed girls degenerate into careless, fretful, untidy and illy-clad young wives, whose presence is anything but a joy forever to the individuals who must face them across the family board for three hundred and sixty-five days in every year. And it is this careless young woman who is first to complain that “John does not care for me in the least, now we are married,” while John is very apt to think, “If Carrie would only take just a little of the pains to please me now that she did six months ago, how much happier we would be.” And John is quite right about it. This very carelessness on the part of wives has marred the happiness of more than one new home. The ribbon, the flower, the color that “John likes” and the smile that crowns all are magical in their effects.
Then let John always remember to bring to this home a pleasant face, from which business cares are driven away, and a readiness to please and be pleased, that meets the wife’s attempts half way, and the evening meal will be made delightful by pleasant chat, which should never consist of a _résumé_ of the day’s tribulations, but should turn on subjects calculated to remove from the mind all trace of their existence, and thus will they arise at its close better and happier for the hour that has passed.
Household and Personal Expenses.
One of the chief sources of unhappiness in married life is the strife arising from the vexed question of home and personal expenses. In the first place, the husband frequently fails in regard to openness with regard to his business concerns and profits; thus the wife, entirely ignorant as to what amount she may safely spend, errs too often on the side of extravagance, finding too late, when a storm of reproach descends upon her innocent head, where and how she has sinned.
Then, too, it is often a sore trial to the wife’s pride to ask for the money necessary to keep her own wardrobe in repair. Especially is this the case when, before marriage, she was in receipt of her own money, earned by her own hands. It seems to her that her husband ought to see that she has need of certain articles, and the very fact that he does not, leads her to the false supposition that he has ceased to care for her, while he, if there was any thought about it in his mind, would say, “Why doesn’t she ask for money if she wants it? She knows I will give it to her if I have it.”
All these troubles would be avoided if married couples early came to a definite understanding on this subject, and a certain sum were set aside which the wife was to receive weekly for household expenses, her personal wants to be supplied from such surplus as she may be able to save from out this sum, or in some other way provided for by a stated amount, both of which sums should be under her exclusive, unquestioned control.
Some simple system of accounts should then be kept and regularly gone over together on every quarter. A mutual agreement thus established on the money question, much annoyance and much extravagance may be prevented. It is not too much to suggest that, perhaps, it might not be amiss to present an account of the husband’s expenses also, at these quarterly reckonings.
Above all things, never let the wife, from a weak desire to gratify her own personal vanity, enter upon some extravagant purchase, the amount of which she must conceal from her husband, and (vainly often) strive to pay in small amounts saved or borrowed. The result is usually exposure, sometimes disgrace, pecuniary loss and loss of esteem in the husband’s eyes. Perfect confidence is the only basis upon which happiness can be safely founded.
A Pleasant Disposition.
Cultivate, on both sides, a disposition to restrain all unseemly exhibitions of temper. Hysterics and prolonged and repeated fits of tears soon lose their effect, and, at the last, a half-pitying contempt is their only result. Let all conversation be refined in its tone. The force of example in this respect carries with it a silent, impressive power that is not easily resisted and lapses therefrom involve a loss of this influence that cannot be easily estimated.
Profanity, too, is a deadly foe in the household and any wife that permits her husband to swear in her presence, either to herself, or concerning others, lessens her own self-respect each time it occurs. That profanity can be repressed, has been shown her by the fact that, no matter how long the previous engagement may have lasted, no word of such import escaped the man’s lips in her presence, and surely the woman chosen to be head of his home is no less worthy of his respect than was the girl he wooed.
The habit of indulging in cutting or harsh remarks is one to be guarded against. Mutual politeness should be exercised by both husband and wife, and in all cases watch should be set over the mouth, and the door of the lips well kept.
Boarding Versus Home Life.
The tendency in all large cities, at this present time, points toward fashionable boarding-houses, or expensive lodging-houses, as the nuclei round which the newly-married most do congregate.
It may be that the wife is utterly unused to the care of a house (in which case the sooner she learn the art, the happier for both parties) or, perhaps, the financial resources of the husband are unable to support the drain consequent upon furnishing a home that shall gratify the foolish pride of the wife. But, whatever the cause, the effects are the same, and are to be found in the utter unfitness of women adopting this manner of existence for any of the serious duties of life that, sooner or later, come upon all who wear this mortal garb.
Then, too, in the idle, censorious, gossiping, novel-reading life that flourishes in this hothouse existence, the seeds of lifelong misery are not unfrequently sown.
Let a home, then, however small, be one of the first considerations in beginning the married life, and let the adding to, and the beautifying of, this precious possession be the duty and the privilege of the years to come.
To the wife, in her housewifely _rôle_, belongs the care of overseeing or accomplishing with her own hands, the varied duties that go to secure the daily well-being of the home. She must see that the rooms are bright, neat, and cosily arranged; that the meals are appetizingly and punctually served, and be herself neatly and tastefully attired to preside at the table.
Due allowances are to be made for the amount of manual labor she has been obliged to perform with her own hands, still, by care and tact a woman can always maintain a certain degree of neatness.
Let the husband, on his part, bring into the home cheerfulness, with a quick remembrance of all those little attentions that go so far toward making up the sum of earthly happiness. Let him see that, to the best of his ability, the home wants are provided for, and be not forgetful to lend the help of his stronger hand wherever needed. (Read carefully other hints in department of Home Etiquette.)
Never demand of your wife more than you are willing to give. If you desire to be received with smiles, enter the house with a cheerful mien, and you will find there are few women who are not willing to give measure for measure, and even a little more than they receive of kindly attention. For a wife will usually shine, like the moon, by reflection, and her happiness will always reflect your own.
WEDDINGS AND WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES
In discussing the important subject of etiquette as connected with weddings and wedding anniversaries, it may be mentioned here that the forms for invitations to all occasions of this sort, and acceptances and regrets of the same, card-sending, etc., have been fully treated in their respective departments. The observances immediately preceding, during, and following the ceremony, are now to receive consideration.
Paying for the Cards.
The form, size and use of these important bits of pasteboard having been before stated, it only remains for us to say here that all the expenses relative to their purchase and distribution are to be borne solely by the parents or other guardians of the bride. To have it otherwise implies a lack of delicacy on the part of the bride, and lays upon her a certain amount of obligation which every right-minded girl would desire, above all things, to avoid. Hence when the parents are financially unable to incur the expense, good taste demands that all display be abandoned and the couple be quietly married in the presence of the family only.
The bride should always remember that until the fateful words are spoken that make the twain one flesh, she has no claim whatever on the purse of her future husband, and conduct herself accordingly.
Hence it is that a very plain _trousseau_ is more commendable to the self-respect of the wearer, than the elaborate outfittings, toward the purchase of which the groom-expectant has largely contributed, and which, in case of the oft-recurring “slip twixt the cup and the lip,” must weigh heavily upon the maiden’s pride.
Even the “after cards” are usually ordered by the parents with the others, and paid for at the same time. If, however, they are ordered after marriage, they are paid for by the groom.
There is only one exception to the rule of the bride’s parents paying for the wedding cards, and this occurs when the wedding ceremony is performed quietly in church and the reception, for some reason, is held at the home of the groom’s parents, in which case they, as the entertainers, properly pay for, and issue, the cards of invitation.
The groom, in England, always pays for the carriage that conveys himself and bride to the station after the ceremony and reception are past, but in this country the fashionable father usually claims the privilege of sending them on this first stage of their married life in his own carriage. However, the groom buys the ring and a bouquet for the bride, furnishes dainty presents for the bridemaids, remembers the best man and the ushers, pays the clergyman’s fee, the size of which is to be regulated only by his inclination, or the length of his purse-strings, and furnishes the marriage license.
Naming the Day.
This privilege belongs by right to the lady herself, but, in reality, the business engagements of the groom, and the time when he can best leave for the bridal tour have much to do in settling the exact date for which the invitations shall be issued. In very fashionable circles it is the mother that names the day of her daughter’s marriage.