ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL BARGAIN.
"How poor are they who have not patience!
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?"--_Shakespeare._
"E'en now, in passing through the garden walks,
Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest,
Ruined and full of ruin; and over it,
Behold, the uncomplaining birds, already
Busy in building a new habitation."--_Longfellow._
But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley." We are none
of us infallible, "not even the youngest." When the greatest care has
been taken in choosing, people get bad matrimonial bargains. From the
nature of the case this must often happen. If not one man in a thousand
is a judge of the points of a horse, not one in a million understands
human nature. And even if a young man or woman did understand human
nature, there are before marriage, as a rule, opportunities of gaining
only the slightest knowledge of the character of one who is to be the
weal or woe of a new home. It is related in ancient history, or fable,
that when Rhodope, a fashionable Egyptian beauty, was engaged bathing,
an eagle stole away one of her shoes, and let it fall near Psammetichus
the king. Struck with the pretty shoe, he fell in love with the foot,
and finally married the owner of both. Very little more acquaintance
with each other have the majority of the Innocents who go abroad into
the unknown country of Matrimony to seek their fortunes or misfortunes.
And then the temper and manner of people when making love are so
different from what these become afterwards! "One would think the whole
endeavour of both parties during the time of courtship is to hinder
themselves from being known--to disguise their natural temper and real
desires in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued
affectation. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the
other but in a mask; and the cheat is often managed on both sides with
so much art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that
each has reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the
wedding-night, and that by a strange imposture, as in the case of Jacob,
one has been courted and another married."
Our conventional state of society curtails the limits of choice in
matrimony and hinders the natural law of the marriage of the fittest. We
knew a young gentleman living in a London suburb who bore an excellent
character, had sufficient income, and was in every respect marriageable.
He wished to try the experiment of two against the world, but--as he
told the clergyman of his parish--he was in the city all day, and never
had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with a young lady whom he
could ask to be his wife.
We have heard of the stiff Englishman who would not attempt to save a
fellow-creature from drowning because he had never been introduced to
him. In the same way unmarried ladies are allowed to remain in the
Slough of Despond because the valiant young gentlemen who would rescue
them, though they may be almost, are not altogether in their social set.
Every one knows Plato's theory about marriage. He taught that men and
women were hemispheres, so to speak, of an original sphere; that
ill-assorted marriages were the result of the wrong hemispheres getting
together; that, if the true halves met, the man became complete, and the
consequence was the "happy-ever-after" of childhood's stories. There is
much truth in this doctrine, that for every man there is _one_ woman
somewhere in the world, and for every woman _one_ man. They seldom meet
in time. If they did, what would become of the sensational novelists?
But are there not in reality too many artificial obstacles to happy
marriages? Why do the right men and women so seldom meet? Because
mammon, ambition, envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness step between
and keep apart those whom God would join together.
It is true that newly-married people when going through the process of
being disillusioned are liable to conclude much too quickly that they
have got bad matrimonial bargains. In a letter which Mrs. Thrale, the
friend of Dr. Johnson, wrote to a young gentleman on his marriage, she
says: "When your present violence of passion subsides, and a more cool
and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure
yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy. You have lost
that only which it was impossible to retain; and it were graceless amid
the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a
transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity, till
you have reflected that no object however sublime, no sounds however
charming, can continue to transport us with delight, when they no longer
strike us with novelty."
Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession. A little boy of
four years of age told me the other day that he wished to die. "Why?"
"Oh, just for a change!" There are children of a larger growth who
require continual change and variety to keep them interested.
We expect too much from life in general, and from married life in
particular. When castle-building before marriage we imagine a condition
never experienced on this side of heaven; and when real life comes with
its troubles and cares, the tower of romance falls with a crash, leaving
us in the mud-hut of every-day reality. Better to enter the marriage
state in the frame of mind of that company of American settlers, who, in
naming their new town, called it Dictionary, "because," as they said,
"that's the only place where peace, prosperity, and happiness are always
to be found."
It would be contrary to the nature of constitutional grumblers to be
satisfied with their matrimonial bargains, no matter how much too good
for them they may be. They don't want to be satisfied in this or in any
other respect, for, as the Irishman said, they are never happy unless
they are miserable. They may have drawn a prize in the matrimonial
lottery, but they grumble if it be not the highest prize. They are
cursed with dispositions like that of the Jew, who, very early one
morning, picked up a roll of bank-notes on Newmarket Heath, which had
been dropped by some inebriated betting-man the night before. "What have
you got there?" exclaimed a fellow Israelite. "Lucky as usual!" "Lucky
you call it?" grumbled the man in reply, rapidly turning over the notes.
"Lucky is it! all fivers--not a tenner among them!"
Even a perfect matrimonial bargain would not please some people. They
are as prone to grumble as the poor woman who, being asked if she were
satisfied when a pure water supply had been introduced into Edinburgh,
said: "Aye, not so well as I might; it's not like the water we had
before--it neither smells nor tastes."
There is a story told of a rustic swain who, when asked whether he would
take his partner to be his wedded wife, replied, with shameful
indecision, "Yes, I'm willin'; but I'd a much sight rather have her
sister." The sort of people who are represented by this vacillating
bridegroom are no sooner married than they begin to cast fond, lingering
looks behind upon the state of single blessedness they have abandoned,
or else upon some lost ideal which they prefer to the living, breathing
reality of which they have become possessed. They don't know, and never
did know, their own minds.
Let us suppose, however, that a bad matrimonial bargain has been
obtained, not in imagination, but in sad earnest--How is the best to be
made of it? We must do as Old Mother Hubbard did when she found the
cupboard empty--"accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness." It may
even be politic to dissemble a little, and pretend we rather enjoy it
than otherwise. Above all, do not appeal to the girl's friends for
comfort or consolation. They will only laugh at you. Take warning from
the unfortunate young man who, every time he met the father of his wife,
complained to him of the bad temper and disposition of his daughter. At
last, upon one occasion, the old gentleman, becoming weary of the
grumbling of his son-in-law, exclaimed: "You are right, sir; she is an
impertinent jade; and if I hear any more complaints of her I will
disinherit her."
A writer in _Chambers' Journal_ gives some instances of matrimonial
tribulation that were brought to light in the last census returns.
Several husbands returned their wives as the heads of the families; and
one described himself as an idiot for having married his literal
better-half. "Married, and I'm heartily sorry for it," was returned in
two cases; and in quite a number of instances "Temper" was entered under
the head of infirmities opposite the name of the wife.
Confessions of this sort, besides being, as we have already hinted,
somewhat indiscreet, are often also supererogatory; for conjugal
dissension, like murder, will out; and that sometimes in the most
provoking and untimely manner. It would be much better to call in the
assistance of proper pride than to whine in this cowardly fashion. "We
mortals," says George Eliot, "men and women, devour many a
disappointment between breakfast and dinner time; keep back the tears
and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say,
'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only
urges us to hide our own hurts--not to hurt others." "To feel the
chains, but take especial care the world shall not hear them clank. 'Tis
a prudence that often passes for happiness. It is one of the decencies
of matrimony."
"Biddy," said Dean Swift one day to his cook, "this leg of mutton is
over-done; take it down and do it less." "Plaze, your Riverence,"
replied Biddy, "the thing is impossible." "Well, then," rejoined her
master, "let this be a lesson to you, that if you must commit mistakes
they, at all events, shall not be of such gravity as to preclude
correction." Well would it be if people never made mistakes that
preclude correction in reference to more important matters! Yet, for all
this, it is a good thing that we have no "fatal facility" of divorce in
this country, and that a marriage once made is generally regarded as a
world-without-end bargain.
A story has been told of a graceless scamp who gained access to the
Clarendon printing-office in Oxford, when a new edition of the
Prayer-book was ready for the press. In that part of the "forme" already
set up which contained the marriage service, he substituted the letter
_k_ for the letter _v_ in the word live; and thus the vow "to love,
honour, comfort, &c., so long as ye both shall live," was made to read
"so long as ye both shall like!" The change was not discovered until the
whole of the edition was printed off. If the sheets are still preserved
it would be a good speculation to send them to some of the States in
America, where people are "exceedingly divorced." May they long remain
useless in Great Britain! For nothing is more dangerous than to unite
two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns as man and
wife, without rendering the union entire and total.
In that very interesting Bible story of Nabal and Abigail, a noble woman
is seen making the best of an extremely bad matrimonial bargain. If her
marriage with Nabal, who was a churlish, ill-tempered, drunken fool, was
one of the worst possible, does not her conduct teach the lesson that
something may be done to mitigate the miseries of even the most
frightful state of marriage? Who shall say how many heroines unknown to
fame there are who imitate her? Their husbands are weak-willed, foolish,
idle, extravagant, dissipated, and generally ne'er-do-weel; but instead
of helplessly sitting down to regret their marriage-day, they take the
management of everything into their own hands, and make the best of the
inevitable by patient endurance in well-doing. It is sometimes said that
"any husband is better than none." Perhaps so; in the sense of his being
a sort of domestic Attila, a "scourge of God" to "whip the offending
Adam" out of a woman and turn her into an angel, as the wives of some
bad husbands seem to become.
"I will do anything," says Portia, in the "Merchant of Venice," "ere I
will be married to a sponge;" and in answer to the question--"How like
you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?" she answers: "Very
vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the
afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best he is a little worse than a
man; and when he is worst he is little better than a beast: an the worst
fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him."
When a poor girl has not had Portia's discernment to discover such
faults before marriage, what can she do? She can do her best.
"What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?"
Endeavouring to do this, you will not only have the answer of a good
conscience, but will have taken the best precaution against falling
yourself, so that it never can be truly said of you--
"As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down."
It has been said that to have loved and lost--either by that total
disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love
which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let
go day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love, namely,
reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing
left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness--this lot is probably
the hardest any woman can have to bear.
"What is good for a bootless bane?--
And she made answer, 'Endless sorrow.'"
This answer should never have been made, for none but the guilty can be
long and completely miserable. The effect and duration of sorrow greatly
depends upon ourselves. "If thou hast a bundle of thorns in thy lot, at
least thou need'st not insist on sitting down on them." Nor must we
forget that there is a "wondrous alchemy in time and the power of God"
to transmute our sorrows, as well as our faults and errors, into golden
blessings.
It is an old maxim that if one will not, two cannot quarrel. If one of
the heads of a house has a bad temper, there is all the more reason for
the other to be cool and collected, and capable of keeping domestic
peace. Think of Socrates, who, when his wife Zanthippe concluded a fit
of scolding by throwing at him a bucket of water, quietly remarked,
"After the thunder comes the rain." And when she struck him, to some
friends who would have had him strike her again, he replied, that he
would not make them sport, nor that they should stand by and say, "_Eia
Socrates, eia Zanthippe!_" as boys do when dogs fight, animate them more
by clapping hands.
If we would learn how to make the worst instead of the best of a
matrimonial bargain, Adam, the first husband, will teach us. He allowed
himself to be tempted by Eve, and then like a true coward tried to put
all the blame upon her. This little bit of history repeats itself every
day. "In the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack
Falstaff do in the days of villainy?"
There is another way in which people make the worst instead of the best
of their bad matrimonial bargains. "Faults are thick where love is
thin," and love having become thin they exaggerate the badness of their
bargains. A man, having one well-formed and one crooked leg, was wont to
test the disposition of his friends, by observing which leg they looked
at first or most. Surely the last people we should draw with their worst
leg foremost are our life partners. The best of men are only _men_ at
the best. They are, as Sterne said, "a strange compound of contradictory
qualities; and were the accidental oversights and folly of the wisest
man--the failings and imperfections of a religious man--the hasty acts
and passionate words of a meek man--were they to rise up in judgment
against them, and an ill-natured judge to be suffered to mark in this
manner what has been done amiss, what character so unexceptionable as
to be able to stand before him?" Ought husbands and wives to be
ill-natured judges of what is amiss?
"Let a man," says Seneca, "consider his own vices, reflect upon his own
follies, and he will see that he has the greatest reason to be angry
with himself." The best advice to give husband and wife is to ask them
to resolve in the words of Shakespeare, "I will chide no breather in the
world but myself, against whom I know most faults." Why beholdest thou
the mote that is in the eye of thy matrimonial bargain, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye?
When you find yourself complaining of your matrimonial bargain, think
sometimes whether you deserve a better one. What right and title has thy
greedy soul to domestic happiness or to any other kind of happiness?
"Fancy," says Carlyle, "thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely),
thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot." We may imagine that we
deserve a perfect matrimonial bargain, but a less partial observer like
Lord Braxfield might make a correction in our estimate. This Scotch
judge once said to an eloquent culprit at the bar, "Ye're a verra clever
chiel, mon, but I'm thinkin' ye wad be nane the waur o' a hangin'."
Equally instructive is the story of a magistrate, who, when a thief
remonstrated, "But, sir, I must live," replied, "I don't recognize the
necessity." It is only when we cease to believe that we must have
supreme domestic and other kinds of felicity, that we are able with a
contented mind to bear our share of the "weary weight of all this
unintelligible world."
In reference to marriage and to everything else in life, we should
sometimes reflect how much worse off we might be instead of how much
better. Perhaps you are like the man who said, "I must put up with it,"
when he had only turkey and plum pudding for dinner. If, as it has often
been said, all men brought their grievances of mind, body, and
estate--their lunacies, epilepsies, cancers, bereavement, beggary,
imprisonment--and laid them on a heap to be equally divided, would you
share alike and take your portion, or be as you are? Without question
you would be as you are. And perhaps if all matrimonial bargains were to
be again distributed, it would be better for you to keep what you have
than to run the chance of getting worse. A man who grumbled at the
badness of his shoes felt ashamed on meeting with one who had no feet.
"Consider the pains which martyrs have endured, and think how even now
many people are bearing afflictions beyond all measure greater than
yours, and say, 'Of a truth my trouble is comfort, my torments are but
roses as compared to those whose life is a continual death, without
solace, or aid, or consolation, borne down with a weight of grief
tenfold greater than mine.'"
"Oft in life's stillest shade reclining,
In desolation unrepining,
Without a hope on earth to find
A mirror in an answering mind,
Meek souls there are, who little dream
Their daily strife an angel's theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in Heaven a martyr's palm."
One of these "meek souls" is reported to have said to a friend, "You
know not the joy of an accepted sorrow." And of every disappointment, we
may truly say that people know not how well it may be borne until they
have tried to bear it. This, which is true of disappointment in general,
is no less true of the disappointments of a married pair. Those who have
not found in marriage all that they fondly, and perhaps over sanguinely,
anticipated, may, after some time, become to a certain extent happy
though married, if they resolve to do their best under the
circumstances.