SHOULD PEOPLE REMARRY?
The excuse most people give for remarrying--St. Peter's opinion of
men who have been married more than once--Stepmothers.
In some countries of the Far East the question has been settled, so far
as women are concerned: they burn their widows. In many places much
nearer home it is not unfrequent to hear the opinion expressed that
widows should be disposed of as in Malabar. Our genial friend Mr. Sam
Weller, senior, entertained, on the subject, views which did not much
differ from those of the sages of Malabar.
In the case of widowers I should feel inclined to answer the question
in the negative. If you have been happy in your first marriage, do not
risk comparisons which might be odious. If you have been unhappy, do
not ask for a second dose. In both cases, therefore, I come to the
conclusion that the answer should be, Don't!
People who remarry, men or women, have invariably the same excuse. They
apologize by saying that they take the important step for their
children's sake. If they were to follow their own inclination, they
would spend the rest of their natural lives weeping over the graves of
the beloved defunct, but they must not be selfish and think of
themselves alone, they must remember that they have children who depend
on them for their welfare, and they are ready to do their duty and
sacrifice their own inclinations and feelings. The devotion of which
the human heart is capable, man's especially, will save the race from
oblivion when it is gone from the earth.
A widower who remarries invariably reminds his friends that children
should be brought up under the sweet and beneficial care of a woman,
and he tells them that he remarries to give a mother to his dear little
ones--nine times out of ten an indifferent one, and not unfrequently a
bad one. If he has no children, he says he is so lonely that he must
have a companion, also a housekeeper, and he gives you to understand
that all this is 'en tout bien, tout honneur.' And he says it to his
friends, and he repeats it to himself so often that he finishes by
believing it is so.
The widow with children will tell you that she cannot support her
children and that she wants a protector for them and for herself. And
she often speaks the truth. At any rate, if you listen to them all, not
one will ever tell you frankly that he remarries because he has fallen
in love with a woman, and she because she has met a man who appeals to
her fancy. When people apologize for what they do, I always suspect
them of having done something of which they are not particularly proud,
if not absolutely ashamed.
No man has ever been in the next world and returned to earth to tell
his fellow-creatures what he saw there except Lazarus; but his
contemporaries neglected to interview him, and we are as much in the
dark on the subject as if he had never left his grave. However, there
is a rumour, in Catholic countries at all events, that St. Peter admits
all married men, without any other qualification than the fact that
they were married and, therefore, had their purgatory on earth, but
that he invariably and rigorously turns out any man who has been
married more than once. It is said that, when they protest, suggesting
that if he lets in men who have been married once and have thus had
their purifying martyrdom on earth, surely he ought to let them in who
have been married more than once, he slams the door in their faces,
saying: 'Do you take this place for a lunatic asylum?'
I know a Scotchman who, the other day, married his fourth wife. He is
only sixty-seven years old, and no widow or old maid should give up
hope in the little village of five hundred inhabitants where he lives.
He is proud to say that he has never taken a wife out of that village.
All his wives have made him happy, and he has made them all happy, as
you can ascertain from the epitaphs he has written himself on the
tombstone that stands over the grave where they are all at rest in
chronological order. He specially praises them for the love and care
they bestowed on the children of those that went before.
I believe, in spite of what is said, that such a thing as a good
stepmother can be found. Stepmothers, like mothers-in-law, get more
abuse than they deserve.
I know stepmothers who have been devoted mothers to their husband's
children. I even know some who had children of their own, and who
continued to be excellent mothers to the children by a former wife; but
it is expecting too much of a woman to ask her to love other people's
children as dearly as she does her own. Two broods will seldom live
happily huddled together in the same nest. If it sometimes happens to
be so, it is the exception.
The world is crowded with young girls who have preferred a rough life
of toil and misery to living with cold, indifferent stepmothers, who
made them keenly feel the loss they had sustained when their own
mothers died.
When the children are grown up, there is no excuse for a man to
remarry. Yet he sometimes marries a young girl, but then it is, on his
part, a sacrifice again. He wants to give a companion and a playfellow
to his daughters, and, to attain that end, he does not hesitate to
commit an infamy. Sometimes he marries an old one, and commits an act
of profanity, of _lese amour_. A man, fond of his wife, does not see
her grow old; but no woman above fifty can inspire in a man of any age
any other sentiments than those of friendship and respect. He may be
the friend of such a woman, but he should not be her husband.
We might philosophize at great length on such topics.
I loathe giving advice, yet I cannot refrain from saying as much as
this: If either a widower or a widow fall in love again, let them
remarry by all means; but if the real inducement is the love of their
children, let them, for the sake of Heaven, for the very sake of their
children, engage the services of a good, motherly housekeeper. This has
invariably proved to answer very well.