MARRIAGE.

Unhappy Marriages--Marriage has its Laws--The Second Question in

Life--Be sure you are Right--For Better or for Worse--Know whom thou

Marriest--Marriage a Holy Institution--Marriage should be made a

Study--Marriage is not for Children--Early Marriages

Inadvisable--What are Early Marriages?--Influence of an Ignorant

Wife--Woman the Hope of the World--Married Life must be lived

well--Love should rule all.

Our present theme for our young female friends is Marriage. In treating

it we feel impressed with its solemn and practical importance. Talk of

Marriage as we will, it is a serious and stern reality. It takes us by

the hand and leads us into the great temple of life where duties stand

ministering around the solemn altar, and the baptism of love is followed

by the quick discipline of trial. Young, single existence is but the

vestibule of real life, where anticipation weaves a golden web, bearing

but a faint resemblance to the web of actual life. The youthful

imagination is apt to dress the institution of Marriage in too many

garlands, and to consider it full of ethereal joys and paradisaical

blessedness such as can exist only in the chambers of an untaught fancy.

That the natural fruitage of true Marriage is peace and blessedness is a

pleasing fact which we can not contemplate but with delight, and for

which we can not be too grateful. But it must always be understood that

the joys of marriage are natural, and such as grow out of the

performance of duty and a life of truthfulness. They are conditioned

upon obedience to the matrimonial laws. It is not all the married that

are happy. If you would find misery double-distilled, you may find it in

awful and ruinous abundance among the married who entered their real

life in the whirl of enthusiastic delight. There is every possible

degree of anguish in the married life, from the unbreathed unrest of the

thinly clouded soul to the terrible grief that breaks out in loud

denunciations and open and disgusting conflict. And could you draw back

the vail that hides the privacies of this life, and see the black waves

of distrust and the deep waters of disquietude that cast up mire and

dirt continually, which roll and heave in constant commotion out of the

world's sight in the seclusion of the Marriage relation, you might doubt

that the institution was ordained in mercy, and question its utility.

Like every other good, it must be rightly used or it turns to evil. The

good of good things is mostly in their use. Life is good if rightly

used, but oh, how bad when wholly abused! So with Marriage. The best

things become instruments of the direst evil when wrested from their

true use.

The first lesson to learn in relation to Marriage is, that its fruits of

peace and joy hang on the boughs of obedience to its regulations,

conformity to its laws. Who would be happy in the married life must

enter into it well and live it righteously. It has laws to be obeyed,

regulations to be observed, principles to be submitted to, without

which it has no joys, no elysian fields of bliss and blessedness, no

buds and flowers of virtue and happiness.

It will never do to go blindly into a state of such intimate relations.

Here soul meets with soul face to face. Propensities, passions, desires,

inclinations, aspirations, capacities, powers, stand up side by side and

press against each other, either to please or fret and chafe each other.

Tastes, dispositions, feelings, either join in sweet, according

friendship, or rankle in disagreeable contact. Marriage is a union,

intimate, strong-bound, and vitally active. The union is a compound or a

mixture; it is natural, congenial, pleasing, or it is forced,

inharmonious, and revolting. Which it shall be we are to determine

before we enter it. We are not to shut our eyes to reason and common

sense, and marry whoever offers. Young women who do so may live to

repent it. If there is any period in a woman's whole life when her

sharpest eye, her keenest apprehension, her soundest judgment, and her

most religious seriousness are needed, it is when she proposes to

herself the question, "Shall I accept in marriage the hand that is

offered me?" It is the second greatest question of her life. It is the

question, the answer of which is to wring briny tears out of her heart

or baptize it in the waters of refreshing sympathy.

I once knew a merchant who used to say that "Goods well bought were half

sold." The idea is equally good when applied to the subject of Marriage.

A Marriage well entered is a life half lived. It is hard to make a

profit on badly bought goods. So it is hard to live a good and happy

life in Marriage bonds that bind and gall the heart that wears them. I

used to be a farmer, and I then learned that a balky horse would often

work well in an easy harness, while a good horse would be tricky and

stubborn in a collar that chafed. So I have often seen bad people who

lived very happily in the married life, so far as their personal

relations were concerned, while good people chafed and grieved in sad

matrimonial inharmony. Half the victory is in starting the battle right.

A man of more good sense than refinement once said, "Be sure you are

right, then go ahead." It is the utterance of wisdom, and is as

applicable to the subject before us as any other. "Be sure you are

right." We are not only to be right, but we are to know it. There is to

be no guess-work about it--no wish-work or hope-work about it. It is to

be knowledge-work. Applied to the subject in hand, young women are to

know that they are right in their Marriage alliances; are to know that

they have bargained with men after their own heart. They are not to

guess they are going to get pretty good husbands, nor hope they are, nor

to believe they are from what personal friends have said.

They are not to rely upon common report, nor the opinion of friends, nor

a fashionable acquaintance, but upon a personal knowledge of the

individual's life and character. How can another know what you want in a

companion? You alone know your own heart. If you do not know it you are

not fit to be married. No one else can tell what fills you with pleasing

and grateful emotions. You only know when the spring of true affection

is touched by the hand of a congenial spirit. It is for you to _know_

who asks your hand, who has your heart, who links his life with yours.

If you _know_ the man who can make true answer to your soul's true love,

whose soul is all kindred with yours, whose life answers to your ideal

of manly demeanor, you know who would make you a good husband. But if

you only fancy that he is right, or guess, or believe, or hope, from a

little social interchange of words and looks, you have but a poor

foundation on which to build hopes of future happiness. A young man and

a dear friend once said to me, "I am going to take her for better or for

worse." The remark ran over me like a chill breath of winter. I

shuddered at the thought. "For better or for worse." All in doubt. Going

to marry, yet not _sure_ he was right. The lady he spoke of was a noble

young woman, intellectual, cultivated, pious, accustomed to his sphere

of life. They were going to marry in uncertainty. Both were of fine

families; both excellent young people. To the world it looked like a

desirable match. To them it was going to be "for better or for worse."

They married. The woman stayed in his home one year and left it,

declaring he was a good man and a faultless husband, but not after her

heart. She stayed away one year and came back; lived with him one year

more and died. Sad tale. It proved for the worse, and all because they

did not _know_ each other; if they had they would not have married. I

once heard of a woman who married a man to get rid of him. It is a

dangerous riddance. Equally dangerous is it to marry a man to find him

out. "_Know_ whom thou _marriest_," is the voice of wisdom. Yes, the

question of Marriage is one of solemn import. It is a life-question. It

is a final settlement of a great demand of our nature. It is the

decision of the heart's earthly weal or woe. It is our social life or

death. It is planting the seeds for the moral harvest of life. It is the

adjustment of a great religious question, the submission to a solemn

ordinance of God. Yes, Marriage is a divine institution. It is not of

earthly origin, though it is often prostituted to earthly uses. It is a

God-made arrangement for human development and happiness, and woe be to

him who defiles it with sensuous abuses. It is before the Church, before

any of the solemn ordinances of God's house, the primal decree of the

Father for his human children. To degrade or abuse the Marriage covenant

is blasphemy, irreverence, sacrilegious wickedness. If one would enter

the portals of the church bowed in reverence to God, much more should he

thus enter the sanctuary of Marriage. If he should sit reverently at the

table of the Lord's Supper, much more should he sit thus in the bower of

the hymeneal life. If he should bow his head in solemn meekness in the

baptismal rite, much more should he bend lowly in this relation. If he

should kneel in pious prayer before the throne of grace, so he should

humble himself before God at the life-union altar. There is no more

serious step in life, none more important, and none that should be more

religiously taken.

In this view of the subject, what a sad picture does the world present!

How trifling, giddy, thoughtless! Among the multitudes who marry, how

few marry in the light of wisdom and under the sanction of religion!

Worldliness moves a great multitude in the formation of this union.

Profit, gain, standing! These are mighty things. Principle, virtue,

religion, happiness, must be sacrificed on the altar of worldly

ambition. Woman becomes a base creature by thus pandering to earthly

ends. Then worse than this, still greater multitudes are prompted to

this union by sensuous desires--base animalism. Oh, to what a sink of

iniquity, what a pool of pollution, what a stagnant pit of moral

rottenness is the Marriage relation sunk by the unhallowed and unbridled

sensuality of thousands who enter it! If there is any place in the world

where the voice of God should be heard ringing in pealing thunder-tones

the commands of virtue and religion, it is in the seclusion of the

Marriage relation. Men, and women, too, ought to look to Marriage with a

profounder respect and a higher purpose. It is a holy institution. To

degrade it is wicked and brings the most bitter unhappiness. If I should

induce a single young woman to look more reverently upon the life-union,

to regard it in its moral and religious aspects, and determine to enter

it under the sanctions of true religion, and demand a like state of mind

in her companion, that they might live to be blessings to each other, I

should feel richly remunerated for my labor. I treat this subject now

and have at former times with a view to elevate the minds of youth in

relation to it.

It is in vain to try to make the world moral and religious while the

great institutions of social life are corrupted and corrupting. At the

very bottom of adult life lies the institution of Marriage. To reform

the world we must begin with this. If we can get men and women well

married, the work of reform is half done; life is half lived. It is next

to impossible to make good and happy an ill-assorted pair. They work

against each other almost in spite of themselves. They are like a

steamboat with its wheels playing in opposite directions. They make a

great noise and a terrible jarring, and put forth desperate efforts, but

no forward motion is produced.

It would be well if we had more judicious books on Marriage, designed

for youth. One on the Philosophy of Marriage; one on the Duties of

Marriage; one on the Religion of Marriage; or all these subjects treated

in one book might be very profitable; and if such a book were designed

for high schools, academies, and colleges, and made a study, as is moral

science and natural religion, it might be made eminently useful. There

is a science of Marriage. It should be developed and made a study. Some

strong mind and pure heart, baptized in the spirit of divine truth and

love, should write it out. I know the youth of our country would receive

it gladly and study it with great profit. What is most wanted is thought

and enlightenment on the subject. Thought is the grand lever of reform.

This thing of thinking is what makes men great and good. It is the grand

plowshare that turns up the old soil of error and despotism and reveals

the hidden treasures of truth. Get people to thinking and they will be

likely to think themselves right in the end. We want thought on the

subject of Marriage--calm, consecutive, serious thought. Nothing else

will do. We have passion, zeal, impulse, imagination; but we lack

thought. Thought is the helm of passion, the ballast of imagination, the

compass of impulse. Let youth think on the subject as they ought, and

they will marry well.

I remarked that the institution of Marriage was at the bottom of adult

life. This is a truth, and it is a thought for the girls. Marriage was

never designed for children. It is for men and women. It is good for men

and women; but it does not follow from this that it is good for

children. It would not be good even if children knew how to marry

wisely. They are both physically and mentally incapacitated for so

solemn and important a relation. They are immature in body and mind, in

heart and head. Their judgments are unsound. Their affections are not to

be trusted. They are children in every sense of the word, and can only

make children's work of married life. The wisest and best in early adult

life can be none too well prepared for the great duties of married

life--how can children be prepared? It is impossible. One of the

greatest evils of our time is the too prevalent custom of entering early

into the Marriage relations. Children make bad selections of companions.

In nine cases out of ten they choose differently from what they would a

few years later. They have no fixed characters. They do not know what

their opinions will be. Their tastes are not formed. Their aims in life

are undetermined. What they were made for and what they live for they

have scarcely asked. The arguments against early Marriages are many. I

have not time to enumerate them or to show their force. I have never

heard of but one argument in favor of early marriages. That is founded

in the false idea of marrying in mutual ignorance of each other. It is

said the characters of the parties are more pliable in early youth, so

that they will assimilate to each other the more readily. But if they

are not already assimilated they ought not to marry. If each has got to

give up his character to live in peace, it is a proof that they are

wrongly matched. Those really fitted for each other find their happiness

in the harmony of each other's characters. Their two characters blend

together like concordant sounds, or two streams of running water. The

secret of true Marriage is in mutuality of character, harmony of

sentiment and action, congeniality of spirit. Without this unity there

can be no true Marriage; no real happiness or utility in the married

life.

In all true Marriages the twain become one; one in feeling, aim, and

spirit, one in reason, sentiment, and love. And when this does not exist

before Marriage, it can not reasonably be looked for after. That this

harmony shall be perfect we can not expect, because there are no perfect

characters in this world, and no two persons at perfect unity in spirit.

But unless there is a general harmony there should be no Marriage. Now,

how can children know whether this harmony exists, when their own

characters are unformed, their powers undeveloped? But it may be asked,

what we call an early Marriage? About this there may be a difference of

opinion. What some would call early, others would call late. Our ideas

on this point should be founded in physiological and mental science.

There is a true test by which to settle this question. That test is

found in the human constitution. Any Marriage is early that is

consummated before adult womanhood is attained--womanhood of mind,

heart, soul, and character. Any Marriage before eighteen years of age is

a very early Marriage; before twenty it is early. As a general rule,

between twenty and twenty-five it is timely, though with many it is

early at twenty-two, and some never get old enough to marry. A mind

untaught, a heart undisciplined, a spirit unsubdued, in a civilized

community, is not fit to be married. Such a character is never old

enough.

Above all things, before Marriage, there should be time enough for a

generous education; for a wise preparation for practical life. No young

woman can be educated in any practical and general sense before

twenty-two, no matter what may be her opportunities. Life ought to be

understood; its practical aspects should be fairly and wisely

contemplated; its principal duties should be well weighed; its trials,

temptations, and besetments should be considered; all that must be done

and borne should be the subject of thoughtful meditation before a woman

should dare to set her foot upon the hallowed ground of matrimony. No

child is capable of considering such grave subjects. An adult mind is

scarcely equal to the task. When I say young women should have time to

be educated, I mean all young women. It is true, all will not be

educated in our schools, but all must have some sort of an education;

they must have some experience, observation, contact with men and

things, a knowledge of life; must learn to rely upon themselves, and

learn moral duty and what the world expects of a wife. The early married

must also necessarily be married in ignorance; and as a general rule we

may say, who marries in ignorance will remain in ignorance. An ignorant

wife! Poor thing! How sad the spectacle! What can she do with life? She

will make an ignorant mother and rear ignorant children, and exert an

ignorant influence all through her life. She will perpetuate the

absurdities of ignorant people. She will do the work of ignorance with

her husband and family. Still worse is a neighborhood of ignorant wives.

A State of ignorant wives would bring barbarism again. And how could it

be otherwise, if all girls should marry in their girlhood? It is the

girls that live to womanhood before they marry that redeem and polish

society. Those who marry in girlhood are drawbacks on society. They are

dead weights holding back the wheels of progress. There are but few

truly educated and influential women in the country who married before

they were twenty-five--many of them not till after. They are now the

pride and glory of their husbands, of the communities and States in

which they live. I hold that a noble and influential woman is an honor

to the country and a pillar of civil and religious liberty. Every such

woman is a central sun radiating intellectual and moral light,

diffusing strength and life to all about her. The hope of the

country--ay, of the world--is in its women; I may say its wives. Now and

then a wife will develop and educate herself after she is married, if

she is fortunate enough to get a husband who will encourage and help her

in the work, even if she is married young; but the great mass will

remain in _statu quo_. If they marry ignorant they will remain ignorant.

I can not press too strongly this point of preparation for Marriage.

There is more depends upon it than we at first imagine. Every wife is to

be the center of a family. Boys and girls, men and women, are to go out

from her to live in the world. Scan it closely and you will find that

the world will be modeled very much after its wives. If we have great

and good men, great and good institutions, States and countries, it is

because we have great and good wives. A wife will be happy just about in

proportion to the amount of good she does. That amount of good will

depend very much upon the education of her girlhood; so that view it in

whatever light we will, a woman's life, usefulness, and happiness depend

in no small degree upon the length and character of her girlhood. If she

remains unmarried till she is twenty-three or twenty-five, and develops

and cultivates herself as she ought, she will be almost sure to make a

good and useful woman, an ornament and an inspiration to the circle in

which she moves. If she marries at sixteen or eighteen she will be very

likely to make just what she is--an immature, unfinished specimen of

humanity; nothing more, nothing less.

One point more I would dwell upon a moment. It is this: The married

life, though entered never so well, and with all proper preparation,

must be lived well or it will not be useful or happy. Married life will

not go itself, or if it does it will not keep the track. It will turn

off at every switch, and fly off at every turn or impediment. It needs a

couple of good conductors who understand the engineering of life. Good

watch must be kept for breakers ahead. The fires must be kept up by a

constant addition of the fuel of affection. The boilers must be kept

full and the machinery in order, and all hands at their posts, else

there will be a smashing up, or life will go hobbling or jolting along,

wearing and tearing, breaking and bruising, leaving some heads and

hearts to get well the best way they can. It requires skill, prudence,

and judgment to lead this life well, and these must be tempered with

forbearance, charity, and integrity. Individual rights, opinions, and

feelings must be respected; individual duties must be faithfully

performed; the proprieties of courtesy and kindness must be most

strictly observed; violations of politeness and affection must be

prohibited; ebullitions of temper must be considered as sad and

lamentable improprieties, to be mourned over but always quickly and

readily forgiven; the motto of each should be, "I will _be_, _do_, and

_bear_ all I can and ask as little as possible." A constant and perfect

agreement in opinion and feeling between the parties must never be

expected. The rule should be, that they will agree just so far as

possible without a violation of the individual conscience, and when they

can not agree further they should agree to disagree, with mutual respect

for each other's opinions and mutual esteem and love for each other.

Neither one should attempt or wish to set up a petty and matrimonial

tyranny over the other. Each should think, feel, and act in kindly

independence; and each should encourage the other in independent thought

and action with a view to individual culture and mutual benefit. But

below all thought and back of all action there should be a strong,

earnest, two-fold principle of benevolence and affection. Come what may,

love should rule over all. This should pervade and magnetize the whole

life. Love should utter its melodious tones and breathe its sweet spirit

in every department of the united life. This is the life that should be

determined upon before Marriage, this the life that the parties should

mark out for themselves in all its detail, before they enter into the

Marriage covenant; and this the life when lived that is blessed and

blissful beyond expression.

I said in the outset of this discourse that the young are apt to hang

too many garlands about the married life. This is so as this life is

generally lived. But if it is wisely entered and truthfully lived, it is

more beautiful and happy than any have imagined. It is the true life

which God has designed for his children, replete with joy, delightful,

improving, and satisfactory in the highest possible earthly degree. It

is the hallowed home of virtue, peace, and bliss. It is the antechamber

of heaven, the visiting place of angels, the communing ground of kindred

spirits. Let all young women who would reap such joys and be thus

blessed and happy, learn to live the true life, and be prepared to weave

for their brows the true wife's perennial crown of goodness.

Lecture Twelve.