I received the news of your marriage with infinite delight, and hope
that the sincerity with which I wish you happiness, may excuse the
liberty I take in giving you a few rules, whereby more certainly to
obtain it. I see you smile at my wrong-headed kindness, and, reflecting
on the charms of your bride, cry out in a rapture, that you are happy
enough without any rules. I know you are. But after one of the forty
years, which I hope you will pass pleasingly together, is over, this
letter may come in turn, and rules for felicity may not be found
unnecessary, however some of them may appear impracticable.
Could that kind of love be kept alive through the marriage state, which
makes the charm of a single one, the sovereign good would no longer be
sought for; in the union of two faithful lovers it would be found: but
reason shows that this is impossible, and experience informs us that it
never was so; we must preserve it as long, and supply it as happily as
we can.
When your present violence of passion subsides, however, 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
recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming,
can continue to transport us with delight when they no longer strike us
with novelty. The skill to renovate the powers of pleasing is said
indeed to be possessed by some women in an eminent degree; but the
artifices of maturity are seldom seen to adorn the innocence of youth:
you have made your choice, and ought to approve it.
Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession; and to be happy,
we must always have something in view. The person of your lady is
already all your own, and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes I
doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsome for these
dozen of years. Turn therefore all your attention to her mind, which
will daily grow brighter by polishing. Study some easy science together,
and acquire a similarity of tastes while you enjoy a community of
pleasures. You will by this means have many images in common, and be
freed from the necessity of separating to find amusement. Nothing is so
dangerous to wedded love as the possibility of either being happy out of
the company of the other: endeavor therefore, to cement the present
intimacy on every side; let your wife never be kept ignorant of your
income, your expenses, your friendships, or aversions; let her know your
very faults, but make them amiable by your virtues; consider all
concealment as a breach of fidelity; let her never have any thing to
find out in your character; and remember, that from the moment one of
the partners turns spy upon the other, they have commenced a state of
hostility.
Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of wisdom
as a deviation into folly. Listen not to those sages who advise you
always to scorn the counsel of a woman, and if you comply with her
requests pronounce you to be wife-ridden.
I said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you;
but pray let her never suspect that it grows less so: that a woman will
pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her
person, is well known; nor will any of us contradict the assertion. All
our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart
of man: and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end
be not obtained? There is no reproof however pointed, no punishment
however severe, that a woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and
if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to
make herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her
husband. For this, and for every reason, it behoves a married man not to
let his politeness fail, though his ardor may abate, but to retain at
least that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing
to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years
old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than
he, who so often vowed to her eternal fondness.
It is not my opinion that a young woman should be indulged in every wild
wish of her gay heart or giddy head; but contradiction may be softened
by domestic kindness, and quiet pleasures substituted in the place of
noisy ones. Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is
sometimes imagined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married
people from each other. A well chosen society of friends and
acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and
splendor, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the
evening, seems the most rational pleasure this great town can afford.
That your own superiority should always be seen, but never felt, seems
an excellent general rule. A wife should outshine her husband in
nothing, not even in her dress. The bane of married happiness among the
city men in general has been, that finding themselves unfit for polite
life, they transferred their vanity to their ladies, dressed them up
gaily, and sent them out a gallanting, while the good man was to regale
with port wine or rum punch, perhaps among mean companions, after the
compting house was shut. This practice produced the ridicule thrown on
them in all our comedies and novels since commerce began to prosper. But
now that I am so near the subject, a word or two on jealousy may not be
amiss; for though not a failing of the present age's growth, yet the
seeds of it are too certainly sown in every warm bosom, for us to
neglect it as a fault of no consequence. If you are ever tempted to be
jealous, watch your wife narrowly--but never tease her; tell her your
jealousy but conceal your suspicion; let her, in short, be satisfied
that it is only your odd temper, and even troublesome attachment, that
makes you follow her; but let her not dream that you ever doubted
seriously of her virtue even for a moment. If she is disposed towards
jealousy of you, let me beseech you to be always explicit with her and
never mysterious: be above delighting in her pain, of all things--nor do
your business nor pay your visits with an air of concealment, when all
you are doing might as well be proclaimed perhaps in the parish vestry.
But I hope better than this of your tenderness and of your virtue, and
will release you from a lecture you have so little need of, unless your
extreme youth and my uncommon regard will excuse it. And now farewell;
make my kindest compliments to your wife, and be happy in proportion as
happiness is wished you by, Dear Sir, &c.