AS TO MARRIAGE.
Mention has been made of the great influence on character of the
right kind of a home, in childhood and youth. The right kind of a
home depends almost entirely on the right kind of a wife or mother.
The old saying, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure," will never
lose its force. "Worse than the man whose selfishness keeps him a
bachelor till death, is the young man, who, under an impulse he
imagines to be an undying love, marries a girl as poor, weak, and
selfish as himself. There have been cases where marriage under such
circumstances has aroused the man to effort and made him,
particularly if his wife were of the same character, but these are
so exceptional as to form no guide for people of average common
sense.
Again, there have been men, good men, whose lives measured by the
ordinary standards were successful, who never married; but those who
hear or read of them, have the feeling that such careers were
incomplete.
The most important voluntary act of every man and woman's life, is
marriage, and God has so ordained it. Hence it is an act which
should be love-prompted on both sides, and only entered into after
the most careful and prayerful deliberation.
It is natural for young people of the opposite sex, who are much
thrown together, and so become in a way essential to each other's
happiness, to end by falling in love. It is said that "love is
blind," and the ancients so painted their mythological god, Cupid.
It is very certain that the fascination is not dependent on the
will; it is a divine, natural impulse, which has for its purpose the
continuance of the race.
Here, then, in all its force, we see the influence of association,
which has been already treated of. The young man whose associations
are of the right kind is sure to be brought into contact with the
good daughters of good mothers. With such association, love and
marriage should add to life's success and happiness, provided,
always, that the husband's circumstances warrant him in establishing
and maintaining a home.
Granting, then, the right kind of a wife, and the ability to make a
home, the young man, with the right kind of stuff in him, takes a
great stride in the direction of success when he marries.
No wise person will marry for beauty mainly. It may exercise a
powerful attraction in the first place, but it is found to be of
comparatively little consequence afterward. Not that beauty of
person is to be underestimated, for, other things being equal,
handsomeness of form and beauty of features are the outward
manifestations of health. But to marry a handsome figure without
character, fine features unbeautified by sentiment or good nature,
is the most deplorable of mistakes. As even the finest landscape,
seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face,
unless a beautiful nature shines through it. The beauty of to-day
becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through
the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this
kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than
destroys it. After the first year, married people rarely think of
each other's features, whether they be classically beautiful or
otherwise. But they never fail to be cognizant of each other's
temper. "When I see a man," says Addison, "with a sour, riveted
face, I can not forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an
open, ingenuous countenance, I think of the happiness of his
friends, his family, and his relations."
Edmund Burke, the greatest of English statesmen, was especially happy
in his marriage. He never ceased to be a lover, and long years after
the wedding he thus describes his wife: "She is handsome; but it is
a beauty not arising from features, from complexion, or from shape.
She has all three in a high degree, but it is not by these she
touches the heart; it is all that sweetness of temper, benevolence,
innocence, and sensibility, which a face can express, that forms her
beauty. She has a face that just raises your attention at first
sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder it did no more
than raise your attention at first.
"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they
command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by
virtue.
"Her stature is not tall; she is not made to be the admiration of
everybody, but the happiness of one.
"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy; she has all
the softness that does not imply weakness.
"Her voice is a soft, low music--not formed to rule in public
assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a
crowd; it has this advantage--you must come close to her to hear it.
"To describe her body describes her mind--one is the transcript of
the other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters
it exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.
"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things,
as in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.
"No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was
ever less corrupted by the knowledge of it."
A man's real character will always be more visible in his household
than anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better
exhibited by the manner in which he bears rule there than even in
the larger affairs of business or public life. His whole mind may be
in his business; but, if he would be happy, his whole heart must be
in his home. It is there that his genuine qualities most surely
display themselves--there that he shows his truthfulness, his love,
his sympathy, his consideration for others, his uprightness, his
manliness--in a word, his character. If affection be not the
governing principle in a household, domestic life may be the most
intolerable of despotisms. Without justice, also, there can be
neither love, confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic
rule is founded.
It is by the regimen of domestic affection that the heart of man is
best composed and regulated. The home is the woman's kingdom, her
state, her world--where she governs by affection, by kindness, by
the power of gentleness. There is nothing which so settles the
turbulence of a man's nature as his union in life with a high-minded
woman. There he finds rest, contentment, and happiness--rest of
brain and peace of spirit. He will also often find in her his best
counselor, for her instinctive tact will usually lead him right when
his own unaided reason might be apt to go wrong. The true wife is a
staff to lean upon in times of trial and difficulty; and she is
never wanting in sympathy and solace when distress occurs or fortune
frowns. In the time of youth, she is a comfort and an ornament of
man's life; and she remains a faithful helpmate in maturer years,
when life has ceased to be an anticipation, and we live in its
realities.
Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I
would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus
without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God
can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with
whom he may live in peace and tranquility--to whom he may confide
his whole possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he
said, "To rise betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever
repents of doing."
Some persons are disappointed in marriage, because they expect too
much from it; but many more because they do not bring into the co-
partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness,
forbearance, and common sense. Their imagination has perhaps
pictured a condition never experienced on this side of heaven; and
when real life comes, with its troubles and cares, there is a sudden
waking-up as from a dream.
We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character.
There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower
character in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is
highest in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own
level. Thus a wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best of
men. An illustration of this power is furnished in the life of
Bunyan, the profligate tinker, who had the good fortune to marry, in
early life, a worthy young woman, of good parentage.
On hearing of the death of his wife, the great explorer, Dr.
Livingstone, wrote to a friend: "I must confess that this heavy
stroke quite takes the heart out of me. Every thing else that has
happened only made me more determined to overcome all difficulties;
but after this sad stroke I feel crushed and void of strength. Only
three short months of her society, after four years' separation! I
married her for love, and the longer I lived with her I loved her
the more. A good wife, and a good, brave, kind-hearted mother was
she, deserving all the praises you bestowed upon her at our parting
dinner, for teaching her own and the native children, too, at
Kolobeng. I try to bow to the blow as from our Heavenly Father, who
orders all things for us . . . I shall do my duty still, but it is
with a darkened horizon that I again set about it."
Besides being a helper, woman is emphatically a consoler. Her
sympathy is unfailing. She soothes, cheers, and comforts. Never was
this more true than in the case of the wife of Tom Hood, whose
tender devotion to him, during a life that was a prolonged illness,
is one of the most affecting things in biography. A woman of
excellent good sense, she appreciated her husband's genius, and, by
encouragement and sympathy, cheered and heartened him to renewed
effort in many a weary struggle for life. She created about him an
atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness, and nowhere did the sunshine of
her love seem so bright as when lighting up the couch of her invalid
husband.
Scott wrote beautifully and truthfully:
"Oh, woman, in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light, quivering aspen made,
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou."