THE DEBATE OF MARRIAGE CONTINUED
"The good of the whole," said Rasselas, "is the same with the good of
all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be evidently
best for individuals; or a permanent and necessary duty must be the
cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed to the convenience
of others. In the estimate which you have made of the two states, it
appears that the incommodities of a single life are, in a great measure,
necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental and
avoidable.
"I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and benevolence will
make marriage happy. The general folly of mankind is the cause of
general complaint. What can be expected but disappointment and
repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardour
of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after
conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or
purity of sentiment?
"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden, meeting by
chance or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate
civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert
attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they
are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together.
They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had
concealed: they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with
cruelty.
"From those early marriages proceeds likewise the rivalry of parents and
children. The son is eager to enjoy the world before the father is
willing to forsake it, and there is hardly room at once for two
generations. The daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be
content to fade, and neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the
other.
"Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay
which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and
jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported without
the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider
views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection: one
advantage, at least, will be certain; the parents will be visibly older
than their children."
"What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, "and what experiment has not
yet taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been
told that late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too
important to be neglected, and I have often proposed it to those whose
accuracy of remark, and comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their
suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally determined that it is
dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other, at
a time when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when
friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been
planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of
its own prospects.
"It is scarcely possible that two, travelling through the world under
the conduct of chance, should have been both directed to the same path,
and it will not often happen that either will quit the track which
custom has made pleasing. When the desultory levity of youth has settled
into regularity, it is soon succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or
obstinacy delighting to contend. And even though mutual esteem produces
mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the
external mien, determines likewise the direction of the passions, and
gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners. Long customs are not easily
broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often
labours in vain: and how shall we do that for others, which we are
seldom able to do for ourselves?"
"But surely," interposed the prince, "you suppose the chief motive of
choice forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall seek a wife, it shall be
my first question, whether she be willing to be led by reason."
"Thus it is," said Nekayah, "that philosophers are deceived. There are a
thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide; questions that
elude investigation, and make logic ridiculous; cases where something
must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the state of
mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon any occasions,
whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their
minds. Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who
should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the minute
detail of a domestic day.
"Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape the
encroachments of their children; but, in diminution of this advantage,
they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a
guardian's mercy; or, if that should not happen, they must at least go
out of the world before they see those whom they love best either wise
or great.
"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to
hope, and they lose, without equivalent, the joys of early love, and the
convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new
impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long
cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their
surfaces to each other.
"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased
with their children, and those who marry early, with their partners."
"The union of these two affections," said Rasselas, "would produce all
that could be wished. Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite
them, a time neither too early for the father, nor too late for the
husband."
"Every hour," answered the princess, "confirms my prejudice in favour of
the position so often uttered by the mouth of Imlac, 'That nature sets
her gifts on the right hand and on the left.' Those conditions which
flatter hope and attract desire are so constituted that, as we approach
one, we recede from another. There are goods so opposed that we cannot
seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too
great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long
consideration: he does nothing who endeavours to do more than is allowed
to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the
blessings set before you, make your choice, and be content. No man can
taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the
flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from
the source and from the mouth of the Nile."