TROUSSEAU AND WEDDING PRESENTS.
Husband and Wife Ruined before Their “Crane is
Hung.”—The Foolish and Ruinous Display at Weddings.—An
Illustration Given.—How Wedding Presents Lead to Debt and
Unhappiness.—Living Does not Need much Machinery.—Mistake
of Copying after People of Large Wealth.—Wise Choice of
Furniture.—The best Adornments for the Home.—The Trousseaux of
our Foremothers.—The Need of Simplicity.—Artificialities That
make a Veil between our Souls and God.
“Be not vain, oh my soul, and suffer not the din of thy vanity
to deafen the ears of thy heart.”—AUGUSTINE.
“It is possible so to complicate the machinery of living that
the very life itself is crushed among the wheels. We may wrap
ourselves so in comfort until our breath is smothered in the
folds. The man whose wants are few is the man most likely to be
found carrying a light heart.”—W. R. HUNTINGTON.
Many young married people are ruined before their “crane is hung.” Ruined
through the false vanity engendered by the foolish display made in their
attempt to follow the fashion in the preparations for the wedding, and
their start in life.
This could not be better illustrated than by an article in _The Ladies’
Home Journal_, which I quote in full. While this does not typify all
grades of society, yet the same spirit of show and vanity permeates all.
“A little woman who lives in one of the interminable rows of cheap,
turreted, showy houses, came to me a few days ago, pale with anxiety.
‘Kitty,’ she said, ‘is going to be married to young Holt, who is a
salesman in one of the department stores, and I’m sure I don’t know how
we are to raise money for a wedding breakfast and a full choir.’
“Kitty’s father is also a salesman on thirty dollars a week, and there
are four other girls. Oh, the scrimping and saving that have gone on in
that house to turn out Kitty and her sisters fashionably clothed. The
cheap cuts of meat, the rancid butter, the beds without blankets, the
stoves without coal, and the unpaid creditors, scowling out of every shop
in the neighborhood when the old man passes by. He toils six days every
week, early and late without complaining, and his wife spends his wages
for, as she thinks, the best interests of his girls.
“‘White satin, even the sleaziest, has gone up to a frightful price,’
she moaned, ‘and I dare not count what the wedding breakfast will cost.’
“When I asked why there must be a wedding breakfast and a full choir, she
said, that every bride in their set had had both this summer, and what
would the Holts think if Kitty came creeping like a pauper into their
family? ‘The Holts,’ she assured me, ‘are high-flyers. No indeed: there
shall be nothing half cut in any way about Kitty’s wedding.’
“The wedding breakfast is served and Kitty, (or Kathryn as she calls
herself), is married in the white satin. She begins life in a showy,
tiny house, chiefly furnished with her wedding presents. She has no
comfortable underclothing or bedding, and not a dollar in her pocket. But
Kathryn has her ‘receiving days,’ and is careful to order her cakes and
café frappé from the caterer who is patronized by the millionaire who
employs her husband.”
Not what would we like, and what can we afford? but, “What do other
people do, and what would they think did we do otherwise?”—is the
sentiment which controls the preparation of the young people, in all
grades of society, in their beginning life together. How refreshing to
find occasionally a father and mother who care little what “they say,”
and who equip their daughters as becomes their station in life, and their
means, regardless of what others about them are doing.
Wedding presents are a happy reminder of a happy occasion, but they often
prove a snare in the demand for surroundings that are beyond the means
of the recipients. “These are such very pretty and nice things that we
really must have pretty things to go with them,” is the thought of the
young people, and in setting up much more is spent than they can afford,
and they are handicapped by debt, and harassed by worry at the outset;
and what should be the happiest and most care-free time of their life is
spoiled by this hydra-headed intruder, debt.
It is but a repetition of the old story of the good woman, who must
have a new pair of andirons. When they were set up in the best room in
all their shiny newness, a new carpet was a thing of necessity. This
was followed by new chairs to keep countenance with the carpet; then
curtains, walls and all must be transformed and little wonder that the
good man was appalled at the cost of one pair of inoffensive andirons.
“Living does not really need so much machinery,” is a trite and true
sentiment. Oh for a blessed contentment that will make us happy with that
which we can with propriety have.
The trouble begins, but does not end, with the trousseau of the bride. If
the means of both parties are moderate, why attempt to copy the style and
quantity of those who are not obliged to count their dollars? A simple
substantial outfit, with nothing that shall not be useful, and suited to
the surroundings and station of the bride and groom, is an evidence of
good sense and commendable taste.
Some one has said wisely, “There are no real distinctions among us, and
there cannot be unless we change our republic into a monarchy. Rank is a
real possession of the Englishmen, but we do not own it and never did,
and in trying to set up a sham, pinchbeck imitation of it, we are losing
the solid strength and repose and wealth out of our lives.”
When the bridal trousseau is wisely chosen, the home will be furnished
with like taste and wisdom. The furniture that is really needed, and
that of the best, dresses the house far more elegantly than can a
vulgar profusion of showy articles. Tinsel bric-a-brac, cheap cushions
and tidies and bed-coverings proclaim the uncultured taste of the
home-keeper. Strong honest denim is far more elegant than sleazy satin
for sofa pillows, and has this virtue, that it can be easily made as good
as new by washing. No hangings at all are better than cheap hangings at
windows and doors, unless they are of an honest cheapness that soap and
water will not spoil, but make as good as new.
Our foremothers came to their wedding day supplied with chests filled
with plain durable linen, of their own weaving and fashioning, bed-linen
and quilts and spreads in substantial profusion; but with little in the
line of showy outside dress; and their whole after lives were but the
expression of the wisdom and good judgment of their beginning.
“The crying need of many of us to-day, is not for more, but less. We have
too much, so that our lives are robbed of all simplicity. We are choked
by our possessions, as the Roman maiden by the golden bracelets for which
she betrayed the city.
“Our artificialities make a veil between our souls and God. We have not
mastered them, but they have mastered us.”