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Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private
life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and habits.
The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would spring
out of the statutes. It was only a few days ago where a man sought
reparation for the greatest injury one could inflict on another, the
great argument of the defendant's counsel was based on the circumstance
that the plaintiff and his wife had not been proved to have lived
happily together, except on the testimony of their servants. Great
stress was laid upon this fact by the advocate; and such an impression
did it make on the minds of the jury, that the damages awarded were a
mere trifle. Now, only reflect for a moment on the absurdity of such a
plea, and think how many persons there are whose quiet and unobtrusive
lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts of their own door--nay, how
many estimable and excellent people who live less for the world than
for themselves, and although, probably for this very reason, but little
exposed to the casualty in question, would yet deem the injustice great
that placed them beyond the pale of reparation because they had been
homely and domestic.
Civilisation and the march of mind are fine things, and doubtless it is
a great improvement that the criminal is better lodged, and fed, in the
prison, than the hungry labourer in the workhouse. It is an admirable
code that makes the debt of honour, the perhaps swindled losses of the
card-table, an imperative obligation, while the money due to toiling,
working industry, may be evaded or escaped from. Still, it is a bold
step to invade the privacy of domestic life, to subvert the happiness
we deem most national, and to suggest that the world has no respect for,
nor the law no belief in, that peaceful course in life, which, content
with its own blessings, seeks neither the gaze of the crowd, nor the
stare of fashion. Under the present system, a man must appear in society
like a candidate on the hustings--profuse in protestations of his
happiness and redolent of smiles; he must lead forth his wife like a
blooming _débutante_, and, while he presents her to his friends, must
display, by every endeavour in his power, the angelic happiness of their
state. The _coram publico_ endearments, so much sneered at by certain
fastidious people, are now imperative; and, however secluded your
habits, however retiring your tastes, it is absolutely necessary you
should appear a certain number of times every year before the world,
to assure that kind-hearted and considerate thing, how much conjugal
felicity you are possessed of.
It is to no purpose that your man-servant and your maid-servant, and
even the stranger within your gates, have seen you in the apparent
enjoyment of domestic happiness: it is the crowd of a ball-room must
testify in your favour--it is the pit of a theatre--it is the company of
a steam-boat, or the party on a rail-road, you must adduce in evidence.
They are the best--they are the only judges of what you, in the
ignorance of your heart, have believed a secret for your own bosom.
Your conduct within-doors is of little moment, so that your bearing
without satisfy the world. What a delightful picture of universal
happiness will England then present to the foreigner who visits our
salons! With what ecstasy will he contemplate the angelic felicity of
conjugal life! Instead of the indignant coldness of a husband, offended
by some casual levity of his wife, he will now redouble his attentions,
and take an opportunity of calling the company to witness that they live
together like turtle-doves. He knows not how soon, if he mix much in
fashionable life, their testimony may avail him; and the loving smile he
throws his spouse across the supper-table is worth three thousand pounds
before any jury in Middlesex.
Romance writers will now lose one stronghold of sentiment. Love in a
cottage will possess as little respect as it ever did attraction for the
world. The pier at Brighton, a Gravesend steamer, Hyde Park on a Sunday,
will be the appropriate spheres for the interchange of conjugal vows.
No absurd notions of solitude will then hold sway. Alas! how little
prophetic spirit is there in poetry! But a few years ago, and one of our
sirens of song said,
“When should lovers breathe their vows?
When should ladies hear them?
When the dew is on the boughs--
When none else is near them.”
Not a word of it! The appropriate place is amid the glitter of jewels,
the glare of lamps, the crush of fashion, and the din of conversation.
The private boxes of the opera are even, too secluded, and your
happiness is no more genuine, until recognised by society, than is an
exchequer bill with the mere signature of Lord Monteagle.
The benefits of this system will be great. No longer will men be reduced
to the cultivation of those meeker virtues that grace and adorn life;
no more will they study those accomplishments that make home happy and
their hearth cheerful. A winter at Paris and a box at the Variétés will
be more to the purpose. Scribe's farces will teach them more important
lessons, and they will obtain an instructive example in the last line of
a vaudeville, where an injured husband presents himself at the fall of
the curtain, and, as he bows to the audience, embraces both his wife
and her lover, exclaiming, “_Maintenant je suis heureux--ma femme--mon
meilleur ami!_” He then may snap his fingers at Charles Phillips and
Adolphus: he has not only proved his affection to his wife, but his
confidence in his friend. Let him lay the damages at ten thousand, and,
with a counsel that can cry, he'll get every shilling of the money.
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