Though, in the dissertations which you have given us on marriage, very
just cautions are laid down against the common causes of infelicity,
and the necessity of having, in that important choice, the first regard
to virtue, is carefully inculcated; yet I cannot think the subject so
much exhausted, but that a little reflection would present to the mind
many questions, in the discussion of which great numbers are interested,
and many precepts which deserve to be more particularly and forcibly
impressed.
You seem, like most of the writers that have gone before you, to have
allowed as an uncontested principle, that _marriage is generally unhappy_:
but I know not whether a man who professes to think for himself, and
concludes from his own observations, does not depart from his character
when he follows the crowd thus implicitly, and receives maxims without
recalling them to a new examination, especially when they comprise so
wide a circuit of life, and include such a variety of circumstances. As
I have an equal right with others to give my opinion of the objects about
me, and a better title to determine concerning that state which I have
tried, than many who talk of it without experience, I am unwilling to be
restrained by mere authority from advancing what, I believe, an accurate
view of the world will confirm, that marriage is not commonly unhappy,
otherwise than as life is unhappy; and that most of those who complain of
connubial miseries, have as much satisfaction as their nature would have
admitted, or their conduct procured, in any other condition.
It is, indeed, common to hear both sexes repine at their change, relate
the happiness of their earlier years, blame the folly and rashness
of their own choice, and warn those whom they see coming into the
world against the same precipitance and infatuation. But it is to be
remembered, that the days which they so much wish to call back, are
the days not only of celibacy but of youth, the days of novelty and
improvement, of ardour and of hope, of health and vigour of body, of
gaiety and lightness of heart. It is not easy to surround life with any
circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that
whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial
existence more heavy and cumbrous, the longer it is worn.
That they censure themselves for the indiscretion of their choice, is
not a sufficient proof that they have chosen ill, since we see the same
discontent at every other part of life which we cannot change. Converse
with almost any man, grown old in a profession, and you will find him
regretting that he did not enter into some different course, to which
he too late finds his genius better adapted, or in which he discovers
that wealth and honour are more easily attained. "The merchant," says
Horace, "envies the soldier, and the soldier recounts the felicity of the
merchant; the lawyer, when his clients harass him, calls out for the quiet
of the countryman; and the countryman, when business calls him to town,
proclaims that there is no happiness but amidst opulence and crowds."
Every man recounts the inconveniences of his own station, and thinks
those of any other less, because he has not felt them. Thus the married
praise the ease and freedom of a single state, and the single fly to
marriage from the weariness of solitude. From all our observations we
may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot
discover in what particular condition it will find most alleviations;
or whether all external appendages are not, as we use them, the causes
either of good or ill.
Whoever feels great pain, naturally hopes for ease from change of posture;
he changes it, and finds himself equally tormented: and of the same
kind are the expedients by which we endeavour to obviate or elude those
uneasinesses, to which mortality will always be subject. It is not likely
that the married state is eminently miserable, since we see such numbers,
whom the death of their partners has set free from it, entering it again.
Wives and husbands are, indeed, incessantly complaining of each other; and
there would be reason for imagining that almost every house was infested
with perverseness or oppression beyond human sufferance, did we not know
upon how small occasions some minds bursts out, into lamentations and
reproaches, and how naturally every animal revenges his pain upon those
who happen to be near, without any nice examination of its cause. We are
always willing to fancy ourselves within a little of happiness, and when,
with repeated efforts, we cannot reach it, persuade ourselves that it
is intercepted by an ill-paired mate, since, if we could find any other
obstacle, it would be our own fault that it was not removed.
Anatomists have often remarked, that though our diseases are sufficiently
numerous and severe, yet when we inquire into the structure of the body,
the tenderness of some parts, the minuteness of others, and the immense
multiplicity of animal functions that must concur to the healthful and
vigorous exercise of all our powers, there appears reason to wonder rather
that we are preserved so long, than that we perish so soon, and that our
frame subsists for a single day, or hour, without disorder, rather than
that it should be broken or obstructed by violence of accidents, or length
of time.
The same reflection arises in my mind, upon observation of the manner in
which marriage is frequently contracted. When I see the avaricious and
crafty, taking companions to their tables and their beds without any
inquiry, but after farms and money; or the giddy and thoughtless uniting
themselves for life to those whom they have only seen by the light of
tapers at a ball; when parents make articles for their children, without
inquiring after their consent; when some marry for heirs to disappoint
their brothers, and others throw themselves into the arms of those whom
they do not love, because they have found themselves rejected where they
were most solicitous to please; when some marry because their servants
cheat them, some because they squander their own money, some because
their houses are pestered with company, some because they will live like
other people, and some only because they are sick in themselves, I am not
so much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes unhappy, as that
it appears so little loaded with calamity; and cannot but conclude that
society has something in itself eminently agreeable to human nature, when
I find its pleasures so great, that even the ill choice of a companion
can hardly overbalance them.
By the ancient customs of the Muscovites, the men and women never saw
each other till they were joined beyond the power of parting. It may be
suspected that by this method many unsuitable matches were produced, and
many tempers associated that were not qualified to give pleasure to each
other. Yet, perhaps, among a people so little delicate, where the paucity
of gratifications, and the uniformity of life, gave no opportunity for
imagination to interpose its objections, there was not much danger of
capricious dislike; and while they felt neither cold nor hunger they might
live quietly together, without any thought of the defects of one another.
Amongst us, whom knowledge has made nice and affluence wanton, there are,
indeed, more cautions requisite to secure tranquillity; and yet if we
observe the manner in which those converse, who have singled out each
other for marriage, we shall, perhaps, not think that the Russians
lost much by their restraint. For the whole endeavour of both parties,
during the time of courtship, is to hinder themselves from being known,
and to disguise their natural temper, and real desires, in hypocritical
imitation, studied compliance, and continual affectation. From the time
that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but in a mask, and the
cheat is managed often on both sides with so much art, and discovered
afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect
that some transformation has happened on the wedding night, and that,
by a strange imposture, one has been courted, and another married.
I desire you, therefore, Mr. Rambler, to question all who shall hereafter
come to you with matrimonial complaints, concerning their behaviour in
the time of courtship, and inform them that they are neither to wonder
nor repine, when a contract begun with fraud has ended in disappointment.