THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE (_continued_).
“THE good of the whole,” says 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 details
of a domestic day.
“Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape the
encroachments of their children, but in the 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.”