Chapter I: Front Matter

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[Transcriber's note: The author's spelling has been maintained.

+ signs around words indicate the use of a different font in the book.

In the word "Puranic", the "a" is overlined in the book.]

_HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED._

PRESS NOTICES ON THE FIRST EDITION.

"_If wholesome advice you can brook,
When single too long you have tarried;
If comfort you'd gain from a book,
When very much wedded and harried;
No doubt you should speedily look,
In 'How to be Happy though Married!'_"--PUNCH.

"We strongly recommend this book as one of the best of wedding presents. It is a complete handbook to an earthly Paradise, and its author may be regarded as the Murray of Matrimony and the Baedeker of Bliss."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"The author has successfully accomplished a difficult task in writing a clever and practical book on the important subject of matrimony.... This book, which is at once entertaining and full of wise precepts, deserves to be widely read."--_Morning Post._

"An entertaining volume.... The new guide to matrimonial felicity."--_Standard_, Leader.

"A clever, readable, and entertaining book.... This delicious book."--_Literary Churchman._

"This most elucidatory treatise.... As a 'companion to the honeymoon,' this orange blossom, true-love-knot ornamented volume should no doubt be highly esteemed."--_Whitehall Review._

"The book is tastefully got up, and its contents adapt it very well for a present to a young bride."--_Queen._

"One of the cleverest, best written books on the subject we have read at any time. To girls contemplating marriage, the volume should be presented as a wedding gift.... Grave and gay, but never for a moment dull or tiresome. Each page sparkles with anecdote or suggestive illustration."--_Ladies' Treasury._

"A highly ornamental yet handy, well printed, and admirably written volume."--_The Lady._

"A rich store of entertaining anecdote, and full of thoughts beautiful, pious, and wise. Has a tasteful binding."--_Bookseller._

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED

BEING A

Handbook to Marriage

BY

_A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY._

"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
Though few now taste thee, unimpaired and pure,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitters, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup."--_Cowper._

"It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the festival goblet, and, after the Egyptian manner, serve up a dead man's bones at a feast: I will only show it, and take it away again; it will make the wine bitter, but wholesome."--_Jeremy Taylor._

_SEVENTH AND POPULAR EDITION._

LONDON
T FISHER UNWIN
26 Paternoster Square
1887

TO THOSE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE VENTURED, OR WHO INTEND TO
VENTURE, INTO THAT STATE WHICH IS "A BLESSING TO A FEW, A CURSE
TO MANY, AND A GREAT UNCERTAINTY TO ALL," THIS BOOK IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN ADMIRATION OF THEIR COURAGE.