Chapter I: Introduction: Marriage

“Marriage is a matter of more worth
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.”
_Shakspeare._

“The bloom or blight of all men’s happiness.”
_Byron._

In no other civilized country in the world is marriage contracted, or dissolved, with such culpable levity as in our own. In no other civilized country (except, perhaps, in France, just at present), can divorce be obtained with such facility, and upon such slight grounds. And it may be the very ease with which the sacred bond may be broken that leads many people into forming it so lightly. An obligation so easily annulled may be carelessly contracted. I remember an anecdote in point:—“Take care—this contemplated marriage of yours is a hasty affair—and when consummated, it is for _life_, you know—‘’Till death do you part,’” said a young man to his friend, who was about to enter into the “holy state.” “Oh, no! not necessarily—there are such things as _divorces_, recollect,” laughingly replied the perspective bridegroom—a handsome hero, of black eyes and white teeth—and his black eyes flashed, and his white teeth gleamed, as though he had been saying the wittiest thing in the world. The youth was in love—therefore his speech could not be taken seriously. He was jesting. _Still_ his words betrayed—that even then, in the heyday of his passion, a future contingency was present to his mind. That future contingency _arrived_—would _never_ have arrived—had he not known beforehand of its remedy. He married—lived with his young bride eighteen months. She became the mother of a little girl—fell into ill health—lost her beauty and attractions. He left her—to travel in Europe—he said—but years passed, and he never returned or wrote. He left her broken in heart; broken in health, injured in reputation; exposed to the misconstructions of the world; to the miseries of poverty; to the temptations of youth, of isolation, and of warm affections; to the pursuit of the licentious; to the calumny of the wicked or the thoughtless; and worse than all to bear up against—the doubts and suspicions of the good. She was destitute of mental resources—in delicate health—morbidly sensitive, and she sank—sank—under the accumulating miseries of her position—and died—in the twenty-second year of her age, and in the fourth of her wretched marriage.

I was about to cite another case—a _second_ case—when the memory of a third; a fourth; a fifth; a _dozen_ aggravated instances of desertion, presented themselves to my mind, and pressed upon me, and, reader, I cannot trouble you with the whole of them. The evils of _misalliance_ are irremediable, at least by foreign interference; and the miseries of desertion are well nigh incurable, or, “the cure is worse than the disease.” Let us look at the _causes_ and the means of _prevention_, of unhappy marriages. Yet, if you read only for the story, just skip the whole of this chapter, and commence at the _next_, which opens the drama.

To go back to the beginning—a primary cause of unhappy marriage is a _defective moral and physical education_. In our country intellectual education is on a par with that of other enlightened nations of the earth—not so moral and physical education. Prudence, fortitude, truth, reverence, and fidelity, are not inculcated here as they should be. Industry, activity, and enterprise are our national good points of character, and these are impressed upon children by example, rather than by admonition; and our virtues, generosity, hospitality, courage, and patriotism, are the virtues of constitution and of circumstance, rather than of education.

We fail to impress the duty of PRUDENCE upon our children, and hence rash and culpable mercantile speculation, ending in insolvency—and hence hasty, inconsiderate marriages, ending in bankruptcy of heart, home, and happiness. We fail to impress the duty of FIDELITY upon our children, and hence irregularity and unfaithfulness in business, embezzlement of funds, &c., and hence broken marriage faith and deserted families.

We fail to inculcate the duty of FORTITUDE, and hence, when obligations, professional or matrimonial, become painful, they are too often abandoned.

But it is PHYSICAL EDUCATION, in its relation to the happiness of married life, that I wish to discuss. We are still more thoughtlessly neglectful, and I was about to say, _fatally_ neglectful of physical, than of moral education. _Fatally_, because no moral education can be completely successful, unless assisted and supported by a good physical training.

An instance—preach patience for ever, yet a dyspeptic _will_ be ill-tempered.

Another—preach industry for ever, yet the weak and languid _will_ be lazy and idle.

A third—inculcate the necessity of courage, presence of mind, by eloquent precept, and by the example of all the heroes and heroines of history, yet the nervous _will_ start if a door claps.

One might go on _ad infinitum_.

A defective physical education is one of the primary causes of unhappiness in the marriage relation. A girl cannot be a useful or a happy wife, and she cannot make her husband and her children happy, or even comfortable, unless she be a healthy woman. In Great Britain, a girl in delicate health never expects to be married, and her friends never desire it for her. American girls are proverbially delicate in organization, and frail in health, and their mothers were delicate before them, and their children will be still more delicate after them, unless there is a great reform in physical cultivation. Such a reform is happily beginning in the North. It is yet unthought of here, and in the West and South. Daily exercise by walking, skipping rope, calisthenics, horseback riding, which bring all the limbs and muscles into play; daily bathing in cold water on first rising in the morning; fresh air, simple, plain food, the disuse of coffee and tea, comfortable clothing, the disuse of tight ligatures, corsets, tight-waisted dresses, tight shoes, &c., are the best features of this excellent system of physical training. I believe that a young person with a good constitution to commence with, faithfully following these means for the preservation of health, with the blessing of God, will not fade or break until she is fifty, nor die until she is an hundred years old. I believe that youth, health, beauty, strength, and life can be greatly prolonged beyond their present average, and that we were all intended to live twice or three times as long as with our sad mal-treatment we do live.

American children (with the exception of a very few, whose parents know and practise better) grow up drinking hot tea and coffee, eating hot meats and rich gravies and pastries, never bathing, taking little exercise, confined in crowded school-rooms or close house-rooms, and become narrow-shouldered, hollow-cheeked, pale, sickly, nervous, and fretful; they marry early companions as pale, sickly, nervous, and fretful as themselves, and have children _twice_ as pale, sickly, nervous, and fretful as their parents, and discord and other domestic miseries are such inevitable results that we _must_ pity, and can scarcely blame the victims. They cry out in their agony for separation, divorce, for reform in social laws, when the truth is, no reform would cure their evils without a reform in their personal habits; such a reform as would give health, consequently good humor, and lastly, happiness.

Few people consider how much our _moral_ as well as our _physical_ health depends upon exercise, cleanliness, and temperance. How much our happiness depends upon a free circulation, unobstructed perspiration, and a good digestion. How much domestic discomfort is caused by the querulousness of ill health. Many a man of weak and unsettled principles is driven to dissipation and vice, and it may be to crime, by the discomforts of his home, of his sickly and nervous wife, fretful and troublesome children.

Another prominent cause of unhappy marriages, is the too unguarded and unrestrained association between young persons of opposite sexes in the same rank of society. If the dress and address of a young man are passable, if his conduct is unimpeachable, and his _prospects fair_, however otherwise unknown and untried, he may be admitted at once to the intimacy of a young lady, and after a brief courtship, _too_ brief to give either a knowledge of their own or each other’s hearts, take the last irrevocable step—_marriage_. And this youth of fair manners, fair appearance, and fair conduct, may turn out to be, if not positively depraved, yet weak, unstable, untried, possessing the _best reputation_, based upon the morality of externals, rather than the tested, sound integrity of heart; with the most _defective character_, totally unfit to guide himself, still less another, through the shoals and quicksands of life.

In the old times of chivalry, a knight must have proved his prowess before he could successfully aspire to the hand of his lady love. The days of knight-errantry are long past, but in the age of man, or of the world, the days of moral warfare are never over; never over with the world while it exists; never over with man until death; and I would have some better proof of moral force in an untried young man, than a few weeks of acquaintance, popularity, and mere amiability of manners would give, before I could trust the temporal and eternal welfare of my daughter to his keeping. When a young girl’s heart is lost and won, it is too late for these prudential considerations; in this case, as in every other, the old proverb holds good—_Fidarsi è bene, e non fidarse e meglio_. The conversational acquaintanceship should be prevented from maturing into the dangerous intimacy. Yet do not misunderstand me; I would not have you pain or repulse a young heart by the coldness of suspicion. I would not have you shut yourselves up in a dark distrust, and close your doors, and guard your girls with Eastern jealousy; far from it, one need not run upon Scylla in avoiding Charybdis. “Moderation is the golden thread that holds together the bead-roll of the virtues.” I would have you take the middle course—“the golden mean” between jealous surveillance and dangerous neglect. In all other civilized and enlightened society in the world, young ladies are carefully guarded and guided, chaperoned through the mazes of life. In countries of the Eastern continent this system of surveillance is excessive; here, it is reprehensibly deficient; in England it is perfect. I confess I would have our manners resemble the English in _this_ respect.

Still another primary cause (I speak only of _primary causes_ here, deeming discord, tyranny, drunkenness, infidelity, and desertion so many _effects_), still another primary cause of unhappiness in the marriage state, is that marriage is contracted too early in life. American girls are proverbially married too young; at an age at which even a hearty robust Englishwoman would scarcely be permitted to enter upon the responsibilities of marriage. How much more improper then must it be for an American girl, with her national extreme delicacy of organization, to take upon herself the heavy burdens and onerous duties of matrimony, before her feeble constitution is mature, or her frail strength confirmed. But our girls, with all these natural disadvantages, are married early, and hence the early (_proverbially_ again) wasting of health and life; the failing of beauty, decline of grace, and loss of attractions in the women; and hence the vexatious, nervous irritability so common in young mothers, so destructive to domestic harmony and happiness. How can it be otherwise with the continued tax of a young and increasing family upon the immature strength of the youthful wife and mother? Our girls are extremely fragile at best, and will ever be so, aye and will grow more so, unless a better system of physical education is generally adopted. When these delicate girls prematurely assume the cares and burdens of a family, they break down under it, become thin, pale, sickly, nervous, and fretful; no longer attractive, almost repulsive; and the husband, father, if his disposition be benevolent and protective, as is the nature of most American men, suffers martyrdom, devotes himself a living sacrifice to his sickly wife and large family. I know hundreds of such devoted men, all unconscious of their self-devotion, passing their lives in dull counting-houses, dark stores, dingy offices, dirty work-shops, or crowded school-rooms, so cheerfully! to provide a comfortable or a luxurious home where their wives and children ever live, but where they only come to snatch a hasty meal, or late at night to sleep. This, I think, is what Dr. Dewey calls “The Religion of Toil.” But if on the other hand this husband of the sickly wife, this father of the peevish children, this victim of early marriage and other abuses, happens to be selfish and unprincipled, he becomes, more or less, tyrant or reprobate, or he sometimes quietly _leaves_, goes to the West or South, to sea, or to parts unknown, and is never heard of again. If he be licentious as well as selfish, his wandering fancies fix upon some younger, fresher, fairer, or some _new_ form; then comes the thought of the possibility, the probability, the almost certainty, if he pursues it, of getting a legal enfranchisement from his matrimonial bonds. And this is naturally suggested by the facility with which divorces are granted; true, he cannot legally repudiate his wife while she remains faithful, but he _can_ oblige _her_ to release him, or break her neck, or her heart, or desert and starve her into compliance with his measures; or he can wrest her children from her, and make their restoration to her bosom the price of his release. I am not exaggerating, reader; if you live in a city, and will look about you, you will find that I speak truly. But to conclude, I reiterate, and insist upon this point, that the fundamental causes of unhappiness in married life, are a defective moral and _physical_ education—and a premature contraction of the matrimonial engagement.

THE DESERTED WIFE.