Marid

“ LEGAL MARRIAGE.—What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? ”

“ There was once a husband and wife who had but one child, a daughter. Now it happened that the wife fell ill and was at the point of death. Before dying she called her husband, and said to him, weeping: "I am dying; you are still young; if you ever wish to marry again, be mindful to choose a wife whom my wedding ring fits; and if you cannot find a lady whom it fits well, do not marry." ”

“ And how clearly and impressively are the spiritual uses of marriage sometimes revealed here on earth!—A fond and devoted wife sees the partner of her bosom pursuing a downward and criminal course—plunging deeper and deeper into vice and infamy—gradually blinding his intellect, benumbing his moral sense, destroying his manhood. ”

“ I have heard of one gentleman, who having lived in a state of domestic jarring with his wife, got her persuaded to concur with him in applying for a divorce.—This was soon obtained.—He then married another woman, with whom he was violently in love, and expected, as usual, eternal happiness. ”

“ Straight as a dart, but with that look on her face, she came towards us. 'Did I hear aright?' were the words that came from her lips. 'Have you married me, a woman beneath your station as I now perceive, because you were commanded to do so? Have you not loved me? given me that which alone makes marriage a sacrament or even a possibility? ”

“ The wife who comes to see the husband who has been taken away from her, the husband who creeps in towards a bed in which, so small and girlish and white, she lies waiting for him? The flowers, the little cheerfulnesses, and, behind it all, the doubt, the wondering, the ache, the sense of injustice. ”

“ Who longtime had courted, but nothing of wedding,
At length this fair maiden was pleased to say,
Come tell to me plain. what do you mean?
For of wooing I'm weary,
Resolved to marry,
Or else from your company I will refrain.
I needs must confess I love you dearly,
And you are the choice of the whole world beside,
The one that I marry I'll tell you plainly,
That I will forsake your sweet company quite:
For when a man's wed, his joys are all fled,
He is bound from all liberty,
Tied down to slavery,
So I will be free and bid you good night. ”

“ Now, therefore, since to wed is good, and life
To the unwedded woman seems a load
Which few may bear, and none desire, I prithee,
This jewelled chalice taking, mingle wine
As well thou knowest, and the honeyed draught
Give to some noble youth of those thou seest
Along the well-ranged tables, knowing well
That him to whom thou givest, thou shalt wed.
I fetter not thy choice, girl. I grow old;
I have no son to share the weight of rule,
And fain would see thy children ere I die."
Then, with a kiss upon her blushing cheek,
He gave the maid the cup. ”

“ If a tale reaches her ears of a wife who has failed of her duty, or if the public newspapers record a divorce, then she awakens her husband to a sense of his superior happiness, and her own irreproachable virtue. ”

“ Give the elder son’s wife a year or two, cousin, for sometimes when seven years are passed barren, a woman will come to her true nature and bear a harvest of good children, for I have seen it so, and as for the lad’s saying he will not wed, why then he has a love somewhere, and we must find out who she is, and if she is fit for him to wed or not. ”

“ O King’s daughter, do folk like you do such foul deed with the daughters of Kings? Thou knowest that my father is a mighty Sovran and that all the liege lords of the Jinn stand in awe of him and fear his majesty: for that there are with him magicians and sages and Cohens and Satans and Marids, such as none may cope withal, and under his hand are folk whose number none knoweth save Allah. How then doth it become you, O daughters of Kings, to harbour mortal men with you and disclose to them our case and yours? ”

“ Has she a call to be a wife, whose husband’s love weighs naught in the balance with her next door neighbor’s damask curtains, or velvet carpet?
Has she a call to be a wife, who would take advantage of a moment of conjugal weakness, to extort money or exact a promise?
Has she a call to be a wife, who “has the headache” whenever her husband wants her to walk with him, but willingly wears out her gaiter boots promenading with his gentlemen friends? ”

“ Then the widow said to the man's daughter, "Do you hear, tell your father I wish to marry him, and you shall every morning wash in milk and drink wine, but my daughter shall wash in water and drink water." So the girl went home and told her father what the woman had said, and he replied, "What shall I do? Marriage is a comfort, but it is also a torment." ”

“ Bridegroom, the person whom you now take by the hand, you receive to be your married wife: you promise to love her, to honor her, to support her, and in all things to treat her as you are now, or shall hereafter be convinced is by the laws of Christ made your duty,—a tender husband, with unspotted fidelity till death shall separate you. ”

“ Has that man a call to be a husband, who, when the rosy maiden he married is transformed by too early an introduction to the cares and trials of maternity, into a feeble, confirmed invalid, turns impatiently from the restless wife’s sick-room, to sun himself in the perfidious smile of one whom he would blush to name in that wife’s pure ears? ”

“ In my cynical mood this afternoon I cannot but observe that where the wives are in tears the husbands are all smiles and jokes; whilst a blithe face on the part of a wife means a grim and melancholy countenance on the part of her spouse. ”

“ What can you be able to do, that would be more grateful to them, than if they should see you divorc'd from your Husband; a Widow, nay, to live, a Widow bewitcht, worse than a Widow? For Widows may marry again. ”

“ But marriage is not, after all, the ultimatum of earthly bliss, Miss Brandt! Many married couples would tell you it is just the reverse. And with a fortune at your command, you have many pleasures and interests quite apart from that very over-rated institution of matrimony. ”

“ If he dips the left hand by chance into clean water, his future wife will come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if into the empty dish, he will have no marriage at all; if into the foul, he will marry a widow. ”

“ Ah, what you and she are looking at to-day is the strife- and beauty-apple of marriage hanging only on the sunny side of love, all red and soft; no one sees the green sour side of the apple hidden in the shade. And if ye have ever been grieved to the soul for some luckless wife who has chanced, ten years after her wedding, to come upon her old bridal dress, in a drawer, while tears for all the sweet illusions she has lost in these ten years rise in a moment to her eyes, are you so sure it will be otherwise with this envied one who passes before you all joy and brightness now? ”

“ In truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their separation, the last words of the wife to the husband being those of the most playful affection, while the language of the husband toward the wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy, are in themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. ”

“ When she has thus obtained a wife for her husband, she carries her home, puts her to bed with her husband, where, having left her, she feasts with the bride's relations. There the children of the first marriage are produced, and the men of the bride's family put each their hands upon these children's heads, and afterwards take the oath in the usual manner, to live and die with them as their own offspring. ”

“ The wedding being over, and the bridegroom having enjoyed his charming bride, grew exceedingly fond of her, even to dottage, which sickened and palled her love toward him, and he perceiving it, strove to wind himself the more into her affections ”

“ There was once an unmarried man whom some of his friends desired to marry to a maid, some to a widow, and others again to a woman who was divorced from her husband. For his part he knew not which to choose, for all the three were good and handsome. He went therefore to a certain old man, to ask his advice as to whether it would be best to marry the maid, the widow, or the divorced woman. ”

“ I will bring this lady to the altar—or, rather, to that table, and you will marry her, after which you can settle matters just exactly as you please; live with her as your wife, or make your bow and walk away, which, I care nothing so long as you are married. ”

“ Whoever shall leave his wife, and shall repent leaving her, she having been given to another husband; if the first husband overtake her with one foot in the bed and the other out; the first husband by law is to have her. ”

“ It is not a hundred years ago since a young gentleman of this country wished to know and experience the joys of matrimony, and—to cut matters short—the much-desired day of his marriage duly came.
After much good cheer and the usual amusements, the bride was put to bed, and a short time afterwards her husband followed, and lay close to her, and without delay duly began the assault on her fortress. ”

“ Let the husband keep his head, and THE WIFE UTTERLY LOSE HERS, throwing it to the winds, to be wholly swept away by the whirlwind of her passion; feeling free, delighting, to let it go, go, go, no one cares where! ”

“ He said, "O woman! what hast thou, with thy wondrous beauty, to do with a poor sick husband? Go, be divorced from thy husband, and marry me. I have great possessions, and I will treat thee as a queen." ”

“ The sole object of this ceremony has been to relieve the bride of the reproach of prolonged and unseasonable maidenhood. Whether you will ever see one another in this life I cannot say. If it should happen that you meet, you would not be able to recognise one another as husband and wife. ”

“ The charms that helped to catch the Husband, are generally laid by, one after another, 'till the Lady grows a downright Wife, and then runs crying to her Mother, because she has transform'd her Lover into a downright Husband. ”

“ You will get married—a fine ceremony, with a fine feast; and all the nasty old women of the neighbourhood will come and tell bawdy stories to enliven the occasion. You get married, and thereafter you are at the mercy of your wife, who will indulge your wishes or not as suits her mood. Your house will be all awry if she has but a slight headache. When the baby comes, the place will be filled with old women and baby-linen and medical apparatus, and you will have all the anxieties of a father added to the discomforts of a neglected husband. ”

“ You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry, as becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of the Genoese—the moment that it is mine to bestow—the moment that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. ”

“ Ha, ha, the first thought of a young girl—‘shall I ever be married?’ Yes, yes, pretty one. I can promise you a husband for certain! Girls like you—so lovely and naïve—are very sure to marry, for the men will not give them any peace. ”

“ I made my husband swear, on my wedding-night, that he would wive none but me, and he saw others with children and longed for them and said to me, ‘Thou art a barren thing!’ I answered, ‘Thou art a mule which begetteth not’ ”

“ The young bride, in her ignorance and innocence, had not an idea but that this was the usual mode of procedure with husband and wife, and thoroughly enjoyed the long journey and the varied scenery through which she was being whirled. Its newness and the strong contrast to her Southern home made it all the more delightful. ”

“ The bride comes in, heavily veiled, in the company of her father or some old and revered relation, who clasps the hands of husband and wife and joins them together, making a short and appropriate speech of congratulation and good wishes for a happy conjugal existence. ”

“ Your marriage will resemble the acacia-grove we are now going to, the leaves of which grow thicker with the heat of summer, while other shrubs are yielding only shrunk and porous shade."
As we entered through the upper garden-door into this same bower, the supper and the good mistress were already there. Nothing is more pure and tender than the respect with which a wife treats the benefactor or comrade of her husband ”

“ Gradually the curious, timid, admiring bride is merged in the wife, with ambition budding in her heart, and exacting pride pleading for recognition and wifely dignities, and in this transformation the power of the woman asserted itself. ”

“ The lover asks the husband for the hand of his niece in marriage, to which he joyously consents, and without knowing it makes a present of his own wife. “All his life long the lover possessed her, because the husband gave and did not lend her ”

“ As she passed into the vestry to sign the marriage register, leaning proudly upon the arm of her newly made husband, and followed by her few attending personal friends, a man who had witnessed the ceremony from behind a clustered pillar in the church, stole out into the square, his face lighted by a lurid smile, his eyes emitting the same peculiar, exultant gleam as the bride’s had done. ”

“ With a great deal of shyness and simpering and half-suppressed grinning, and real or affected modesty on the part of the women, and equal mirth and awkward self-consciousness on that of the aspirant bridegrooms, the candidates for matrimony—or at least such of them as were present, one couple and a 'boy' being away—were got together and ranged in a row before us, hoes in hand, where they stood, to their own and the boisterous delight of their colaborers. ”