Marriage bed

“ When it is time for the guests to separate, the bridegroom with his best man goes to bring the bride to her future home. She carries something eatable to give to the unmarried guests at "the bedding." At that time the sleeping apartment is filled with them in the full spirit of "daifery." She throws one of her stockings from the bed, and then begins the struggle to get possession of it, which ensures the next marriage. ”

“ You sometimes find your wife in bed, in pain, helpless, and the blinds of her room are closed. The headache has imposed silence on every one, from the regions of the porter’s lodge, where he is cutting wood, even to the garret of your groom, from which he is throwing down innocent bundles of straw. ”

“ Where does the kind expecting Husband find a sincere Friend in his Bosom? How seldom does the tender affectionate Wife take a Friend into her Arms, even though she does take the Person, she takes the Man without the Husband, and the Husband without the Friend? Not Virtue, not Fidelity to the Marriage Bed, not Conscience of the Conjugal Duty, not Religion, will do it ”

“ This magnificent system of defence should above all be put in active operation in the apartment of your wife; never let her curtain her bed in such a way that one can walk round it amid a maze of hangings; be inexorable in the matter of connecting passages, and let her chamber be at the bottom of your reception-rooms, so as to show at a glance those who come and go.
The Marriage of Figaro will no doubt have taught you to put your wife's chamber at a great height from the ground. All celibates are Cherubins. ”

“ It is the pernicious custom to accord to these favored beings all the rights of solitude and retiracy that they could reasonably expect if the marriage ceremony had actually transpired. Except a private bed-room, they are as secluded whenever they may choose to be so, as any married couple could wish. "With closely drawn curtains, and with doors either locked or sacred from intrusion, they pass the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal'" in learning the details of passion, and too often its entire mysteries, to the detriment of their physical, and the utter ruin of their moral health. ”

“ In England the nuptial chamber is a sacred place. The married couple alone have the privilege of entering it, and more than one lady, we are told, makes her bed herself. Of all the crazes which reign beyond the sea, why should the only one which we despise be precisely that, whose grace and mystery ought undoubtedly to meet the approval of all tender souls on this continent? Refined women condemn the immodesty with which strangers are introduced into the sanctuary of marriage. ”

“ Here in our country it is the custom, even among the well-to-do, to sleep in one bed. This unhappy custom, apart from its unaesthetic aspect at the time of menstruation, leads easily to excesses, and many a young couple has ruined its life by excessive sexual indulgence. There should be chastity even in the marriage relations. It is hence to the best interest of husband and wife that they should at least occupy separate beds, if the circumstances do not allow the luxury of separate bed-rooms. The most refreshing sleep can only be attained by occupying the bed alone. ”

“ They are both willing to gratify their vitious Part in the formality of a legal Appointment, and so they agree to marry in form, and they are called Man and Wife; as such she throws off the Mask of Modesty, goes into the naked Bed to him, or suffers him to come to Bed to her ”

“ In the situation which we have supposed to be that of a married establishment, a man who is sufficiently unwise to sleep apart from his wife deserves no pity for the disaster which he himself invites.
Let us then resume our subject. Every man is not strong enough to undertake to occupy an apartment separate from that of his wife; although any man might derive as much good as evil from the difficulties which exist in using but one bed. ”

“ When in the bridal chamber, the bridegroom and bride sit upon a bed, face to face. An “offspring dumpling” is brought in, and handed to the bridegroom, who eats a mouthful. It is next handed to the bride, who takes a small piece into her mouth, and afterwards spits it out, as an omen that the marriage will be productive of a numerous offspring. The bridegroom then comes out of the bridal chamber, and the bride is left alone, still sitting on the bed. ”

“ What can two People at those Years say for marrying, seeing they know they can have no Children? It must be for the frailer Part, which it is not my Business to name; and 'tis only contrived, in a manner, less exposed to the common Scandal of the Times; the Woman has her wanton Ends answered, without the Reproach of taking a young Fellow to Bed to her, on the Account mentioned before, and only is content to sleep with an older Bedfellow, to avoid the Scandal. ”

“ For a young, handsome and agreeable Lady, with all the Blushes and Modesty of her Virgin Years about her, and under the best of Education, to marry, go naked to Bed, and receive the Man, as it were, in her Arms, and then say, she hopes she shall have no Children, and she desires to have no Children, this is a Language I cannot understand ”

“ A young Man marries a Wife, his Thoughts are to be sure upon having a suitable Bedfellow, a pleasant, agreeable, handsome Woman, to divert himself, and to sport with. What do we tell him of Inequalities and Unsuitableness? ”

“ No bed is large enough for two persons. If brides only knew the great risk they run of losing the most precious of all earthly possessions—the love of their husbands—they would struggle as resolutely to secure extreme temperance after marriage as they do to maintain complete abstinence before the ceremony. ”

“ Shall Husband and Wife Occupy the Same Bed?— Among civilized nations custom differs in this regard; in Germany, for instance, the husband and wife occupy separate beds in the same room; formerly in this country it was almost the universal custom for husband and wife to occupy the same bed. ”

“ At the risk of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of certain superior persons, I repeat that separation of beds and bedrooms is a dangerous experiment to make in marriage, and that it may easily lead to estrangement, even when based on the highest motives. ”

“ Having then lost all hope of any improvement of their social situation, and all sense of the indelicacy of taking a wife home to the bedroom already occupied by parents, brothers, and sisters, they marry early in life,—often, if not generally, before the age of twenty,—and very often occupy, for the first part of their married life, another bed in the already crowded sleeping-room of their parents! ”

“ As I was saying to you, the north room is large but cold, poetic but gloomy, and I will add that two are not too many in this wintry season to contend against the rigors of the night. I will further remark that if the sacred ties of marriage have a profoundly social significance, it is—do not interrupt me—at that hour of one’s existence when one shivers on one’s solitary couch. ”

“ The time is one of much fun and merriment, the women of the house bantering and taunting the bridegroom, especially when he is long in finding his wife’s hiding-place. When she is found the bridegroom leads the bride to the marriage-hall, and they sit there combing each other’s hair. ”

“ Though he cares for me, he will grow tired of marriage, and so shall I. The accessibility of a wife is so dull. I shall live in my own flat, and he can keep his rooms. Our marriage notice in all the papers will be followed by a week’s honeymoon, and then he can go back to his work, and I can play. He must love me better for not being sure of me at breakfast, weary of me at dinner, and asleep in the drawing-room at night. ”

“ You know by your own experience, if you are a married woman, that you always sit on the side of your bed when you are dramatizing the sadder prospects of going on doing your duty by this husband—or of not doing it. You chose the bed instead of a chair because of a potential sense of prostration. You prepare yourself to fall back in a storm of tears or to sink upon your knees in prayer for strength to bear this “cross.” The more modern woman is said frequently to rise unshriven, stride majestically across the room and stare at her own proudly rebellious reflection in the mirror. ”

“ After a while the young folks scatter away, setting up homes of their own. How beautiful it is then to see the old couple, who, thirty or forty years before, stood together at the marriage altar, standing together still, with love as true and pure and tender as ever, waiting to go home. By and by the husband goes away and comes back no more, and then the wife is lonesome and longs to go too. ”

“ If I were married—even if I were to marry Lily, I should insist on having separate rooms. Even with separate rooms marriage is intolerable. How much better to see her sometimes, sigh for her from afar, and so preserve one's ideal. ”

“ Husband and Wife.—It is not always wise that husband and wife should sleep together, nor that children—whose temperament does not harmonize—should be compelled to sleep in the same bed. By the same law it is wrong for the young to sleep with old persons. Some have slept in the same bed with persons, when in the morning they have gotten up seemingly more tired than when they went to bed. ”

“ All friends of the bride give her presents of bedclothes, it being an honour or mark of superiority to have many pairs of blankets. All those bidden to the "Bedding," as it is called, have to heap their gifts on the bed, and in the end there is quite an erection. ”

“ The bridegroom on dismounting walks seven times round the palanquin, the bride’s brother at each turn giving him a cut with an oleander twig, and the women of the family throwing showers of cake from the windows. He retires, and while mounting his horse, and before he is in the saddle, the bride’s father comes out, and, giving him a present, leads him into the marriage-hall.... The girl keeps her eyes closed throughout the whole day, not opening them until the bridegroom is ushered into the marriage-booth, so that the first object she sees is her intended husband. ”

“ On each side of the bridal couch is the figure of an angel holding a scroll exhorting to wisdom, purity, love and truth. Hidden in the drapery of the couch are self-playing instruments, whose soft music, awakened by the agitation of the air, and accompanied by delicate perfumes, sounds like the song of angels.
The bridesmaids undress the bride and throw over her a silver-gauze transparent lace, which gives her a fairy-like, vapoury appearance, as she reclines on the couch, with her long hair partly covering the beautiful outline of her figure, and the bridesmaids strew flowers around her. ”

“ I have heard my first husband say, that when he married me he thought he should never rest for an entire night in his bed, so often did I wake him with the description of some man or woman I had seen in the room. ”

“ The Comte de Noce could not help laughing, and the old marquis, quite put out of countenance, stopped short.
Not to divine the desire of a wife, to snore while she lies awake, to be in Siberia when she is in the tropics, these are the slighter disadvantages of twin beds. What risks will not a passionate woman run when she becomes aware that her husband is a heavy sleeper? ”

“ Husband and wife are sitting near the entrance of their house one night; the husband says, It is time to go to bed, shut the door; she says, Shut it yourself. They make a compact that the one who speaks first shall shut the door. The wife, tired of silence and growing sleepy, goes to bed; the husband stretches himself on a bench. A gentleman’s servant, whose lantern has been put out by the wind, seeing the door open, asks for a light. ”

“ One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. ”

“ The Bridegroom, who by the Help of his Friends is undress'd in some other Room, comes in his Night-gown as soon as possible to his Spouse, who is surrounded by Mother, Aunt, Sisters, and Friends, and without any farther Ceremony gets into Bed. Some of the Women run away, others remain, and the Moment afterwards they are all got together again. [55] The Bridemen Take the Bride's Stockings, and the Bridemaids the Bridegroom's; both sit down at the Bed's Feet and fling the Stockings over their Heads, endeavouring to direct them so as that they may fall upon the marry'd Couple. ”

“ In the aristocratic European families husband and wife occupy different bed-rooms. Throughout Germany, even among the poorer classes, husband and wife, although occupying the same room, have at least different beds. ”

“ At more modish weddings the guests merely enter the bridal-chamber and throw stockings—in which stones or something to make weight are placed—at the bride and bridegroom in bed. The first one hit, of the happy couple, betokens the sex of their first-born.
It was an old custom, religiously observed, until lately, in Zennor and adjacent parishes on the north coast, to waylay a married couple on their wedding-night and flog them to bed with cords, sheep-spans, or anything handy for the purpose ”

“ Above all else, the engaged couple should plan to have a home of their own, even if it is only two rooms. If economic considerations make them consider moving in with the in-laws, let some one warn them that the adjustment of two personalities which marriage involves demands some privacy beyond that of a bedroom. Parents, no matter how loving and wise, help the newly married most when they do not live under the same roof with them. ”