Marriageable

“ Who cares about the girls? No, the parents—the parents of our public in education. Now, Mr. Johns, what is it that every parent who sends a girl to a fashionable school really wants?"
"To get rid of her," answered Johns, with utmost conviction.
"Very true, but that's not all. It's no good to get rid of them for four or five years and then have them back on their hands forever. Parents want them made into charming women—marriageable women. Parents don't dare to say this—least of all to teachers, of whom they are naturally afraid. ”

“ But we cannot find any thing more sympathetic than a wife, nor any thing more kindred than children. Both these, however, marriage affords. How is it possible, therefore, that it should not be most advantageous to us?
I also think that a married life is beautiful. For what other thing can be such an ornament to a family, as is the association of husband and wife? ”

“ But I am speaking of it now, even where the Article of a bad Husband or a bad Wife are not concerned.
Marriage is an honourable State or Station of Life, but it is not a thoughtless, idle, unemployed State, even where the Concerns of the Family are easy, where Plenty flows, and the World smiles; yet a married Life has its Cares, its Anxieties, its Embarassments, which the young Lady knew nothing of in her Father's House, where she liv'd without Care, without Disturbance, slept without Fear, and wak'd without Sorrows. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It can produce nothing but Mischief and Confusion, the Nature of the Thing dictates no other.
To say Love is not essential to the Form of a Marriage, is true; but to say it is not essential to the Felicity of a married State, and consequently to that which I call Matrimony, is not true; and you may as truly say, that Peace is not essential to the good of a Family; as that the Harmony and Conjunction of Souls are not essential to the Happiness of the Persons joyn'd together. ”

“ There's no talking to a young woman now about marriage, but she is all in a blaze about hearts, and darts, and—and—But hark ye, child, I'll suffer no daughter of mine to play the fool with her heart, indeed! She shall marry for the purpose for which matrimony was ordained amongst people of birth—that is, for the aggrandisement of her family, the extending of their political influence—for becoming, in short, the depository of their mutual interest. ”

“ If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers count it for nothing in marriage? Why should Society take for its first law that the woman must be sacrificed to the family, introducing thus a note of discord into the very heart of marriage? ”

“ I have been pondering alone, seated beneath a rock in my park, and the fruit of my pondering is that love in marriage is a happy accident on which it is impossible to base a universal law. My Aveyron philosopher is right in looking on the family as the only possible unit in society, and in placing woman in subjection to the family, as she has been in all ages. ”

“ In some women who seemed to be possessed of good ingredients, they were so ill mixed up together as not to produce an elegant, interesting companion. It appeared to me that three of the grand inducements in the choice of a wife, are, that a man may have a directress for his family, a preceptress for his children, and a companion for himself. Can it be honestly affirmed that the present habits of domestic life are generally favorable to the union of these three essentials? Yet which of them can a man of sense and principle consent to relinquish in his conjugal prospects? ”

“ Being the first wife, while in the heyday of life and youth having her husband to herself, in obedience to the law of God she sacrificed her own feelings at the shrine of duty, and in compliance with the laws of celestial marriage was willing that others should also share the affections of her husband. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Marriage gives the husband a single and momentary opportunity to become in reality the master of his wife, to withdraw her from the influence of another, and make her his own for ever. Does he profit by it? ”

“ Has she a call to be a wife, who takes a journey [Pg 309] for pleasure, leaving her husband to toil in a close office, and “have an eye, when at home, to the servants and children?”
Has she a call to be a wife, who values an unrumpled collar or crinoline more than a conjugal kiss?
Has she a call to be a wife, to whom a good husband’s society is not the greatest of earthly blessings, and a house full of rosy children its best furnishing, and prettiest adornment? ”

“ 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. ”

“ "Ah, me," she sighed. "If marriage were as simple as love!" ”

“ So each young man, as he cast a last complacent glance in his mirror, recalled all sorts of romantic episodes in which wealthy damsels had fallen in love at first sight with some stranger, whom they had finally married against the wishes of their relatives,—for all these worthy bachelors had but one thought in this instance, marriage, and they even carried their honesty so far as to love marriage for the sake of marriage itself, and the bride became little more than an accessory in their eyes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It were to be wished, that all People that marry were to be ask'd before-hand if they really understood what Matrimony meant, and what the true intent of a married Life was, as well in its Institution, as in the grand Design of Family-Felicity; the married Couple are young, their Blood warm ”

“ The Batchelors and Maids Answer to the Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Answer to the First Mock Comfort. But why shou'd Marriage render Man undone?
When nothing's like it underneath the Sun.
True Pleasures in the Marriage-Bed alone,
Real Joys without it never yet was known.
The Charming Bliss in Wedlock chiefly lies,
A Single Life all Honest Men despise,
What greater Comfort can on Earth be found,
When two True Hearts are both together Crown'd. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I wish to live in such close union with a woman that our affection shall not depend upon a yes or a no, or be open to the disillusions of love. In short, I have the necessary courage to become, as you say, a worthy husband and father. I feel myself fitted for family joys; I wish to put myself under the conditions prescribed by society ”

“ John
You mean, they'll come in, be respectable? [Pg 206]
Judge
Admit that marriage has numerous drawbacks—and they'll see its advantages. Deny it—and they'll see nothing but each other. Marriage is in a bad way, but it's the less of two evils. Marriage must adjust itself to the New Woman—but the New Woman must meanwhile adjust herself to marriage. [Briskly to Lucy.] Now, then, did you send out that hurry call for the family this evening?
Lucy
Yes, they're on their way here now, but Uncle Everett, Doctor Hamilton said, next week. ”

“ No feeling survived in her but those of motherhood, of the family honor, and the pure attachment of a Christian wife for a husband who has gone astray—the saintly tenderness which survives all else in a woman's soul. ”

“ A happy wife, happy during and after half a lifetime spent in wedlock which did not escape the usual number of family troubles and sorrows, said once to me that the trouble with marriage was that conjugal impulse and conjugal sense were the scarcest faculties of the feminine nature. ”

“ In marriage each one dreams that he will find the Understander—the one from whom he may set out into the world in search of treasures of knowledge and experience, and before whom the spoils may be exhibited without thought of rivalry, and with the certainty of glad apprisal. Treasures, dear to our own hearts but of no value to others, should here find appreciation, and here the tender super-sensitive germ of an idea may be watered and tended till its ripe beauty is ready to burst upon the world. ”

“ I have traveled a great deal, and have studied the inner constitution of many different forms of society, and I assure you that nothing charms me more than a family consisting of one man and one woman, who have vowed to love each other and to protect the fruit of their love. Neither the heart of man, nor the quiet and security of the family, nor the dignity of woman, can be exalted and strengthened by polygamy.{184} Not even sensual passions are satisfied, for, as you know, sensuality is a sort of moral dropsy, which finally engenders tedium and disgust.’”
“Bravo, Father Moreno!” ”

“ A nice notion you have of a wife, to suppose she's nothing to think of but her husband's buttons. A pretty notion, indeed, you have of marriage. Ha! if poor women only knew what they had to go through. ”

“ 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 the presence of a just and pure God, and before the laws of Nature that are designed to govern all conjugal relations, does marriage give to the husband any right over the person of the wife, or to the wife any rights over the person of the husband, which neither had before? Has a husband any more right to demand of his wife the surrender of her person to his passion, than he 104has to demand that surrender of any other woman? True marriage creates necessities in each, and gives vitality and intensity to wants in each, which the presence, the love and companionship of the other can supply ”

“ And how fewer marriages, when consummated, would continue happy, if the husband were not either sottishly insensible of, or did not purposely wink at and pass over the lightness and forwardness of his good-natured wife? ”

“ Matrimony is a solemn Work, 'tis proposed as a sacred Institution, and the conjugal State is, upon all Occasions, look'd upon, by those that confider and understand it, as a kind of Civil Establishment in life; to engage in it Rashly, and without Consideration, is perfectly inconsistent with the Nature of the Thing, and with all that is proposed in it, or expected from it, at least by wife and sober People. ”

“ Well, this model of mine is married, of course,
For how could a bachelor be one?
So I gauge him by marital morals and force;
As a husband, he merits a crown for a cross,
For he acts as a beau instead of a boss—
I’d go to the moon to see one. ”

“ I was ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single and only talked of a population. From this motive, I had scarcely taken orders a year, before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife, as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but for such qualities as would wear well. ”

“ The burning magnificence of an overpowering lifelong love is not given to many, and a husband who desires lasting and mutual happiness in his marriage, will carefully study his wife, observe how far she has a normal rhythm, and in what respects she possesses peculiar personal traits. ”

“ How often do we hear them say, If I had known what it had been to be a Wife, if I had known what it had been to be a Husband, and to have the Care of a Family upon me, and a House-full of Children to provide for, and take care of, I would never have married. Some indeed Repent upon a worse Foot. ”

“ PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE PART FIRST BY HONORE DE BALZAC PREFACE IN WHICH EVERY ONE WILL FIND HIS OWN IMPRESSIONS OF MARRIAGE. A friend, in speaking to you of a young woman, says: "Good family, well bred, pretty, and three hundred thousand in her own right." ”

“ The domestic life of this couple who set up the standard of absolute equality of husband and wife was an exquisite idyl, fragrant with love and tenderness, a poem whose rhythm was not marred, a divine melody that rose above the discords and dissensions of domestic life upon the lowlands where man is the ruler and woman the subject. ”

“ Yes, I favor marriage—I do not conceal it—the happy marriage in which we cast into the common lot our ideas and our sorrows, as well as our good-humor and our affections. Suppress, by all means, in this partnership, gravity and affectation, yet add a sprinkling of gallantry and good-fellowship. Preserve even in your intimacy that coquetry you so readily assume in society. Seek to please your husband. Be amiable. Consider that your husband is an audience, whose sympathy you must conquer. ”