Marrying

“ I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason—I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An excellent mood for a wife, no doubt—or for a husband—excellent, and, it may be, inevitable. But for a lover yet unmated, a bride still to be, a girl in her first love? Should she not leave reverend seniors to prate to her—quite vainly—of difficulties and dangers, while her fancy is roaming far afield in dreamy lands of golden joy? To endeavour, by an affectionate study of and consideration for your partner, to avoid unhappiness and to give comfort—such is wont to be the text of the officiating minister's little homily at a wedding. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We have already found the explanation of the fairness of the bride in her reflecting like a mirror the beauty of the Bridegroom. Well may He with satisfaction describe her beauty while she is thus occupied with Himself! The lips that speak only of Him are like a thread of scarlet; the mouth or speech which has no word of self, or for self, is comely in His sight. [41]
How sweet His words of appreciation and commendation were to the bride we can well imagine; but her joy was too deep for expression; she was silent in her love. ”

“ Let the bride rejoice, let all the saints rejoice, for the day of the marriage with the bridegroom, even the Lamb of God, is at hand, and his fair white robes shall be given her, she shall be arrayed with the golden vestry and the needle work of his manifold graces that shall be put under her; he who is her life, shall quickly appear, and fire shall quickly appear with him, in the glory and happiness of a consummate marriage. ”

“ Know that, in my home, I am already joined by the indissoluble tie of marriage to a virtuous wife, and her three tender children lisp their father's name. How could a heart, torn asunder by sadness and longing, aspire to the Pearl of Beauty, and offer her a divided love? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her hue is blue and red: the fiend who clingeth close is driven off. Well thrive the kinsmen of this bride the husband is bound fast in bonds. 29. Give thou the woollen robe away: deal treasure to the Brahman priests. This female fiend hath got her feet, and as a wife attends her lord. 30. Unlovely is his body when it glistens with this wicked fiend, What time the husband wraps about his limbs the garment of his wife. 31. Consumptions, from her people, which follow the bride's resplendent train,- These let the Holy Gods again bear to the place from which they came. ”

“ And let the young men and the bride-maids share
Your garters; and their joints
Encircle with the bridegroom's points.
By the bride's eyes, and by the teeming life
Of her green hopes, we charge ye that no strife
(Farther than gentleness tends) gets place
Among ye, striving for her lace:
O do not fall
Foul in these noble pastimes, lest ye call
Discord in, and so divide
The youthful bridegroom and the fragrant bride:
Which love forfend; but spoken
Be't to your praise, no peace was broken. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But be merry, O new married Couple, that you, like unto young Toby, have found out the remedy, how to drive away this Devil-Plaguer of your Wedlock; by living in love and tranquility, equally confiding in each other, desiring no superiority; but with a true cordiality, interchangeably granting, and having each alike freedom of the monies; the Husband hath the keeping and government of the keys, and the Wife wants for no mony; nay hath access also her self to it. Who can doubt but that your family will be blest, and your stock of monies increase. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and command thee to marry one that feareth God. For thou art very clay. Mated ill thou shalt be naught. But wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratia, live a pious princess ”

“ 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. ”

“ Marriage is to me in the bluest of all blue distances,—far off, mysterious, and dreamy as the Mountains of the Moon or sources of the Nile. It shall come only when I have secured a fortune that shall place my wife above all necessity of work or care. ”

“ Make your self merry amongst the rest of the Wedding guests, so far as is becoming you: who knows, but that some brave Gentlemans man, Coachman, or neighbors servant, may fall in love with you; for many times out of one Wedding comes another, and then you might come to be a woman of good fashion. Udsbud Mally! then you would know, as well as your Mistress, what delights are to be had in the first Wedding night. Then you would also know how to discourse of the first Pleasure of marriage, and with the Bride expect the second.
THE SECOND PLEASURE.
The Woman goes to buy houshold-stuf. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A young girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspiration, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness brooding upon her childlike nature, Marriage made her a woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. ”

“ For you may never be another’s bride.
That line I learn’d not in the old sad song. Mother.
I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue,
Play with the bride-maids, and be glad, my boy,
For thou shalt be a second father’s joy. Child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pride of the husband could not have been more gratified, than by displaying at once, to an admiring world, his young, interesting, and blooming bride, in all the native lustre of personal and mental charms. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ A wife at any time! Marriage will be always in my power.
When put to the university, the same course of initial studies will qualify the yonker for the one line or the other. The genius ought to point out the future lawyer, divine, or physician!—So the same cautious conduct, with such a vigilance, will do either for the wife, or for the no-wife. When I reform, I'll marry. ”

“ All of one’s friends help a little. Marriage is like a country surprise party each guest of which has been asked to ‘Please furnish Advice.’ Aunt Levina said: ‘My dear, marriage is like medicine—it isn’t so much what you take as what you believe it is going to do.’ Papa said: ‘Madge, girl, ask your mother how she hypnotized me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Your father said, 'The girls will marry, of course.' There will be a certain sum for each of you on your wedding-day, but there's no question of either of you being able to afford to remain unmarried, and live decently. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ When these come together, there's Matrimony in its Perfection; if they marry, they can answer the Minister, when he asks them, Will you love him? Will you love her? The Man can say, I will, because I do ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thrice happy are you, O noble Couple, that you are yet in possession of the Pleasures of the first Marriage, and are not troubled with the contention of a cross-graind Father-in-law, or Mother-in-law over your Children, nor with their fore-children, or Children of the second bed. ”

“ Till the bride and the groom were a-bed.
And what they did there must be counsel to me,
Because they lay long the next day,
And I had haste home, but I got a good piece
Of the bride-cake, and so came away. ”