Character — Ch 11b - Companionship in Marriage, cont.

Man enters a new world of joy, and sympathy, and human interest, through the porch of love.

He enters a new world in his home--the home of his own making--altogether different from the home of his boyhood, where each day brings with it a succession of new joys and experiences.

He enters also, it may be, a new world of trials and sorrows, in which he often gathers his best culture and discipline.

"Family life," says Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of thorns and cares; but they are fruitful: all others are dry thorns."

And again: "If a man's home, at a certain period of life, does not contain children, it will probably be found filled with follies or with vices."

[203] A life exclusively occupied in affairs of business insensibly tends to narrow and harden the character.

It is mainly occupied with self-watching for advantages, and guarding against sharp practice on the part of others.

Thus the character unconsciously tends to grow suspicious and ungenerous.

The best corrective of such influences is always the domestic; by withdrawing the mind from thoughts that are wholly gainful, by taking it out of its daily rut, and bringing it back to the sanctuary of home for refreshment and rest: "That truest, rarest light of social joy, Which gleams upon the man of many cares."

"Business," says Sir Henry Taylor, "does but lay waste the approaches to the heart, whilst marriage garrisons the fortress."

And however the head may be occupied, by labours of ambition or of business--if the heart be not occupied by affection for others and sympathy with them--life, though it may appear to the outer world to be a success, will probably be no success at all, but a failure.

[204] A man's real character will always be more visible in his household than anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better exhibited by the manner in which he bears rule there, than even in the larger affairs of business or public life.

His whole mind may be in his business; but, if he would be happy, his whole heart must be in his home.

It is there that his genuine qualities most surely display themselves--there that he shows his truthfulness, his love, his sympathy, his consideration for others, his uprightness, his manliness--in a word, his character.

If affection be not the governing principle in a household, domestic life may be the most intolerable of despotisms.

Without justice, also, there can be neither love, confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic rule is founded.

Erasmus speaks of Sir Thomas More's home as "a school and exercise of the Christian religion."

"No wrangling, no angry word was heard in it;

no one was idle; every one did his duty with alacrity, and not without a temperate cheerfulness."

Sir Thomas won all hearts to obedience by his gentleness.

He was a man clothed in household goodness; and he ruled so gently and wisely, that his home was pervaded by an atmosphere of love and duty.

He himself spoke of the hourly interchange of the smaller acts of kindness with the several members of his family, as having a claim upon his time as strong as those other public occupations of his life which seemed to others so much more serious and important.

But the man whose affections are quickened by home-life, does not confine his sympathies within that comparatively narrow sphere.

His love enlarges in the family, and through the family it expands into the world.

"Love," says Emerson, "is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and nature with its generous flames."

It is by the regimen of domestic affection that the heart of man is best composed and regulated.

The home is the woman's kingdom, her state, her world--where she governs by affection, by kindness, by the power of gentleness.

There is nothing which so settles the turbulence of a man's nature as his union in life with a highminded woman.

There he finds rest, contentment, and happiness--rest of brain and peace of spirit.

He will also often find in her his best counsellor, for her instinctive tact will usually lead him right when his own unaided reason might be apt to go wrong.

The true wife is a staff to lean upon in times of trial and difficulty; and she is never wanting in sympathy and solace when distress occurs or fortune frowns.

In the time of youth, she is a comfort and an ornament of man's life; and she remains a faithful helpmate in maturer years, when life has ceased to be an anticipation, and we live in its realities.

What a happy man must Edmund Burke have been, when he could say of his home, "Every care vanishes the moment I enter under my own roof!"

And Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her."

Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom he may live in peace and tranquillity--to whom he may confide his whole possessions, even his life and welfare."

And again he said, "To rise betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever repents of doing."

For a man to enjoy true repose and happiness in marriage, he must have in his wife a soul-mate as well as a helpmate.

But it is not requisite that she should be merely a pale copy of himself.

A man no more desires in his wife a manly woman, than the woman desires in her husband a feminine man.

A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect, but in her affections.

She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather than by her knowledge.

"The brain-women," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "never interest us like the heart-women."

[205] Men are often so wearied with themselves, that they are rather predisposed to admire qualities and tastes in others different from their own.

"If I were suddenly asked," says Mr. Helps, "to give a proof of the goodness of God to us, I think I should say that it is most manifest in the exquisite difference He has made between the souls of men and women, so as to create the possibility of the most comforting and charming companionship that the mind of man can imagine."

[206] But though no man may love a woman for her understanding, it is not the less necessary for her to cultivate it on that account.

[207] There may be difference in character, but there must be harmony of mind and sentiment--two intelligent souls as well as two loving hearts: "Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life."

There are few men who have written so wisely on the subject of marriage as Sir Henry Taylor.

What he says about the influence of a happy union in its relation to successful statesmanship, applies to all conditions of life.

The true wife, he says, should possess such qualities as will tend to make home as much as may be a place of repose.

To this end, she should have sense enough or worth enough to exempt her husband as much as possible from the troubles of family management, and more especially from all possibility of debt.

"She should be pleasing to his eyes and to his taste: the taste goes deep into the nature of all men--love is hardly apart from it; and in a life of care and excitement, that home which is not the seat of love cannot be a place of repose; rest for the brain, and peace for the spirit, being only to be had through the softening of the affections.

He should look for a clear understanding, cheerfulness, and alacrity of mind, rather than gaiety and brilliancy, and for a gentle tenderness of disposition in preference to an impassioned nature.

Lively talents are too stimulating in a tired man's house--passion is too disturbing....

"Her love should be A love that clings not, nor is exigent, Encumbers not the active purposes, Nor drains their source; but profers with free grace Pleasure at pleasure touched, at pleasure waived, A washing of the weary traveller's feet, A quenching of his thirst, a sweet repose, Alternate and preparative; in groves Where, loving much the flower that loves the shade, And loving much the shade that that flower loves, He yet is unbewildered, unenslaved, Thence starting light, and pleasantly let go When serious service calls."

[208] Some persons are disappointed in marriage, because they expect too much from it; but many more, because they do not bring into the co-partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness, forbearance, and common sense.

Their imagination has perhaps pictured a condition never experienced on this side Heaven; and when real life comes, with its troubles and cares, there is a sudden waking-up as from a dream.

Or they look for something approaching perfection in their chosen companion, and discover by experience that the fairest of characters have their weaknesses.

Yet it is often the very imperfection of human nature, rather than its perfection, that makes the strongest claims on the forbearance and sympathy of others, and, in affectionate and sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions.

The golden rule of married life is, "Bear and forbear."

Marriage, like government, is a series of compromises.

One must give and take, refrain and restrain, endure and be patient.

One may not be blind to another's failings, but they may be borne with good-natured forbearance.

Of all qualities, good temper is the one that wears and works the best in married life.

Conjoined with self-control, it gives patience--the patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to refrain until the angry flash has passed.

How true it is in marriage, that "the soft answer turneth away wrath!"

Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good wife, divided them into ten parts.

Four of these he gave to good temper, two to good sense, one to wit, one to beauty--such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes, a fine person, a graceful carriage; and the other two parts he divided amongst the other qualities belonging to or attending on a wife--such as fortune, connections, education [20that is, of a higher standard than ordinary], family blood, &c. ; but he said: "Divide those two degrees as you please, only remember that all these minor proportions must be expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them that is entitled to the dignity of an integer."

It has been said that girls are very good at making nets, but that it would be better still if they would learn to make cages.

Men are often as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to keep.

If the wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place that her husband can find refuge in--a retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world--then God help the poor man, for he is virtually homeless!

No wise person will marry for beauty mainly.

It may exercise a powerful attraction in the first place, but it is found to be of comparatively little consequence afterwards.

Not that beauty of person is to be underestimated, for, other things being equal, handsomeness of form and beauty of features are the outward manifestations of health.

But to marry a handsome figure without character, fine features unbeautified by sentiment or good-nature, is the most deplorable of mistakes.

As even the finest landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless a beautiful nature shines through it.

The beauty of to-day becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely.

Moreover, this kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it.

After the first year, married people rarely think of each other's features, and whether they be classically beautiful or otherwise.

But they never fail to be cognisant of each other's temper.

"When I see a man," says Addison, "with a sour rivelled face, I cannot forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, I think of the happiness of his friends, his family, and his relations."

We have given the views of the poet Burns as to the qualities necessary in a good wife.

Let us add the advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son, embodying the experience of a wise statesman and practised man of the world.

"When it shall please God," said he, "to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife;

for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil.

And it is an action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once....

Enquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth.

[209] Let her not be poor, how generous [20well-born] soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility.

Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee.

Neither make choice of a dwarf, or a fool; for by the one thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, while the other will be thy continual disgrace, and it will yirke [20irk] thee to hear her talk.

For thou shalt find it to thy great grief, that there is nothing more fulsome [20disgusting] than a she-fool."