PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10248, 18 January 1899, Page 6

PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE

By the author of "How to be Happy Though Married," &c.

The Cirl's Own Paper.

A minister of one of the many denominations once began an extempore marriage service with these words, "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a evirse to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" When nj rojrly was forthcoming he said, ".'Let's proceed.' , 0vr ,. 1 think that it is only those who are wickedly careless, or so stupid that they are without anxiety, who make this venture without flue preparation, and this preparation should! begin, as it seems to mc, with our earliest years. Not, of course, that little boys and girls should be always thinking of and planning for marriage, but that their parents and guardians should remember that this is a fate in store for thorn, and that one day these children will have homes of their own Avhich they will either curse or bless. That some preparation is required for marriage was authoritatively recognised by the ancient state of Belgium, as I gather from a picture which I once saw in the Historical Society's collection of paintings in New York. The scene is the inside of a peasant's house in Belgium. On an easy chair sits a fatherly old priest who is catechising a shy. awkward-looking country bumpkin. Near him is his lady-love. She would gladly prompt him only the priest is keeping a sharp eye upon her. In the background is the girl's mother preparing a wedding repast in case the young people pass their qualifying examination. Underneath is the name of the picture —"Catechism before marriage according to the ancient State of Belgium as necessary for the state and matrimonial security." Now we think that this was a very good rule, which provided that bo;ore young people should take upon themselves the great responsibilities of marriage, they should have learned at least this much *of the catechism, how to do their duty to their neighbour. Of course husband and wife are more to each other than mere neighbours, but they are that at least, and if they do not do their duty towards each other, homes will be wretched, and where homes are miserable the state cannot but be weak, so we see that it ( was a matter for state control. >■■ Suppose a man spends his youth not in settling his habits, wjiich is what we ought to do when young, but in sowing wild oats, do you not think tha. he will reap a crop of wild oats in domestic life? ~;.• ..* "Who is tho happy Husband? Hβ who scanning his unwedded life Thanks Heaven with' a conscience free 'twas faithful to his future wife." Who, on the other hand, is a miserable husband? Re who cannot bring to his marriage a clean bill of, moral health, who cannot make upon his wife the best c<£ all marriacre settlements, the settlements of habits in the right direction. ; And even young ladies require some'prepara.tion tor marriage. If they are frivolous and flirty and have no higher notion of worship than to burn incense to vanity, they will not , be happy themselves in married life and assuredly t~ey'vrill not make their husbiuds happy. ■ Then there is physical "or bodily health to be considCTed. Mr Herbert Kpsncer says that the foundation of all success in life is tobo a good animal. If a young man is always ailing (sometimes the consequence of ale-ing) ho will not be capable of supporting his wife and children, and if a woman have a chronic sofa complaint, she may be a very good woman, but she has mistaken her vocation when she became a wife. The doctor's bills, too, have to be considered,and the effect children of hereditary complaints.' On one occasion as Dr. Johnson and a young man were waiting in Mr Thrale's drawing-room before dinner, the young man. asked the doctor if he would advise him to marry. Nettled

it the interruption the doctor replied, "Sir I would advise no man to marry who. is not r likely to propagate understanding. This was a iwi9e answer, for people should not marry if they are likely to have childrenwho - will be diseased in soul, mind or body. *^ It is said that money is a root of evil, hut * it is not a bad thing to have a little bit of this root with us when wo go shopping, and some of ib is also required when we go marry, ing, unless we are to blunk that mortality is one of the effects of matrimony as a certain servant girl seems to have thought. The mistress with whom she last lived meeting her one day asked. "Well, Mary, where are you living now?" "Pleace, ma'am, I'm ndt living anywhero now I'm married." Some of us who are married find that wo have survived the operation and also that, we require a certain amount of money to live upon, aad therefore we can sympathise with the sensi bie gi.l who, having tried a rigorous lovej in-a-cottage dietary gave it as her experience that a kiss and a cup of cold water make a i poor breakfast. At the same time it is quite possible to exaggerate the amount of money necessary for marriage. Show mc a couple who are .> miserable on account of straitened circumstances, and I will show you a doztvn couplea who are unhappy on account i>f other circumstances. I suppose we all know old bpvhelors who have plenty of money for "marriage but thoy have not enough courage >a;ndi£hey make, "I can't afford it' a mere ex[4u&.'' ■ This was the case with Pitt. 'When he was Prime Minister of England and had from all sources an income of about £30,QQQ a year he used to say that ho could not afford to many, and then some one calculated that in his household about sixty pounds of meat was allowed for each man and woman. For the more economical arrangements of his domestic affairs, it" for no other reason, he ought to have'married. I sometimes say to young officers who are inclined to ba extravagant, "I wonder how you can afford not to be married, 1 could not." Certainly it' a young man will smoke the best cigp.rs and will i»jye expensive drinks to every one who claps Turn upon the back and calls him, "Old Man" he cannot afford to marry—why? Because he will not deny himself small and not very elevating luxuries for the sake of oltaining the great luxury of a good wife. Then if a man has a> small income- lie must cheose fer a wife a girl with a slender waste, not one, that is ' to say, who has made her waist small by health-destroying corsets, but one who can manage her husband's income with the least amount of waste. "Why don't the men propose?" is a question which is often asked. One reason why some of them do not do so is because they are afraid of the possible extravagance of wives. I gather, this from a question which was lately overheard in a ballroom. A lady of a not very retiring disposition asked a middle-aged gentleman with whom she was dancing.. "Why don't you marry, can't you afford to support a wife?" "My innocent young thing," was the reply, "I can afford to keep ten wives, but I can't , afford to pay the milliner's bills of one," I This matter is more in the hands of the ladies J than they seem to think, and things would < |,be greatly helped if mothers, instead of seeking only to marry their daughters to rich men, would educate these young ladies ia such a way that men who are not wealthy could afford the luxury of marrying them, I know a mother who got a large family of 1 daughters off her hands by telling prudent j young men in confidence that the puddings I they tasted at her house were all concocted jby her daughters, and that the dear girl« made their own dresses and hats. At what age should men many? I have heard of them doing so as young as twenty, ! but it is useless to argue with people like^this J who may bo said not to have come to years jof discretion. A man who lived to a very I advanced age accounted for his doing so by j saying that he had never stood when he ! might have sat, that he married late, and was soon left a widower. .- When two very young people marry, it ii as if one sweet pea should be put as a prop !to another. Of course muci depends; upon j the young man. Some men are better fitted to take lipon themselves the duties of ; marriage at twenty-five than axe others at > t% thirty-five; Between-these-two-ages-is the , usual time, and ii "men put off much after., the last-mentioned age, they are likely to get into the habit of celibacy which, like all other bad habits, is difficult to break away from. In this habit they will continue till they are about sixty years of age, when a *<~ terrible desire to know for themselves what matrimony is like will seize tnem and they/ .' will propose right and left to every eligible lady, until at last they are picked up, not i for themselves but for their money'or theiz position, or because some one is tired,of, being a iliss and wants the novel sensa* tion of putting "Airs'' before her name. If .- •is not natural for a young woman to wiA to marry, an old man. "When-it is time* -. for you to marry," said a father to hil daughter, "I shall not allow you to throw \ yourself away upon one of the frftolottl, -•' young fellows I see about. I shall select ',\ for you a staid, sensible, middle-aged .per- ' ' ' son; what do you say of one about fifty years, of age. "Wellw father, - was the - • reply, "if it is just the same to you, 'I ' „. Would prefer two of twenty-five." As to the age women should marry—l , l don't like to burn my finger's with that ques-. J\ tion. All I shall .say is- that if there ate t some of them—as it is said there are—not ■*_ . worth looking at after thirty years of agfy , - there are quite as mar>- not worth speaking ■=, to betoe that. Please yourself, then,. -• young man, only do not 'choose one who It * ■ J either a child or an old woman.