UNCONCENIAL MARRIAGES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 45, 8 November 1890, Page 13

UNCONCENIAL MARRIAGES.

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L> much is said in these days on the subject of happy and unhappy marriages, that every thinking person is forced to give the leaner of judicious and injudicious marriage not a little thought. Among those writers who have touched upon it. we hud the usual types of the languid sentimentalist, the purblind pessimist, the cheerful optimist. the cynic, the satirist, the man of the world, and the simple, honest expounder of totunwn sense. AU of these have said their say. all of them so fully and some of them so well that, were the subject a less vita! one, it might well be called threadbare. There are. however, so many sides to this question that there is always something more’to be said about it on one head or another. There is no hard-and-fast rule that can be given to secure a happy marriage. Who has not seen the most unlikely matches, which have proved wonderfully happy t Even the old -aw ■ Youth and crabbed age Cannot dwHl together is prove*i false now and then. There are notable instances of the happiest unions between June and January, and I have known some when the wife was many years the eider. If we can give no rule to insure a successful wedded life there is one that we can give wbieh will not often fail to insure the reverse. Where the balance erf the power is in the hands of the intellectually inferior trouble is very sure to ensue. As an instance, take the ca.~e —to which there are r.iany parallels—of a woman of sensitive nature, who is by descent and education progressively intellectual, mated with a man who is far behind ner in quality and capacity of brain, but who is endowed with a massive unreasoning will, and who is materially the master of the situation. t«.essesse>f of a fortune. while his wife is dowerless. He is not intelligent enough to realise the unimportance between h as ban a and wife of the money question : everything that she receives comes in the form of a gift from him to tier. He gives her every new dress, every jewel, every knicknack she possesses. ansi yet never lets her feel that anything i- hers in her own right, but that they are held as a vassal holds his goc-is in fealty from his lord. He would be the custodian not only of her person and possessions, bur of her mind as well. She must not read the books of such a writer nor hear the teacnings of such a master : she must not think their thoughts, she must not hold their doctrines. What he believes, what his mother believer, it is fitting and proper that his wife should believe. If the wife finds it on the whole easier to vield outward compliance. while a: heart she rebels against having her mind compressed. like a Chinese woman’s foot, sise ieads a double lite. Externally passively submissive, in reality defiant and disobedient —this means deceit, and deceit means unhappiness, a gradual growing apart, a coolness which too often hardens into aversion. * m the other hand if the wife have a high spirit and will not stoop to a taeit lie, we have open warfare, the saddest, rhe most terrible of all strife. She refuses to measure life by his small standards : she insists upon her rights of free asfi independent thought : she is willing to obey and. serve him for three-and-twenty hours out of the day, but she claims the twenty-fourth for the freedom of her own soul—he denies the claim—nothing but a miracle can save them. The miracle is often wrought : througn love the eyes of the blind are opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. But miracles do not hapten every day. Who does not know the unequal marriage between a brilliant. intellectual man of a gentle nature and a woman who is his inferior intellectually and socially ' She cannot think his thoughts, she cannot speak his speech, she is horribly iealous of those who can. she isolates him from his peers. Through his own gentleness and sweetness she robs him of bis birthright, train tne companionship and inspiration of bis equals and superiors. He either rebels, throws off the despotic yoke, and seeks elsewhere the intercourse he needs, and" leaves her alone, soared and injured, or else submits patiently, denies himself the sympathy he could find in the world outside, and tries to content himself with her conversation and companionships He was torn with strong wings like an eagle s. but he is mated to a wren, and mu<t flap his pinions sadly beside his tiny companion : bis Sight is not toward the sun. but through a dusty suburban grove. Another fruitful cause of unhappiness is the total lack of srmrathv which we so often find between the tastes of man and wife. Where one is very dependent for his or her happiness upon the excitement of city life, and the other only knows contentment in the quiet of the country, some one s ta-te must be sacrificed. an-1 both are likely to have an uncomfortable time of it, w*Zr*r one of the pair is willing to find happiness in the happiness of his or her partner. Gentle manners and a true desire to belong to the best teople are the simple watchwords which open the gates of the best society everywhere. Not the smart society, not the gay set, nor rise most fashionable worldl but the smaller. more exclusive circle of people who love the really good things in life. For a girl bred in this best society of high thought and gentle -manners a marriage with a man of an inferior p-sition is a very sad fate. Love is the great reconciler of differences, but" it must be a very true and strong love which can equalize the tastes of a man who at sixteen is put into a counting-house, and from that time on learns nothing but how to make money, and a girl who has been bred to love the arts, to think, to study, to reach ever upward toward a higher plane of life. How many marriages have we seen turn out the most lamentable tailures from fii- inequality, the only serious inequality which is worth discussing in this connection : It is no: a difficult thing for a woman to dine simply when she has been accustomed to a luxurious table in her father's house : it is not much harder to have four gowns where she once bad tourteen : she can walk, usually to the vast improvement of her health, when she ha- been accustomed to driving in a carriage : a little housework she will be all the better for: but she cannot, without crucial suffering, talk and think on a lower plane than that on which she has lived. To any man or woman who contemplates sueh an unequal union we would say—stop ! Think it all over again. Is this inferiority the result of untoward outward circumstances only, or is it something deeper. Cru» the girl you

love take the higher ■.-•itsh of good manners • Is her mind of cultivation ? vpportomties for self-improvement are not rare with us. an education is to be had by all "ho truly hunger for itMy dear young lady, if there was a capacity f-r cultivation in your lover would it not have manifested itself? The little milliner round the corner, who trims such pretty bonnets, finds time to read Paracelsus. and was ireani to eritise it very intelligently the other -.uorning while she was fastening a wreath of ivy about the crown of a e lass-day hat. The swung man who sells silk behind the counter in a well-known drv goods shop t*ok a prize the other day for an essay on Shakespeare's historical plays. These persons, and many thousands like them, who earn their living by plying the smalltrades, find time and opportunity to cultivate themselves. The water is to be had in plenty : we can lead the horse to it. but we eannot make him drink if be is not thirstv.