LETTER XIV. OF MARRIAGE.

Since we cannot assure ourselves of the general affection, nor even of the justice of men, it becomes our interest, in the midst of the great mass, that we cannot move, to create a little world, which we can arrange at the disposal of our reason and affections.

In this retreat, dictated to us alike by our instincts and our hearts, let us forget the chimeras which the crowd pursue; and if the men of fashion and the world stare, ridicule, and even condemn us, let their murmurs sound in our ears as the dashing of the waves on the distant shore, to the stranger, under the hospitable roof which shelters him from the storm.

The universe of reason and affection must be composed of a single family. Of that universe a wedded pair must be the centre. A wife is the best and the only disinterested friend, by the award of nature. She remains such, when fortune has scattered all others. How many have been recalled to hope by a virtuous and affectionate wife, when all beside had been lost! How many, retrieved from utter despondency, have felt in an ineffable effusion of heart, that conjugal heroism and constancy were an ample indemnity for the deprivation of all other good things! How many, undeceived by external illusions, have in this way been brought home to their real good! If we wish to see the attributes of conjugal heroism, in their purest brilliancy, let us suppose the husband in the last degree of wretchedness. Let us imagine[109] him not only culpable, but so estimated, and an outcast from society. Repentance itself, in the view of candor, has not been available to cloak his faults. She alone, accusing him not, is only prodigal of consolations. Embracing duties as severe as his reverses, she voluntarily shares his captivity or exile. He finds still, on the faithful bosom of innocence, a refuge, where remorse becomes appeased; as in former days, the proscribed found, at the foot of the altar, an asylum against the fury of men.

Marriage is generally assumed as a means of increasing credit and fortune, and of assuring success in the world. It should be undertaken as a chief element of happiness, in the retirement of domestic repose.[28] I would wish that my disciple, while still in the freshness of youth, might have reason and experience enough to select the beloved person, whom he would desire one day to espouse. I would hope, that, captivated with her dawning qualities, and earnestly seeking her happiness, he might win her tenderness, and find his satisfaction in training her to a conformity to his tastes, habits and character.

The freshness of her docile nature demands his first forming cares. As she advances in life she is moulded to happy changes, adapted to supply his defects. She is reared modest, amiable, instructed, respectable, and respected; one day to govern his family, and direct his house, by diffusing around the domestic domain, order and peace. Let neither romances, metaphysics, pedantry nor fashion render a qualification for these important duties, either trifling or vulgar in her view. Still, domestic duties are by no means to occupy all her[110] hours. The time which is not devoted to them will flow quietly on in friendly circles, not numerous, but animated by gayety, friendship and the inexplicable pleasures which spring from intercourse with rational society. There are, also, more unimportant duties, which we expect her not to neglect. We wish her to occupy some moments at a toilet; where simplicity should be the basis of elegance; and where native tact might develope the graces, and vary, and multiply, if I may so say, the forms of her beauty. In fine, the versatility of her modes of rendering herself agreeable, should increase the chances of always escaping ennui in her presence.

But train women to visit a library as savans, and they will be likely to bring from it pedantry without solid instruction; and coquetry without feminine amiability. I would not be understood to question the capability of the female understanding. I am not sure that I would wish the wife of my friend to have been an author, though some of the most amiable and enlightened women have been such. But I deem that in their mental constitution, and in the assignment of their lot, providence has designated them to prefer the graces to erudition; and that to acquire a wreath of laurels, they must ordinarily relinquish their native crown of roses.[28a] When we see a husband and wife thus united by tenderness, good hearts and simple tastes, everything presages for them a delightful futurity. Let them live contented in their retirement. Instead of wishing to blazon, let them conceal their happiness, and exist for each other. Life will become to them the happiest of dreams.

Perhaps the world will say, ‘you speak, it may be, of[111] such a wife as you would be understood to possess yourself. But you do not paint marriage in the abstract, while you thus describe happiness as finding a habitation within the domestic walls, and pain and sorrow without: how many people find eternal ennui at home, and respire pleasure, only when they have fled their own threshold.’ There are few wives so perfect, says La Bruyere, ‘as to hinder their husbands from repenting at least once in a day, that they have a wife; or from envying the happiness of him who has none.’

This sentence, instead of containing a just observation, is only an epigram. In looking round a circle of individuals, ridiculously called the world, we shall find happy family establishments less rare than we imagine. Besides, it would be absurd to count among unhappy unions, all those which are not wholly exempt from stormy passions. Not only is perfect felicity a chimerical expectation on the earth, but we meet with many people who would be fatigued into ennui in a perfect calm, and who require a little of the spice of contrariety to season the repast of life. I would not covet their taste; but there are modes of being singular, which, without imparting happiness, procure pleasures. Finally, supposing the number of unhappy marriages to be as immense as is contended, what is the conclusion? The great majority adopting, as maxims of life, principles so different from mine, it would be strange if they obtained such results as I desire.

In these days, the deciding motive with parents, in relation to marriage, is interest; and, what seems to me revolting in the spirit of the age, is, that the young have also learned to calculate. When a man marries simply[112] on a speculation of interest, if he sees his fortune and distinction secured, reign disorder and alienation in his house as they may, he is still happier than he deserves to be.

Our marriages of inclination guaranty happiness no more than our marriages of interest. What results should be anticipated from the blind impulse of appetite? Let there be mutual affection, such as reason can survey with a calm and severe scrutiny. Such love as is painted in romances is but a fatal fever. It is children alone who believe themselves in love, only when they feel themselves in a delirium. They have imagined that life should be a continual ecstasy; and these indulged dreams of anticipation spoil the reality of wedded life. I have supposed the husband older than his wife. I have imagined him forming the character of his young, fair and docile companion; and that, so to speak, they have become assimilated to each other’s tastes and habits. The right combination of reason and love assures for them, under such circumstances, as much as possible, a futurity of happiness.

I might here speak of the misery of jealousy and infidelity, and the comparative guilt of these vices in the husband and the wife. But these are sources of torment only in unions contracted and sustained by the maxims and the spirit of the world. According to my views these crimes could not mar the marriages which were undertaken from right motives, and under the approving sanction of severe reason. I, therefore, pass them by, as not belonging to my subject; and as supposing that when marriage is the result of wise foresight and regulated choice, and when its duties are discharged from a[113] proper sense of their obligation, such faults can not occur.

Another cause of disunion springs from the proud temper of some wives. They erroneously and obstinately persuade themselves that fidelity includes all their duty. More than one husband, incessantly tormented by an imperious and capricious wife, feels almost disposed to envy the gentle spouse who sleeps pleasantly under deceitful caresses. As much as an honest man ought to avoid crimes, in order to merit his reputation and sustain it, ought the highest meed awarded to women to be bestowed, not on those alone who are chaste, but on those who know how to watch over the happiness of their family by eager attentions and studious cares.

This petulance of temper is commonly supposed to be a conjoined attribute of conjugal fidelity. I have sometimes seen wives both peevish and coquettish, and I cannot imagine a more odious combination. If we despise the man who is rough and slovenly at home, and becomes charming in society, what sentiment does that wife merit who wears out her husband’s patience with her arrogance, and puts on seducing graces, and affects sensibility, in the presence of strangers?

I have often heard men who were sensible upon every other subject, express their conviction that the orientals, in excluding their women from all eyes but their own, had established the only reasonable domestic policy. There is no more wit than humanity in this barbarous sentiment, however frequently it is uttered. No one could be in earnest, in wishing to copy, into free institutions, this appalling vestige of slavery. But my inward respect for women withholds me from flattering them.[114] Authority ought to belong to the husband; and the influence of tenderness, graces and the charms of constancy, gentleness and truth, constituting the appropriate female empire, belongs of right to the wife. I take leave to illustrate this phrase. Masculine vigor, and aptitude to contend and resist, clearly indicate that nature has confided authority to man. To dispossess him of it, and control him by a still more irresistible sway, it is necessary that the feeble sex should learn patience, docility, passive courage, and the management of their appropriate weapons in danger and sorrow, and to become energetic for the endurance of the peaceful cares of the domestic establishment. Man is formed by nature for the calls of active courage; and woman, for the appalling scenes of pain and affliction, and the agony of the sick and dying bed. In a word, all argument apart, nature has clearly demonstrated to which sex authority belongs.

I discover that the defects of man spring from the tendency of his natural traits, in which force predominates, to run to excess. I see his gentle companion endowed with attributes and qualities naturally tending to temper his defects. The means she has received to reach this end announce that it is the purpose of nature that she should use them with this view. She has charms which, when rightly applied, none can resist. Her character is a happy compound of sensibility, wisdom and levity. She has superadded a felicity of address which she owes to her organization, and which the reserve, that her education imposes, serves to develope. Thus the qualities, and even the imperfections of the two sexes serve to bring them together. It follows,[115] that man should possess authority, and woman influence, for their mutual happiness.

When the wife commands, I cease to behold a respectable married pair. I see a ridiculous tyrant, and a still more ridiculous slave. It is vain to urge that she may be most capable of authority, and that her orders may be conformable to wisdom and justice. They are absurd, from the very circumstance that they are orders. The virtues which the husband ought to practise towards his wife must have their origin in love, which can only be inspired, and which flies all restraint. In a single position, the wife honors herself in assuming authority. It is when reverses have overwhelmed and desolated her husband, so that, ceasing to sustain her and changing the natural order, she supports him. Grant that he receives hope as her gift; grant that he is compelled to blush in imitating her example of courage; she aspires to this power no longer than to be able to restore him to the place whence misery had cast him down.[30]

It is a truth that ought not to be contested, that dissatisfied husbands and wives often love each other more than they imagine. Suppose them to believe themselves indifferent; and to seem so; and even on the verge of mutual hate; should one of them fall sick, we see the other inspired with sincere alarms. Suppose them on the eve of separation; when the fatal moment comes, both recoil from the act. Habit almost causes the pains, to which we have been long accustomed, to become cause of regret when they cease. When the two begin mutually to complain of their destiny, I counsel each, instead of wishing to criminate and correct each other, to give each other an example of mutual forbearance and indulgence. It may be, that the cause[116] of their mutual dissatisfaction is unreal; the supposed wrong not intended, the suspicion false. Candor and forgiveness will appease all. The husband may have gone astray only in thought; which is beyond human privilege to fathom. The wife may have minor defects and an unequal temper, without forfeiting much excellence and many remaining claims to be loved. The morbid influence of ill health and irresistible temperament, in their powerful action upon the temper, may have been the source whence the faults flowed on either part; and the mutual wrongs may thus have been, in some sense, independent of the will of the parties. Bound, as they are, in such intimate and almost indissoluble relations, before they give that happiness, which they hoped and promised, to the winds, let them exhaust their efforts of self-command and mutual indulgence, to bring back deep and true affection.

The purest happiness of earth is, unquestionably, the portion of two beings wisely and fitly united in the bonds of indissoluble confidence and affection. What a touching picture does Madame de Stael present in these lines: ‘I saw, during my sojourn in England, a man of the highest merit united to a wife worthy of him. One day, as we were walking together, we met some of those people that the English call gipseys, who generally wander about in the woods in the most deplorable condition. I expressed pity for them thus enduring the union of all the physical evils of nature. “Had it been necessary,” said the affectionate husband, pointing to his wife, “in order to spend my life with her, that I should have passed thirty years in begging with them, we would still have been happy.” “Yes,” responded the wife, “the happiest of beings.”’