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-4-
The
Marriage Ring
If you are of age, and able to provide for yourselves, or are likely to be well provided for by those to whom you are about to be united, it is a question whether they can do anything more than advise and persuade; but till you are of age, they have positive authority to forbid; and it is an undutiful act in you to form connections without their knowledge, and to carry them on against their prohibitions.
Their objections ought always, I admit, to be founded on reason, and not on caprice, or pride; for, where this is the case, and children are of full age, and are guided in their choice by prudence, by piety, and by affection, they certainly may, and must be left to decide for themselves. Where, however, parents rest their objections on sufficient grounds, and show plain and palpable reasons for prohibiting a connection, there it is the manifest duty of sons, and especially of daughters, to give it up. Very seldom does that connection prove otherwise than a source of wretchedness, on which the frown of an affectionate and wise father and mother fell from the beginning; for God seems to rise up in judgment, and to support the parents' authority, by confirming their displeasure with His own.
Marriage should in every case be formed upon the basis of mutual attachment. If there be no love before marriage, it cannot be expected there should be any after it. Lovers, as all are supposed to be who are looking forward to this union, without love, have no right to expect happiness; the coldness of indifference is soon likely, in their case, to be changed into aversion. There ought to be personal attachment. If there be anything, even in the exterior, that excites disgust, the banns are forbidden by the voice of nature.
I do not say that beauty of countenance or elegance of form is necessary: by no means; a pure and strong attachment has often existed in the absence of these. And I will not take upon me to determine that it is absolutely impossible to love deformity; but we certainly ought not to unite ourselves with it, unless we can love it, or, at least, are so enamored with the fascination of mental qualities that may be united with it, as to lose sight of the body in the charms of the mind, the heart and the manners. All I contend for is, that to proceed to marriage against absolute dislike and revulsion is irrational, base and sinful.
But love should respect the mind as well as the body; for to be attached to an individual simply on the ground of beauty is to fall in love with a doll, a statue or a picture. Such an attachment is lust or fancy, but certainly not a rational affection. If we love the body, but do not love the mind, the heart, and the manners, our regard is placed upon the inferior part of the person, and, therefore, only upon that which, by disease, may be next year a very different thing to what it is now. Nothing fades so soon as beauty; it is but like the delicate bloom of an attractive fruit, and, if there be nothing agreeable underneath, will be thrown away in disgust when that is brushed off; and thrown away, too, by the very hand of him that plucks it.
It is so commonly remarked, as to be proverbial, that the charms of mind increase by acquaintance, while those of the exterior diminish; and that, while the former easily reconcile us to a plain countenance, the latter excite, by the power of contrast, as distaste for the insipidity, ignorance, and heartlessness with which they are united, like gaudy, scentless flowers, growing in a desert. Instead of determining to stake our happiness upon the act of gathering these blooming weeds, to place them in our bosom, let us ask how they will look a few years hence, or how they will adorn and bless our habitation? Let us ask, will the understanding, united with that countenance, render its subject fit to be my companion, and the instructor? Will that temper patiently bear with my weakness, kindly consult my tastes, affectionately study my comfort? Will those manners please me in solitude, as well as in society? Will those habits render my dwelling pleasant to myself and to my friends? We must try these matters and hold our passions back, that we may take counsel with our judgment, and suffer reason to come down and talk with us in the cool of the evening.
Such, then, is the love on which marriage should be contracted; love to the whole person; love to the mind, and heart, and manners, as well as to the countenance and form; love tempered with respect; for this only is the attachment that is likely to survive the charms of novelty, the spoliation of disease, and the influence of time; that is likely to support the tender sympathies and exquisite sensibilities of the conjugal state; and render man and wife, to the verge of extreme old age, what it was the intention of Him who instituted the marriage union they should be—the help and the comfort of each other.
Young people should be extremely careful, to let no persuasions of others, no impulse of their own covetousness, no anxiety to be their own masters and mistresses, no ambition for secular splendor, induce them to enter into a connection to which they are not drawn by the solicitations of a pure and virtuous love. What will a large house, splendid furniture, a gay equipage, and fashionable entertainments do for their possessor, in the absence of connubial love? "Is it for these baubles, these toys," exclaims the wretched heart as it awakens, alas! too late in some sad scene of domestic woe, "is it for this I have bartered away myself, my happiness, my honor?"
How ill the scenes that offer rest,
And hearts that cannot rest, agree!
O, there is a sweetness, a charm, a power to please, in pure and mutual affection, though it be cherished in the humblest abode, and maintained amidst the plainest circumstances, and has to contend with many difficulties, compared with which, the elegances and brilliancies of worldly grandeur are but as the splendor of an Eastern palace, to one of the bowers of the garden of Eden. Let the man nobly determine to earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow, and find his daily task sweetened by the thought that it is for the woman he loves, rather than roll about in his chariot, and live a life of splendid indolence and misery, with the woman he does not love; and let the other sex as nobly and heroically determine to trust to their own energies, but especially to a gracious Providence, rather than marry without affection for the sake of a settlement.