Nature's Intention in Marriage—The Woman's Crime in Marrying for Support—Her Blunder in Marrying an Inefficient Man for Love—The Proper Union—Mutual Aid of Husband and Wife—Manipulating a Husband—By Deceit—By Tact—Confidence Between Man and Wife.
"Her very soul is in home, and in the discharge of all those quiet virtues of which home is the centre. Her husband will be to her the object of all her care, solicitude and affection. She will see nothing but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive his unkindness."—SIR WALTER SCOTT—Waverley.
Marriage is the crown of woman's life, a dignity that is all the more honorable because it is of general expectation and realization. There is a presumption that the unmarried woman has missed the central and significant reason for her existence, the perpetuation and nurture of the race, and that the burden is upon her for compensating society by other services for this lost opportunity. Marriage for a woman means attainment first and fulfilment after, the reward given in advance of labor, and therefore entailing a special moral obligation that it be justified in its fruits. Nature gives the future mother peace of mind, rest from doubt as to career and from responsibility as to breadwinning, in order that she may tranquilly devote herself to her special function as the maker of the home.
The fact that in the normal home the wife is relieved from the necessity of earning the living of the home sometimes has the effect of making her careless about expenditure. The thoughtless wife, and here thoughtless means selfish, assumes that the problem of providing is "up to" the husband and takes no care to aid him in its solution. If the suggestion of her being a burden to him ever does cross her mind, she is ready to excuse herself by consolatory sayings such as "Two can live cheaper than one," the truth of which, though universal when every wife was a producer of such things as clothing that are now bought is now the case only in agricultural homes, and even there has lost a great deal of its force. Men do not marry now, as they once did, for economic reasons, but rather in spite of them, for the higher rewards of love and companionship of wife and children, and this the wife should recognize by giving her husband the things for which he has made his economic sacrifice. In the old days a man who did not marry paid for his liberty by loss of physical comfort and wealth. Thus Hesiod, one of the earliest Greek poets, in his Farmer's Almanac called "Works and Days," coupled the marrying of a wife with the purchase of a yoke of oxen and a plow as the first things needful in beginning to farm, and this in despite of the fact that he was a woman-hater.
Now it is the woman who is tempted to marry for economic reasons, to be certain of material support while she exercises herself in those household avocations and social pleasures which constitute the main activities of women. This is a legitimate consideration only when the interest of the man is also taken into account. Marriage to a man whom she does not love is a crime for any woman; giving falsely the offerings of love for material things is harlotry even though legitimated by vows and ceremonies.
On the other hand, marriage for love to a man who cannot support her is a sad mistake for a woman who is not able or willing to take the place of breadwinner, for such a union defeats its own purpose. Therefore, in kindness to the man as well as to herself, such a woman should satisfy herself that he can support her, not necessarily in "the style to which she has been accustomed," but in the style necessary for her to perform the duties of homemaker and mother. Those marriages are the happiest where a wife can also enter into sympathy with her husband's business ambitions in particular and ideals of life in general. Here she is peculiarly his helpmate. He can hire a housekeeper, but not a companion of his bosom.
A girl properly reared will naturally be drawn to a man complementary to her in character—not "opposite," as is so often said. Opposition implies antagonism, which would be the ruin of home life. The term complementary implies similarity in the main elements of character with adaptable differences. Good qualities, such as strength and delicacy, may complement each other, but not evil and good qualities, such as brutality and tenderness. As Scott says in the quotation at the head of this chapter, a tender wife may suit the taste of a churlish husband, but only by not long surviving his unkindness. While such opposition may not result in actual death, it certainly leads to the demise of all that makes life worth living.
A woman should not expect to find a perfect husband. Indeed, her chief usefulness to him will be in her strengthening his weak points, and cultivating his right inclinations until they are confirmed habits. Yet in this work she should realize the imperfections in herself, and respond to the similar aid he gives her by his example and suggestions. Mutual aid is the great bond of marriage, as it is of all human relations.
Women, from their weaker condition, have from ages past been trained to gain their desires from men by indirection. In the worst form, this appears as deceit; in the best, as tact. Laying aside the moral aspect, deceit is always unwise in a wife, since, in time, it defeats its own end. Many a woman thinks that she is deceiving her husband, since she wins her points, when he thoroughly recognizes her machinations, and accedes to them without contest simply for peace in the household, acquiring a feeling of moral superiority to her which, though it may be tolerant, is nevertheless contemptuous. But when she employs loving tact, especially in the improvement of her husband's habits and traits, even though he realizes it, he is at heart grateful for it, and proud of his wife's superiority in these points.
In those matters where the characters of husband and wife are strong enough to permit frankness, this should always be employed. In all the grave problems of life there should be perfect confidence between the pair who have taken the solemn vows of wedlock. Any third party that enjoys a superior confidence with one of them, whether relative or friend, even the pastor or family physician, is the man invoked against in the marriage charge, who "puts them asunder." Where unhappily the husband is irreligious and the wife is forced to seek confidential help and consolation of her spiritual adviser, she should strictly limit these to religious matters, else she will grow apart from her husband. George Moore, in his collection of stories entitled, "The Untilled Field," presents the propensity of women in Ireland to run to the priest for guidance on every question, as the chief cause of their domestic tragedies. In America the family physician is as apt as the pastor to be made the recipient of such confidences, with evil results where he is not wise enough to advise that the husband is the proper person to whom the wife should go.
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