BELATED MARRIAGE
During this sojourn in America Dr. House was married on November 27, 1855, to Miss Harriet Maria Pettit, formerly of Waterford. The marriage came as a surprise to most of his friends. He had so frequently declared that he would never marry that his change of mind came without warning. His missionary friends had frequently twitted him on this subject, but in good part he defended his position. Usually after these banterings he would enter in his journal the reason why he chose to go out single and why he thought best to remain unmarried.
His argument was that it would have been an imposition upon a woman to have led her into a strange world, into a primitive state of civilisation, afar from kin and friends. He persuaded himself that the care of a wife, the anxiety for her safety and the responsibility of rearing children would seriously interfere with his one great purpose, an undivided attention to the propagation of the Gospel. The Siamese, among whom polygamy was practised, could not understand why this one missionary had no wife. Several of the princes suggested that he take a Siamese woman in marriage, and one nobleman even offered to provide a wife for him.
However, there are indications that his arguments were as much to repress his own idea as to confute the bantering. During those years he was a permanent guest at the family of the Mattoons. He frequently expresses generous appreciation of sharing the home comforts of his friends, and confesses that he did not know how he could have gotten along without this domestic care of Mrs. Mattoon. Thus while stoically denying the need of a wife he gratefully accepts the ministrations of the wife of his colleague.
Then, after having married and having fully settled in a home of his own, his real feelings assert themselves, for he writes, upon return to Siam:
“And mine, too, is a pleasant home, the one to which four weary months voyaging have brought me, a pleasanter home than once—for it has a new inmate. Taking such a partner into the concern is indeed a great addition to a bachelor establishment.”
And a year later:
“You don’t know how nicely we are jogging on in the good old road of domestic felicity. And when you hear me say at the end of fourteen months that I am more fully than ever of the opinion that I have as my companion in my journey the most suitable one for me that could have been found had I tarried seven months or seven years longer in the States, you will allow that, at least, I am contented with my choice.”
He shows the reversal of mind on this subject complete when, in 1871, he writes:
“I must confess that I feel this wholesale sending out of unmarried women into the field just now so in vogue in our church is an experiment.... And I do not think much better of the sending unmarried young men to some fields. ’Tis a pity the secretaries of our Board who ought to know the wisest way do not guide opinion on this subject and more strongly impress upon candidates who apply to them the desirableness of making their arrangements before they leave home—not but what Providence may bless some favoured mortals more than they deserve.”