Could that kind of love be kept alive through the marriage state, which makes the charm of a single one, the sovereign good would no longer be sought for; in the union of two faithful lovers it would be found: but reason shows that this is impossible, and experience informs us that [p126] it never was so; we must preserve it as long, and supply it as happily as we can.
When your present violence of passion subsides, however, and a more cool and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy; you have lost that only which it was impossible to retain, and it were graceless amid the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride’s insipidity till you have recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to transport us with delight when they no longer strike us with novelty. The skill to renovate the powers of pleasing is said indeed to be possessed by some women in an eminent degree; but the artifices of maturity are seldom seen to adorn the innocence of youth: you have made your choice, and ought to approve it.
Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession; and to be happy, we must always have something in view. The person of your lady is already all your own, and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes I doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsome for these dozen of years. Turn therefore all your attention to her mind, which will daily grow brighter by polishing. Study some easy science together, and acquire a similarity of tastes while you enjoy a community of pleasures. You will by this means have many images in common, and be freed from the necessity of separating to find [p127] amusement. Nothing is so dangerous to wedded love as the possibility of either being happy out of the company of the other: endeavor therefore, to cement the present intimacy on every side; let your wife never be kept ignorant of your income, your expenses, your friendships, or aversions; let her know your very faults, but make them amiable by your virtues; consider all concealment as a breach of fidelity; let her never have any thing to find out in your character; and remember, that from the moment one of the partners turns spy upon the other, they have commenced a state of hostility.
Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of wisdom as a deviation into folly. Listen not to those sages who advise you always to scorn the counsel of a woman, and if you comply with her requests pronounce you to be wife-ridden.
I said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you; but pray let her never suspect that it grows less so: that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her person, is well known; nor will any of us contradict the assertion. All our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart of man: and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained? There is no reproof however pointed, no punishment however severe, that a woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make [p128] herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband. For this, and for every reason, it behoves a married man not to let his politeness fail, though his ardor may abate, but to retain at least that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than he, who so often vowed to her eternal fondness.
It is not my opinion that a young woman should be indulged in every wild wish of her gay heart or giddy head; but contradiction may be softened by domestic kindness, and quiet pleasures substituted in the place of noisy ones. Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is sometimes imagined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married people from each other. A well chosen society of friends and acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and splendor, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the evening, seems the most rational pleasure this great town can afford.
That your own superiority should always be seen, but never felt, seems an excellent general rule. A wife should outshine her husband in nothing, not even in her dress. The bane of married happiness among the city men in general has been, that finding themselves unfit for polite life, they transferred their vanity to their ladies, dressed them up gaily, and sent them out a gallanting, while the good man was to regale [p129] with port wine or rum punch, perhaps among mean companions, after the compting house was shut. This practice produced the ridicule thrown on them in all our comedies and novels since commerce began to prosper. But now that I am so near the subject, a word or two on jealousy may not be amiss; for though not a failing of the present age’s growth, yet the seeds of it are too certainly sown in every warm bosom, for us to neglect it as a fault of no consequence. If you are ever tempted to be jealous, watch your wife narrowly—but never tease her; tell her your jealousy, but conceal your suspicion; let her, in short, be satisfied that it is only your odd temper, and even troublesome attachment, that makes you follow her; but let her not dream that you ever doubted seriously of her virtue even for a moment. If she is disposed towards jealousy of you, let me beseech you to be always explicit with her and never mysterious: be above delighting in her pain, of all things—nor do your business nor pay your visits with an air of concealment, when all you are doing might as well be proclaimed perhaps in the parish vestry. But I hope better than this of your tenderness and of your virtue, and will release you from a lecture you have so little need of, unless your extreme youth and my uncommon regard will excuse it. And now farewell; make my kindest compliments to your wife, and be happy in proportion as happiness is wished you by, Dear Sir, &c.
[p130]
GARRICK’S ADVICE TO MARRIED LADIES.
Ye fair married dames who so often deplore