A good temper is essential for matrimonial happiness. An habitually irritable or gloomy disposition [p212] is a source of misery to the possessor and to others. A dark and murky cave could as well throw out a cheerful lustre, as a surly person communicate happiness to those around him. Obstinacy must not be indulged by either party; for, as the bond of union cannot be easily broken, if one be perverse the other must bend. If two trees be bound tightly together, and both be stiff, the cords will probably break; if not immediately, they will when the cords become weaker: and thus with regard to matrimony, what God has joined together, the perversity of human beings will put asunder. Obstinacy in trifling matters in the marriage state is an evidence of little love and a bad heart; but if trifling matters appear important, and the gaining of every point be as the taking of a citadel, the person is wrong in his judgment; he is insane, or partially so. Many worthy women have been cursed with worthless husbands; but, unfortunately, the grievances of the female sex have been less frequently known than those of the men; for women are not authors, and men are frequently so; consequently, in all estimates of the comparative merit of the sexes, it must be remembered that more has been said on the one side than on the other. Home, however, is the castle of the wife, if she be a good one; here she keeps her permanent abode, agreeably with the injunction of St. Paul. The husband is absent the principal part of his time, may there not therefore, on some occasions, be too greet an inclination in the lady to consider herself as the governor of the establishment, while the husband may be deemed a visiter, rather than the master? This would not arise in the breast of an amiable and affectionate wife, but it has sometimes arisen; for, unfortunately, all wives have not been good ones. Jerome Cardan was so unfortunate as to have a wife who was proverbial for her ill temper and arbitrary conduct. John Knox said of Lord Erskine, “He [p213] has a very Jezebel to his wife.” Salmasius, the opponent of Milton, was made perpetually uneasy by a similar thorn. The unfortunate husband was a Frenchman, and Milton said (as Dr Johnson observes,) “Tu es Gallus, et, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus.” Milton himself seems to have suffered from a similar cause, for he evinces so much hostility to the female sex, that no other reason would so naturally account for it. He exclaims,
“O why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men and angels without feminine?”
Milton adds a great deal more, which, if he had a high opinion of woman, even his anxiety to make his character of Adam consistent would not have demanded. An amiable temper on the part of a wife, with her own natural softness, and an inclination to yield in unimportant matters, will not only increase love, but power; for in this respect, agreeably to the opinion of Prince Eugene, love is power.
Marriage is sometimes made a matter of mere convenience; people enter into it with as much indifference as they would into any other speculation, and when one companion dies they take another. In the book of Tobit we have an account of Sara, the daughter of Raguel, who had been favored with seven husbands, whom “Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed.” Love must be exceedingly pliable, it must be love to man, and not to a man, that would suffer a woman to transfer her affections seven times. It would be a ludicrous occurrence, if, upon any particular occasion, a man’s three or four wives, or a woman’s three or four husbands, should “burst their [p214] cerements,” and visit their former dwelling. What astonishment! What uplifted hands and distended eyeballs! What speechlessness and violent speeches,—reproaches and animosities! When the Duke of Rutland was Viceroy of Ireland, Sir John Hamilton attended one of his Grace’s levees. “This is timely rain,” said the Duke, “it will bring every thing above ground.”—“I hope not, my Lord,” replied Sir John, “for I have three wives there.” Marriage may be well extended to two wives and two husbands in succession; this, in some cases, is necessary; but when it goes to three or four it is objectionable. The man who moves from place, sometimes living here and sometimes there, will never gain a pure and ardent love of home; by the same rule, a succession of wives will only induce an habitual or mechanical regard to the wife for the time being; in the same way as loyalty may be transferred from one sovereign to another. Besides, a family with different degrees of relationship and with different interests is formed, and this contributes nothing towards domestic tranquillity. There may be some particular cases in which the evils to which we have alluded may not arise; these may be deemed exceptions.
There are some sorrows peculiar to matrimony; and some which, though they fall on other conditions of life, are felt more heavily when they intrude themselves within the boundary of connubial love. Poverty and sickness are more grievous evils under circumstances of this sort; because a man feels not only for himself, but for others. How dreadful must it be when the husband beholds his wife in squalid misery. What are the feelings of a mother when she sees her innocent children suffering from hunger! And when the iron hand of affliction presses upon the brow of a husband or a wife, and the sharp arrows of pain occasion groans, is there not an almost equal anguish is the breast of an affectionate partner? And when [p215] the heavy clouds of sorrow gather around at the anticipated separation of those who had lived in the bonds of harmony—when the chilly arms of death are held out to clasp him, or her, who had been used to a more tender embrace, how dreadful is that period! Is not the woe of separating generally in the same proportion as the bliss of uniting? And is it not a valuable loan to be paid by a mighty sacrifice?