Unhappiness may be occasioned by indulging an undue degree of love. Sentimental bliss is generally followed by sentimental sorrow; consequently, people may love one another too ardently, so as to make the thought of parting a source of misery. If two plants grow up together, imparting to each other shelter and fragrance, it may contribute to their mutual advantage; but if they become so closely united as to grow from the same stalk, and depend on the same nutriment, then take away one, and both will perish. Connubial love should, therefore, be regulated by reason. Extremes are seldom durable. Violent love in the marriage state may change to hatred; and an unusual quantity expended on the husband or wife, may occasion a lesser degree of regard towards others. It is not an uncommon event for external enemies to occasion harmony at home; and harmony at home, or the yielding to the foolish notions of each other, may occasion enemies without. So difficult is it to act consistently, and to live in peace with all men! But the Scripture demands it, and we have a long period for studying our lesson.
In matrimony it is necessary that many things should contribute to a permanency of enjoyment. A good temper on both sides; property enough to supply the wants of a family; good health; children—not too many, nor too few, nor all of one sex; a continuance in each other’s society, till both pass away gradually as the twilight into darkness: but, if chilly poverty exert its influence; if the husband or the wife be [p216] ill-tempered; if he or she be unfaithful or jealous; if love be followed by hatred; if one be taken, and the other left in solitude; if children be imperfect in birth, or habitually sickly, or drop off in early years as unripe fruit; if sons prove vicious, and daughters bring disgrace on themselves and their families; if the extravagance of children bring their aged parents in sorrow to the grave; where, then, will be the pleasure of matrimony? The cares of a family, when the family is large and unruly, are more perplexing than the cares of a state. Cardan confessed, that out of four great troubles which he had experienced, two arose from his children. When Thales was asked why he did not marry, he replied, “because I want no children.” One of the ancient sages was so much impressed with the disappointments and anxieties of matrimony, that when he was asked, at what time, a man should marry? replied, “If he be young, not yet; if older, not at all.”
This sentiment however, so repugnant to all our ideas of social improvement, as well as to the command of our Creator, who presented woman to man as a helpmate, because it was not good that he should live alone, and demanded of them to “be fruitful and multiply,” will find no advocates except among the disappointed, the ignorant, and the abandoned. “The love of woman” is a feeling too deeply rooted in the breast of man, and the reality of domestic felicity has been too long tested by experience, for either to be sacrificed on the altar of the revilers of matrimony, whether they be libertines, weak husbands, or misnamed “philosophers.”
The dearest boon from Heaven above,
Is bliss which brightly hallows home,
’Tis sunlight to the world of love,
And life’s pure wine without its foam.
There is a sympathy of heart
Which consecrates the social shrine,
Robs grief of gloom and doth impart