If there be any man—women are seldom anti-matrimonial bigots—who seriously doubts that the pros in favour of marriage more than counterbalance the cons, we commend to his consideration a few historical instances in which men have been made men in the highest sense of the word by marriage.
We do not endorse the exaggerated statement of Richter that "no man can live piously or die righteously without a wife," but we think that the chances of his doing so are considerably lessened. It is not good for a man to live alone with his evil thoughts. The checks and active duties of marriage are the best antidote, not only to an impure life, but to the dreaming and droning of a useless and purposeless one.
Certainly there are some men and women who without wives or husbands are marriage-made in the sense of having their love and powers drawn out by interesting work. They are married to some art or utility, or instead of loving one they love all. When this last is the case they go down into the haunts of evil, seek out the wretched, and spare neither themselves nor their money in their Christ-like enthusiasm for humanity. But the luxury of doing good is by no means confined to the celibate. On the contrary, the man with a wife and children in whose goodness and happiness he rejoices may be much better prepared to aid and sympathize with the erring and the suffering. The flood-gates of his affections may have been opened, and he may have become receptive to influences which had upon him beforetime little or no effect.
Not a few good and great men have confessed that they were marriage-made to a very considerable extent. The following testimony was given by De Tocqueville in a letter to a friend: "I cannot describe to you the happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman, in whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even improved. When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly right, I read immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud satisfaction which elevates me; and so when my conscience reproaches me her face instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her mind, I see with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now I am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that is wrong."
Many a man has been shown the pathway to heaven by his wife's practice of piety. "My mercy," says Bunyan, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." By reading these and other good books, helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the way of righteousness.
Nor does this companionship of good wives, which enables men to gain "in sweetness and in moral height," cause them in the least degree to lose "the wrestling thews which throw the world." Quite the reverse. Weak men have displayed real public virtue, and strong men have been made stronger, because they had by their side a woman of noble character, who exercised a fortifying influence on their conduct. Lady Rachel Russell is one of the many celebrated women who have encouraged their husbands to suffer and be strong. She sat beside her husband day after day during his public trial, taking notes and doing everything to help him.
In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the magistrates for holding a conventicle, and was sentenced to be confined in Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately nursed him during his imprisonment. "She was never so cheerful a companion to me," he says, "as in prison, and was very much against me seeking to be released."
There is a sort of would-be wit which consists in jesting at the supposed bondage of the married state. The best answer to this plentiful lack of wit is the fact that some of the best of men have kissed the shackles which a wife imposes, and have either thought or said, "If this be slavery, who'd be free?" Luther, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Crœsus without her." In more recent times the French statesman, M. Guizot, says in his "Mémoires": "What I know to-day, at the end of my race, I have felt when it began, and during its continuance. Even in the midst of great undertakings domestic affections form the basis of life, and the most brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete enjoyments if a stranger to the happy ties of family and friendship." Not long ago, when speaking of his wife, Prince Bismarck said, "She it is who has made me what I am."
And there have been English statesmen who could say quite as much. Burke was sustained amid the anxiety and agitation of public life by domestic felicity. "Every care vanishes," he said, "the moment I enter under my own roof!" Of his wife he said that she was "not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one." A writer in a recent number of Leisure Hour relates the following of Lord Beaconsfield: "The grateful affection which he entertained for his wife, whom he always esteemed as the founder of his fortunes, is well known. She was in the habit of travelling with him on almost all occasions. A friend of the earl and of the narrator of the incident was dining with him, when one of the party—a Member of the House for many years, of a noble family, but rather remarkable for raising a laugh at his buffoonery than any admiration for his wisdom—had no better taste or grace than to expostulate with Disraeli for always taking the viscountess with him. 'I cannot understand it,' said the graceless man, 'for, you know, you make yourself a perfect laughing-stock wherever your wife goes with you.' Disraeli fixed his eyes upon him very expressively and said, 'I don't suppose you can understand it, B.—I don't suppose you can understand it, for no one could ever in the last and wildest excursions of an insane imagination suppose you to be guilty of gratitude!'"
It is true that there have been memorable celibates, but in the main the world's work has been done by the married. Fame and reward are powerful incentives, but they bear no comparison to the influence exercised by affection.