Though Cupid is said to be blind, he is a better guide than the rules of arithmetic. We have false ideas of happiness. What will make me happy—contented? "Oh, if I were rich, I should be happy!" A gentleman who was enjoying the hospitalities of the great millionaire and king of finance, Rothschild, as he looked at the superb appointments of the mansion, said to his host, "You must be a happy man!" "Happy!" said he, "happy! I happy—happy!" "Aye, happy!" "Let us change the subject." John Jacob Astor of America, was also told that he must be a very happy man, being so rich. "Why," said he, "would you take care of my property for your board and clothes? That's all I get for it." In taking a dowry with a wife "thou losest thy liberty," says an old writer: "she will ride upon thee, domineer as she list, wear the breeches in her oligarchical government, and beggar thee besides."
Better to have a fortune in your wife than with her. "My wife has made my fortune," said a gentleman of great possessions, "by her thrift, prudence, and cheerfulness, when I was just beginning." "And mine has lost my fortune," answered his companion, bitterly, "by useless extravagance, and repining when I was doing well." The girl who brings to her husband a large dowry may also bring habits of luxury learned in a rich home. She may be almost as incapable of understanding straitened circumstances as was the lady of the court of Louis XVI., who, on hearing of people starving, exclaimed, "Poor creatures! No bread to eat! Then let them eat cakes!"
Nor is it wise to marry for beauty alone: as even the finest landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless a beautiful nature shine through it. The beauty of to-day becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. No man is so much to be pitied as the husband of a "professional beauty." Yet beauty, when it betokens health, or when it is the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, is valuable, and has a great power of winning affection.
Above all things do not marry a fool who will shame you and reveal your secrets. For ourselves we do not believe the first part at least of Archbishop Whately's definition of woman: "A creature that does not reason, and that pokes the fire from the top." The wife who does not and cannot make use of reason to overcome the daily difficulties of domestic life, and who can in no sense be called the companion of her husband, is a mate who hinders rather than helps. Sooner or later a household must fall into the hands of its women, and sink or swim according to their capacities. It is hard enough for a man to be married to a bad woman; but for a man who marries a foolish woman there is no hope.
"One must love their friends with all their failings, but it is a great failing to be ill," and therefore unless you are one of those rare men who would never lose patience with a wife always in pain, when choosing you should think more of a healthy hue than of a hectic hue, and far more of good lungs than of a tightly-laced waist "See that she chews her food well, and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right."
As regards the marriageable age of women we may quote the following little conversation: "No woman is worth looking at after thirty," said young Mrs. A., a bride with all the arrogant youthfulness of twenty-one summers. "Quite true, my dear," answered Lady D., a very pretty woman some ten or fifteen years older; "nor worth listening to before."
Please yourself, good sir! only do not marry either a child or an old woman. Certainly a man should marry to obtain a friend and companion rather than a cook and housekeeper; but yet that girl is a prize indeed who has so well prepared herself for the business of wifehood as to be able to keep not only her husband company, but her house in good order. "If that man is to be regarded as a benefactor of his species who makes two stalks of corn to grow where only one grew before, not less is she to be regarded as a public benefactor who economizes and turns to the best practical account the food products of human skill and labour."
Formerly a woman's library was limited to the Bible and a cookery-book. This curriculum has now been considerably extended, and it is everywhere acknowledged that "chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and geography enough to know the different rooms in her house," is not science enough for women. It is surely not impossible, however, for an intending husband to find a girl who can make her higher education compatible with his comforts, who can when necessary bring her philosophy down to the kitchen. Why should literature unfit women for the everyday business of life? It is not so with men. You see those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time and attention to the most homely objects.
The other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably, a person said of a woman, whom he knew but slightly, "She disappoints me utterly. How could her husband have married her? She is commonplace and stupid." "Yes," said a friend, reflectively, "it is strange. She is not a brilliant woman, she is not even an intellectual one; but there is such a thing as a genius for affection, and she has it. It has been good for her husband that he married her." In the sphere of home the graces of gentleness, of patience, of generosity, are far more valuable than any personal attractions or mental gifts and accomplishments. They contribute more to happiness and are the source of sympathy and spiritual discernment. For does not the woman who can love see more and understand more than the most intellectual woman who has no heart?
A vacancy in the floor sweeping department of a public institution having been advertised, the testimonials to the intellectual and moral eminence of an old woman were overwhelming; but after the election it appeared she had only one arm! Not less unfitted to be a wife is the woman who, with every other qualification, has no genius for affection.