The woman who marries on a small income and has plenty of work to do is not so liable to this unfortunate development.
The husband should be prepared for the effect of this uprooting on his young wife. He must not grudge her the little diversions that will help to pass the time while he is away. A woman with tact will choose the right moment for unburdening her mind of domestic woes. It is generally considered a wise plan to give a man a good dinner before you tell him anything unpleasant. The less she tells him of her petty worries the better a wife will get on, and the more her husband will admire her. Real troubles and grave anxieties should always be shared, and both authority and responsibility should be divided in a household if things are to run smoothly. It will be well for the young wife if she can feel the matrimonial ground firmly beneath her feet before she is called upon to bear the additional anxieties and physical trials of approaching motherhood.
In Society.
The bride is the honoured guest at any party given on her account. She would naturally appear in white, and if it were a grand affair she might don a modified edition of the wedding gown. I know a youthful bride who, having been married in a travelling dress, ordered a white satin frock at her husband's expense in which to make her social début. The average newly-married couple are not the most entertaining companions. Their own little world is too absorbing for them to take much interest in the trifles outside it, but it is beautiful to see their happiness. Sometimes they are tiresome. The bride is the chief offender. She quotes her Adolphus as the world-oracle, and dilates on her own recent domestic discoveries as if they were what civilised humanity had been waiting for through dark ages of perplexity. Her superior attitude towards unmarried friends not unfrequently leads to friction.
We must have patience with her, for she is learning a great deal, and has not yet had time to sort it out into proper proportions.
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CHAPTER XVIII
Mixed Marriages--Differences of Colour--Nationality and Religion--Scotch Marriages--Marriage of Minors and Wards in Chancery.
Mixed Marriages.
Love overleaps all barriers, and it is of but little use to try and bind it. Marriage, however, is another thing, and can be prevented even where love exists. How far it is right or advisable to do so must be a matter of individual judgment decided by the facts of each separate case. To take an instance. There is a very strong feeling, especially among medical men, against the marriage of cousins. Now love deep and true may exist between two cousins; but, seeing the physical deterioration that comes from the intermarrying of members of one family, it may be a plain duty to unborn generations for these two to abstain from marriage with each other. Where there is any hereditary disease of mind or body it is little short of criminal to contract such a union. In the matter of Mixed Marriages--namely, those between men and women differing from each other in colour, nationality, or religion, it is generally thought that they are fraught with grave risks.