“It is a grand good match; I don’t know anybody that needs a wife more than he,” said one of these at a little gathering, speaking of a recent marriage.
“Why?” innocently questioned another woman, who was supposed to have somewhat peculiar views concerning these things.
“O, you never want anybody to marry!” burst out a chorus of voices,—which was surely a very broad inference from one narrow monosyllable.
“But why does he need a wife?” persisted the questioner.
“For sympathy and companionship,” triumphantly replied the first woman, knowing that to such motives her interlocutor could take no exception. But a third woman, not knowing that anything lay behind these questions and answers, and feeling that the original position was but feebly maintained by such unsubstantial things as sympathy and companionship, being also a near neighbor of the person in question, and acquainted with the facts, proceeded to strengthen the case by adding, “Well, he was all alone, and he wa’n’t very well, and he was taken sick one night and couldn’t get anybody to take care of him.”
“But why not hire a nurse?”
“Well he did, and she was very good; but she wouldn’t do his washing.”
Only wait long enough, and you are tolerably sure to get the truth at last. It was not sympathy and companionship, after all, that the man wanted: it was his washing!
You see a most unconscious, but irrefragable testimony concerning the relations which are deemed proper between a man and his wife in the very common use of the phrase, “kind husband.” It is often employed in praise of the living and in eulogy of the dead. Compared with a cruel husband, I suppose a kind husband is the more tolerable; but compared with a true husband, there is no such thing as a kind husband. You are kind to animals, to beggars, to the beetle that you step out of your path to avoid treading on. One may be kind to people who have no claims upon him, but he is not kind to his wife. He does not stand towards her in any relation that makes kindness possible. He can no more be kind to his wife than he can be to himself. His wife is not his inferior, to be condescended to, but his treasure to be cherished, his friend to be loved, his adviser to be deferred to. It is an insult to a woman for her husband to assume, or for his biographer to assume for him, that he could be kind to her. Did you ever hear a woman praised for being kind to her husband? Did you ever hear an obituary declare a woman to be a dutiful daughter, a kind wife, a faithful mother? You may be sure the phrase is never used by any one who has a just idea of what marriage ought to be.
If love cannot outlast a few years of life, it is idle to lament that it is so surely quenched by death. Absence cannot be blamed for dissipating a love that has been already conquered by presence. Nevertheless, in the alacrity with which one is off with the old love and on with the new may be read the shallowness, the flimsiness, the earthliness, of that which passes for the deepest, the most lasting, and the most divine. Weary feet, aching brow, and disappointed heart are at rest; or a vigorous young life is smitten before its heyday was clouded; or the ripened sheaf is garnered at the harvest-time; but no proprieties, no shock of premature loss, nor the “late remorse of love,” avails to make the impression indelible. The dead past may bury its dead out of sight; the resurrection may adjust its own perplexities; but in this world there must be good cheer. The funeral baked meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-table. La Reine est morte: Vive la Reine! And when the loving wife is gone away from the heart that entertained its angel unawares, people will tell you with a sober face how “beautifully he bears it!” “perfectly resigned!” “Christian calmness!” “kiss the rod!” It were to be wished he did not bear it quite so beautifully. When a wife is prematurely torn from her home, the only proper attitude for her husband is to sit in sackcloth and ashes. It is fit that he should be stricken to the dust. It is not becoming for him to indulge in pious reflections. Ill-timed resignation is a breach of morals. He is not to be supposed capable of a lasting fidelity, but he may be expected to be temporarily stunned by the blow. It would be more decorous for him to follow the example of the powerful and wealthy king in the fairy-tale, who, having lost his wife, was so inconsolable that he shut himself up for eight entire days in a little room, where he spent his time chiefly in knocking his head against the wall!