As soon as a man can keep a wife he should marry and begin to make a home for himself. I am a great believer in early marriage, and I should like all my boys to marry as soon as ever they can. There is nothing teaches a man as the responsibility of marriage does, and nothing on earth is happier than a happy marriage. It is the complement of life, the perfect whole that all should strive to attain; about that subject I am quite sure, and none of the stock arguments against marriage, nor the stock jeers, will ever alter my opinion. Of course there are troubles, if so they are borne better together; pleasures come, they are brightened by having someone to share them; and above all, marriage makes the home; the home gives an object in life and steadies at once, therefore marriage should be encouraged in every way it can, and those who are married should help on the marriage of others, and should show by their own conduct and bearing that it is the best state on earth, if undertaken out of pure love, not silly passion, and maintained in the mutual respect, affection, and toleration for each other’s faults, which are the very bonds of the home, and which last when every slighter bond has given and fallen away. Once our boys are married we can breathe again, at all events our active work for them is over; and the less we interfere with them after that happy event the better chance will they have of making a success of their lives. All we have to do is to win the love and confidence of their wives, and that is not difficult if we never offer advice on any subject, and give them as much affection as we can. Above all must we resist the dear delight of talking over their ménage with other people. ‘A still tongue means a wise head,’ says the proverb, and a tongue cannot possibly be too still, when once there are sons and daughters-in-law in the family.
CHAPTER X.
SOME DOMESTIC DETAILS.
I think that I am more often consulted about how to manage servants, and how to apportion an income, than on any other detail of domestic management, and therefore I am of opinion that a few more words on these subjects may not be out of place here, although, as I have repeatedly stated elsewhere, no real help can be given by a stranger on either matter, and that only a species of general rule can be laid down, either about the management of the maids or how to set apart and divide the income we may have to spend. To begin with the income: I have had two scales drawn up by an accountant, and now present them here for what they are worth. The first is the very smallest income that any two people should marry upon, in my opinion; although I know many folks, especially among the ranks of the clerics, who ought to know much better, who continually do so, and as continually have numerous families, for which they cannot provide in the least, and for which they beg in the most shameless manner, and for whom I have neither sympathy nor patience. As a rule these unfortunates live in the country and have big gardens and houses found them rent free, but I have nothing to say to them here, and, as I cannot conceive how ladies and gentlemen can bring up, clothe, and feed their children, and manage their household respectably on less than 800l. a year, I have no ideas on the subject, and therefore cannot write on what I know nothing about.
Let us therefore take the ordinary young lawyer or young man who is ‘something in the City,’ that unknown City, the occupations of which are so mysterious in my eyes, and let us suppose he has 500l. to spend every year, increasing, let us hope, should he indulge in the luxury of a family; a luxury he has no more right to go in for on a tiny income than he would have to set up a carriage and pair, without being able to pay all the concomitant expenses; and this is how he should parcel out his expenditure:
| £ | s. | d. | |
| House-rent in London | 80 | 0 | 0 |
| Rates and taxes | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Repairs to house and furniture | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| Two servants’ wages and keep | 90 | 0 | 0 |
| Keep of self and wife, at least | 75 | 0 | 0 |
| Clothes for wife and pocket-money | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Clothes for husband, including his daily luncheon and City journey | 70 | 0 | 0 |
| Coals | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Life insurance | 27 | 0 | 0 |
| Summer outing | 12 | 10 | 0 |
| Washing | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| 476 | 10 | 0 |
Leaving: the magnificent sum of 24l. 10s. to cover doctors’ bills and the thousand and one incidental expenses which are always cropping up, to say nothing of amusement. One could hardly rise to the upper boxes on 500l. a year if one must live in town and have appearances to keep up as well.
It is better at first, if the income is very small, to live in the suburbs. There are not so many temptations to spend money, and there would not be much going out. In London of course, the going out is endless; there must be cabs, new gloves, flowers, and the hundred and one extras that carry off one’s money, and two servants are a sine quâ non. If the suburbs are selected, cabs and evening gloves, &c., need not be legislated for; one servant could do the work; and the house-rent and taxes would come to 50l. instead of 100l.; but there would be the husband’s season-ticket to consider, and furthermore the intense dulness that is the wife’s portion, for suburban residents are not hospitable; they are, most of them, not very well off, for of course all rich people fly to London; they are mutually suspicious of each other’s bona fides, and are, moreover, engrossed as a rule in their domestic duties, and when the husband returns from town he is not only tired with his work, but with the added railway journey; he usually hankers after his garden in the summer and his arm-chair by the fire in the winter, and does not care to go out, more especially as he judges from his own feelings in the matter, and is quite sure his host wishes him at home in bed quite as much as he wishes himself there.
But, again, here I must show how impossible it is for another person to really advise a friend on this subject of division of income satisfactorily. There are plenty of suburban residents who are absolutely satisfied with their fate, and are equal to the misfortune of a small income. In that case I have told them precisely how they can manage best on the sum of 500l. a year. I can assure them they will have to be most economical and excellent managers to do that; and they can furthermore understand that it costs about 50l. a year to add a child to the establishment, and that 45l. a year is supposed to keep and pay a servant. These two details will be of assistance, maybe, when the income increases and the owners thereof contemplate a little launching out.
An income of 1,000l. a year should be apportioned as follows: