“It was love, Victory! love, that wouldn’t let me eat a mite, nor sleep a wink, if I couldn’t put my hand onto Josiah Allen any time day or night.”
“Then,” says she, “why not give other good men and women credit for bein’ actuated by the same sentiments? Those that God has joined togather, no man can put asunder. Those who are really married heart and sole, would never separate, it would only correct abuses, and separate those that man, and not God, had joined togather.”
Says I, “Victory, is there any particular need of folks lettin’ man join ’em togather, when God hasn’t?” says I; “if folks was obleeged to marry, there would be some sense in such talk,” says I, “they haint no business to marry if they don’t love each other. All sin brings its punishment, and them that commit the crime aginst thier own sole, of marryin’ without love, ought to be punished by unhappiness in thier domestic relations, what else can they expect?” says I. “Marriage is like baptism, now some folks say it is a savin’ audnence, I say nobody haint any right to be baptised unless they are saved already. Nobody haint any business to put on the outward form of marriage, if they haint got the inward marriage of the spirit.”
“Some folks marry for a home,” says she.
“Wall, they haint no business to,” says I warmly. “I had ruther live out doors under a umberell, all my days.”
“Those are my sentiments exactly, Josiah Allen’s wife. But you can’t deny that people are liable to be decieved.”
“If they are such poor judges the first time, what would hender ’em from bein’ decieved the next time, and so on, ad infinitum, to the twentieth and thirtieth time?” says I firmly. “Instead of folks bein’ tied together looser, they ought to be tied as tight agin. If folks knew they couldn’t marry agin, how many divorces do you suppose there would be? No doubt there are individual cases, where there is great wrong, and great sufferin’. But we ought to look out for the greatest good to the greatest number. And do you realize, Victory, what a condition society would be in, if divorces was absolutely free? The recklessness with which new ties would be formed, the lovin’ wimmen’s hearts that would be broken by desertion, the children that would be homeless and uncared for. When a fickle man or woman gets thier eyes onto somebody they like better than they do thier own lawful pardners, it is awful easy to think that man, and not God, has jined ’em. But let folks once get the idee into thier heads, that marriage is a solemn thing, and lasts as long as thier lives do, and they can’t get away from each other, they will be ten times as careful to live peacible and happy with thier companions.” Says I, “When a man realizes that he can if he wants to, start up and marry a woman before breakfast, and get divorced before dinner, and have a new one before supper time, it has a tendency to make him onstiddy and worrysome.”
Says I, “Victory, men are dreadful tryin’ by spells, do you suppose I have lived with one for upwards of 15 years, and hain’t found it out? But suppose a mother deserts a child because he is wormy, and tears his breeches. She brought him into the world, and it is her duty to take care of him. Do you suppose a store keeper ought to take back a pink calico dress, after you have made it up, and washed it because the color washes out of it, you ought to have tried it before it was cut off. I married Josiah Allen with both eyes open, I didn’t wear spectacles then, I wasn’t starved to it nor thumbscrewed into it, and it is my duty to make the best of him.”
Says she, “When a woman finds that her soul is clogged and hampered, it is a duty she owes to her higher nature to find relief.”
Says I, “When a woman has such feelin’s, instead of leavin’ her lawful husband and goin’ round huntin’ up a affinitee, let her take a good thoroughwert puke. Says I, in 9 and ½ cases out of 10, it is folkes’es stomachs that are clogged up insted of their souls. Says I, there is nothin’ like keepin’ the stomach in good order to make the moral sentiments run good. Now our Tirzah Ann, Josiah’s girl by his first wife, I kinder mistrusted that she was fallin’ in love with—” I almost said it right out Shakespeare Bobbet, but I thought of Betsey, and turned it “with a little feller that hadn’t hardly got out of his roundabouts, she bein’ at the same time in pantalettes. Well I give her a good thoroughwert puke, and it cured her, and if his mother,” says I with a keen look onto Betsey, as I thought of my night of troubles, “If his mother had served him in the same way, it would have saved some folks a good deal of sufferin’.”