CHAPTER IV
ADVICE TO THE MAN WHO WANTS TO MARRY
What should attract him in matrimony — At what age should people get married? — Be superior to your wife in everything.
When you are dead, once said a cynic, it's for a long time; but when you are married, it's for ever.
Therefore, before entering into the holy estate of matrimony, a man could not be too careful in the choice of his partner.
Now, what should influence him most in that choice? Money? Never—oh, never, unless it be out of philanthropy and on reflecting that, after all, it would be very hard on rich girls to feel that they cannot marry because they have money, and I do think that they want to marry as well as others. Beauty, then? No; beauty passes away. Ugliness? Certainly not; ugliness remains. What, then? An altogether of physical, moral, and intellectual charms which fit in exactly with all the ideals of that man, and, above all, a similarity of tastes.
After all, what is beauty, considered as an incentive to love? A man has in himself a hundred beings to every one of which a different kind of beauty can appeal. If he be an artist, the women of Raphael will inspire him with the purest sensations of love, those of Titian with the loftiest sentiments of admiration and respect. Those of Watteau will make him believe that he could live on candies and choux à la crême. Those of Teniers would reconcile him to the idea of a quiet life over a pipe and a tankard of beer. Some heroic beauty will inspire him with the most chivalrous sentiments; some melancholy one with dreams of a refined poetic life. Some sedate beauty, with her hair dressed à la vierge, will suggest to him a regular humdrum life, mid-day dinners, retiring and rising early, and will inculcate in him an immoderate desire to be the father of a large family. That same man, however, might become a criminal under the influence of some poisonous beauty. Some Bostonian girl educated beyond her intellect might induce that very man to spend the rest of his life studying Browning.
Now, my dear man, if beauty should influence you in the choice of a wife, never decide on a woman before you are absolutely sure that, whatever happens, you will be happy with her as your wife knitting by your side, while, under a veranda covered with jasmine and honeysuckle, you play with the babe on your knees. If a woman does not possess that kind of beauty, she is not fit for matrimony, and don't marry her.
Now, a woman should marry young, very young even, so that her husband should enjoy all the different phases of her beauty, from the beauty of girlhood to that second youth, or matronly beauty, which to my mind is perhaps the best of all. The Watteau of eighteen will become a Rubens at forty. It is, perhaps, at forty that a woman is most strikingly beautiful, and she is almost invariably so when she has taken care of herself, and has been loved and petted by husband and children alike. It is then that she knows how to make the best of herself, that she best understands how to exercise her gifts and charms in the most effective manner.
It is at forty that she enjoys the grace of perfect self-possession. She has tact, and dresses faultlessly. Her knowledge of the world, her experience of life, all help to make her a more delightful companion than ever. The love she has inspired is written on every one of her features. Her eyes sparkle with joy, her mouth expresses the ecstasy of past and present bliss, and also gratitude for the kisses that have been impressed upon it. Yes, the woman of forty is a joy, an intoxicating and an incomparable joy, to a husband. That woman is even more beautiful physically than she ever was, and her beauty is of such a different type from what it was at twenty that I can very well understand how a husband can seriously fall in love with his wife a second time. All this is truth, my dear fellow. And don't even be afraid of white hair. With a good complexion, a cheerful expression, and two big black eyes, nothing goes better than white hair, and the whiter it is the better.