THE START IN MATRIMONY, AND ITS DANGERS
In matrimony it is not 'All is well that ends well'; it is 'All is well that begins well, but not too well.' Starting from this principle, I have often advised young husbands to control themselves, and to be careful to avoid putting all their smartest dialogue and strongest situations in the first act of the comedy of matrimony, for fear lest the interest should go on flagging steadily to the end.
I have advised them to see that their wives do not get their own way in everything at once, and not to make themselves their abject slaves, because, just as no government has ever been known to successfully suppress, or even reduce, any liberty or privilege previously granted to the people, just so will no husband be able to recover one inch of the ground he has surrendered if he capitulates on the threshold of matrimony.
In fact, let young husbands and young wives behave toward each other in such a way that their friends will not smile and say: 'Lovely, but too good to last, I'm afraid.'
The dangers against which I have attempted to warn men exist for women—devoted, loving women who wish to start matrimony by trying to do the impossible in order to please their husbands, or, if not the impossible, at all events, what it may not be in their power to do for ever, or even for a long time.
One of these dangers is that of economy.
'My dear,' remarked a shrewd friend to a bride of a few weeks' standing, 'you will make a terrible mistake if you let your husband think that you can keep house on nothing.'
Young wives are sometimes pitifully anxious to be credited with remarkable cleverness as house-mistresses. The more they love their husbands, the less they like the idea of their toiling and moiling. Hence they are keenly anxious to prove themselves helpmeets in the literal sense of the word.
Not only will they name a far smaller sum as housekeeping money than their husbands can well afford to give them, but they will actually save out of that sum enough for their own clothes and petty cash expenses.
All this self-sacrifice is not only charming, but beautiful, when there is necessity for rigid economy. Young couples who wisely marry on small incomes, instead of wasting the sweetness of their youth over an endless engagement, must make a study of ways and means, and the wife who will cajole a shilling into doing duty for a five-shilling piece is a jewel beyond price.