A SHORT DIARY AFTER MY MARRIAGE.
August 10th. I have been married just ten days. During that short period, many circumstances have occurred, much tending to dispel the illusive hopes so long and so lately cherished in my imagination and fervent feelings. My husband is possessed of many rare qualities of mind and heart, and he loves me with excessive earnestness. But I have now discovered, what I could not, through infatuation, before marriage—that those passions of his nature which won my admiration are barbed with opposite extremes. At one time he loads me with caresses; at another reviles with unbecoming satire. My petulant disposition impels a retort, and hence frequent altercations. In moments of calmness I explain to him how oppressive and deplorable are these recurrences. He relents with an apology, and then calmly and sweetly do we reason together. Late affectionate attachments are renewed, and a Divine Presence witnesseth the communion of our hearts.
There are several considerations which render our marriage untimely and unwise.
First. Our mutual acquaintance was too short. We did not at all canvass each other’s faults; we rather strove to conceal and veil our eyes before them,—too frequent and important mistakes of love-trapped young people.
Secondly. Our religious predilections are much too dissimilar—he being strictly Calvinistic, a religion to which I am sternly opposed. The mild precepts of our beloved Saviour, and the sacred vows of the altar, are thus desecrated by contention—a double curse.
Thirdly. We are much too poor.
This last consideration is most unfortunately omitted in the anticipatory summing-up of the chances and consequences of married life, by those whose misfortune it is to be poor like ourselves. Reflect upon it as you may, and palliate as you please, poverty marriages are in themselves an evil and a disgrace. In a favored land like this, no industrious single man (unless peculiarly unfortunate) has a right to be pennyless at the age of twenty-five; and such as are imprudent, as well as those who wrap the golden hours of manhood in a napkin, should, by special enactment of law, be not only debarred from the enjoyments of matrimony, but also shamed from the presence of worthy people. As love-fevers are managed in these days, the habiliments of the altar are too often the sport of an illusion, as fatal in its effects as ill-timed in concert. Marriage, under proper regulations, is indeed a boon and a blessing; but when made to minister to the forlorn hopes of the inconsiderate, the poverty-bound, or the helpless, it is a curse of the deepest die. It has darkened the face of creation as a simoon from time immemorial, encompassing the wretchedness of millions, who, had they timely resolved, first to better their conditions, then to marry, might have been independent and happy all their lives.
August 20th. Ten more days have passed—so many saw-teeth. It is painful to trace the pale appearances which have assumed the place of the rose-tint upon my husband’s cheek. Returning from his daily toils, I find him stubborn in manner and bitter in words. All my efforts to humble his towering will have failed. So, between poverty, contention, and disappointment, our pathway to the future is unflowered.