We are pained with the whole tone of this letter, of which we give but a few lines. Notwithstanding her complaints and fault-finding, the writer cannot hide the fact that, from her own showing, she has a pleasant home, an indulgent husband, and wealth sufficient to obviate any necessity for labor or care, more than is required to superintend her domestic affairs, and look after her children, as every mother and housekeeper pledges herself to do when she enters the marriage state. It is natural that her husband should object to her leaving him for months, deprive him of his children, and disorganize his home, for her own gratification.
“Until death do us part,” the promise reads: not simply for a few years, at the end of which time the whole domestic economy may become deranged simply for personal pleasure, apart from the family.
We see nothing that this dissatisfied woman has to complain of, but are inclined to think she has been infected with those pernicious doctrines which have led to loud complaints about women,—defrauded of her rights, woman’s cruel subjugation,—doctrines with which we have less and less patience, because we see more and more clearly the mistakes and mischief which have sprung and will continue to spring from them, unless the “plague is stayed.” No doubt many a woman is oppressed and treated unkindly, often cruelly, and made to feel that she is placed by her husband in a subordinate position, instead of reigning with him over their home,—his other self with equal rights and power, as is only meet,—having charge of one department, while he takes another for which his stronger organization and peculiar masculine abilities are better adapted. The husband to superintend the outside, severer duties: the wife as God prepared her to be, the mother watching over infancy, and through those duties made less physically strong, but giving grace and refinement to the home, which, without her,—under masculine supervision,—would degenerate into coarseness and inelegance.
We know there are many overtaxed, broken-down women who by kindness and just appreciation might have been saved, and remained altogether lovely and refined, making their homes like Paradise before the fall.
There are also many broken-down men, dispirited, uneasy of life, ruined by the frivolity, irritability, and extravagance of their wives, whom a refined, sensible, loving woman, would have redeemed and made happy, noble, and godlike.
We imagine the rights and the wrongs are about equally divided on either side. The deceitfulness of the human heart, the natural depravity, unsubdued, left to run wild and ungoverned, seeking not the peace and happiness of the chosen partner, but their own selfish gratification, has changed many a noble man into a reckless, uncomfortable, unprincipled husband, or an arbitrary and harsh domestic tyrant. And the same selfish indulgence and unregulated passions have also changed many a woman, capable of shining in her appropriate sphere as mother, or home refiner, into an irritable, unsatisfied fireside torment.
But this is wandering from the main point, through a train of thoughts very naturally evoked by the perusal of the letter referred to. We believe many homes are injured and much dissatisfaction and unhappiness occasioned by the greatly increased disposition to travel; roaming each year away from home, and too frequently without the companionship which should naturally be secured. A man is often compelled by business to be absent from home for weeks, or even months, to go abroad, and frequently when it would be impossible for him to take his wife with him. Often one must go for health, while it is important that the other should remain at home to look after their common interests. These are misfortunes which cannot be avoided, and must be borne from necessity, not from choice.
But when we see either desiring to roam, “to go a pleasuring” alone, when both cannot go, we wonder at the folly which is laying the foundation for bitter regret in later years. The marriage ceremony is but a mockery, if the two who exchange vows are not expecting to find their chief earthly joys in each other’s society. But when they can bring their minds to a separation of weeks or months, just for pleasure, we think they little dream of the heartaches they are laying up in store for one another.
Keep together while you can. Death will sever the bond, all too soon, or sickness compel absence, full of fear and sad forebodings. It is impossible for a husband and wife to be absent from each other often, even for a few weeks at a time, without finding little changes on their return. Every one has some peculiarities of character and disposition which are not exactly congenial; but if married young, before habits or traits are fixed past change, all these little infelicities are softened or lost sight of in daily communion, and man and wife assimilate, and grow more and more of one heart and one mind, if happily mated. But let these separations, even of short duration, once begin, and they soon grow apart. The natural traits and dissimilarities which constant association have held dormant wake up, and are less and less easily lulled to sleep after each separation.
We think women are more injured by this roving than men. The latter are seldom long absent, except on business, with no leisure for pleasure-seeking while away; and in their necessarily rapid traveling, the hurry, the annoyance, the loss of creature comforts, which are found in greater perfection at home, are more felt, and usually the comforts and luxuries of their own fireside are more fully appreciated on their return. In the whirl of business while absent, they have little temptation to take up any unusual line of thought or action. But a woman, unless she must go for her health, more frequently travels to have a “good time,” throwing aside all cares, instead of taking them with her as her husband does. In this freedom, she at once enters upon a mode of life altogether different from that which a wife, mother, or housekeeper can have at home. Her love of nicety and order is less disturbed when she has only herself to care for; and a selfish habit, a feeling of entire independence, is easily established, so that when she returns home she finds it difficult to take up again what was once a pleasure, but now seems more like the “burden of life.” The noise and confusion of children or much company, for the care of which she feels responsible, are far more irksome than before her “pleasure trip.” She does not find the yoke so easy or the burden so light. The habit of being interested in or sharing one another’s cares, reporting little items of daily news when together, is destroyed, and without any intentional unkindness they have learned to turn to others for the amusement or the social intercourse which was once a part of their life.