Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in action—prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together, and to prove by devotion to each other’s welfare the truth of what they say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God’s blessing upon all who keep their truth by being true as well as kind.
We add now a second duty of married persons—one that has a very prosaic sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that husband and wife should be reasonable—reasonable that they may be true in fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true enough—
“A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
But a fool’s wrath is heavier than both;”
and we might add, a fool’s love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds befooling themselves by levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the interpreter of God’s will to them, and of their own relation to each other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world’s folly, and time will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs through the land, and most girls are brought up to exact more expense than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.
Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.
Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a compromise of follies—the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding—the other irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement or sensibility—the two sometimes settling the difficulty by non-interference—the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will consent not to insist upon having her husband’s time or thought—the other allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally—the more gainers as in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor, would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with argument—ready sensibility with executive strength—nice perception with comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into each household, and over the great globe.
One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state, and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.
The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home. Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make both what they should be. Let not a man’s laborious gains be squandered in folly, nor a wife’s faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts—do not its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty? Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and boarding-houses reveal. They do not learn it well, unless they mingle faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?