in some grades of society, to choose a life companion for social or financial advantage. Such unions are not natural. They are cold business transactions. A man prompted by these motives sees in a woman the qualities of a good housekeeper, a social queen, or a financial gain. A woman prompted by unnatural motives sees in a man opportunities for social prestige, a life of luxury and ease. They drift apart instead of their personalities blending, through love, as one. Soon he spends his days in his daily vocation and his evenings in the lodges. She finds her only pleasure in following the latest fashions and devoting her time to various social functions. Each have their secrets and manage to avoid public disgrace.
Should a child be born into such an unnatural home, it would receive an unfortunate heredity and a still more unfortunate environment. The initial of its life was accidental, its prenatal rights were not regarded, its advent was not welcomed, it is now turned over to a hired nurse. Such a child is more unfortunate than an orphan. In no true sense has it a father or mother. This child, when visitors are about, or when the family is making a public display, may be petted, pampered and spoiled by its parents and on all occasions lavishly supplied with dress and toys; thus egotism will be stimulated and propensities gratified and this child will be placed at a decided disadvantage in life. Compared with this child, the little ragged street urchin is to be congratulated.
When the natural, God-designed and God-honored, sex instinct is perverted and base desire supplants love, in the choice of a companion, the home instinct is degraded, love dethroned and inharmony prevails.
The Romance, of Courtship and the Honeymoon, is Transitory. There is a certain amount of the glamour, mystery, novelty, romance and poetry connected with courtship and the honeymoon, while perhaps natural at the time, but in the very nature of the case cannot be permanent. The plain, practical, everyday experiences of life must become prominent in every successful home. The fairyland, of flowery visions, rippling streams of sentiment, poetic fancies of bliss and the lunar and stellar raptures of love, must yield, after a period of such experiences, to mundane realities where these beautiful dreams terminate and air castles are destroyed and life once more becomes real.
When the termination of this romantic period comes to the young wife, whose vision of marriage was received from sensational novels, fashion journals, the theater and gay social gatherings, and to the young husband, kid-gloved, well-starched and much-cravatted, it will be unexpected and very disastrous to their imaginary love. Cruel and prudish are they, who are responsible for creating artificial social visions in the minds of the youth. But when the termination of romance comes to the young husband and wife, whose courtship and marriage have been true to nature, this will be supplanted by the dawning consciousness of life’s real mission in marriage and they will discover that the truest, sweetest and most enduring pleasures and joys of life have only begun.
The first born.—Fortunate and happy is that young couple, who, before the romance of marriage is over, becomes aware that preparations must be made for the first little stranger into their home. If the faint prophecies, of the approaching advent of their first-born, thrill their lives with hopeful and joyful anticipations, marriage will now have a deeper significance, the bonds of love and dependence become stronger and the pleasures of life more real. The supremest moment of marriage comes when the young husband, who for the first time, in the birth chamber, stands by his wife’s side, holding her hands in his; stoops and kisses her lips, cheeks and brow, as she bravely and beautifully endures the throes of parturition. Such an experience is enough to transform a brute into a man. When the first-born is placed to the young mother’s breast, a deep, profound, but quiet happiness knows no bounds in two hearts that beat as one. This is the primary purpose of marriage. A cooing baby is nature’s own sequel to the honeymoon.