“A young man married is not a man that’s marr’d.” Had Byron married his earliest and purest love, Mary Chaworth, both the poet and the world would have been the gainers. We would then have had more poems like the magnificent Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, and no poem like the voluptuous Don Juan. Domestic happiness, instead of domestic misery, would have been Byron’s earthly blessing; for the pure affection of his noble though erring heart would have been concentrated upon one adored object. Moore’s early marriage to his beautiful and beloved Bessie did not “mar” his brilliant career either in literature or in society. Her love and sympathy cheered him in his young and struggling days, when—
“All feverish and glowing,
He rushed up the rugged way panting to fame.”
When success crowned his efforts, the praise and admiration of Bessie were dearer to the young poet than all the flattery lavished upon him by the loveliest ladies of England; and, when misfortune came which drove away his summer friends, she was ever by his side, brightening and encouraging the desponding poet.
The wife of Disraeli was Disraeli’s best and truest friend. Her influence fired his latent ambition, and brought into active use his finest talents. Sustained by her, Disraeli abandoned the idle and aimless life of a London dandy, and became a statesman and the leader of statesmen, as Prime Minister of Great Britain. His domestic life was most happy. From the triumph of the senate and the pageantry of the court, he turned with unaffected delight to his home-life and home-love. The sweetest associations of his life all clustered around that home, where he always found the truest sympathy and love. Fully realizing the blessing of married life, he has written: “Whatever be the lot of man, however inferior, however oppressed, if he only love and be loved, he must strike a balance in favor of existence; for love can illumine the dark roof of poverty, and lighten the fetter of the slave.”
These few examples, which may be multiplied indefinitely, are given to show that, so far as fame is concerned, “a young man married is not a man that’s marr’d.”
Now, to another and more practical view of the matter. How many young men give as a reason for not marrying that they can’t afford it—that marriage is a luxury only for the rich? We know that the sordid forms of fashionable society have encircled this heavenly rose called love with so many thorns that the opulent alone can gather it with safety. We also know that, in the gay world, as Lady Modish observes in the Careless Husband, “sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as sweet snuff—nobody takes it now.” But what man of sense, what man who longs for love and a home, would think of marrying a woman of fashion whose mornings are passed in bed over a sensational novel, whose afternoons are spent on the street, and whose evenings are danced away in the ball-room?
It is a great and deplorable mistake to suppose that only the rich can afford to marry. Dining with Chief-Justice Chase in Washington, some one mentioned that Mr.—— had of late grown cynical and censorious, because he was engaged and could not afford to marry. Well do we remember the remark of the Chief-Justice, that “any young man who can support himself can support a wife—that is, if he is wise enough to select the right sort of person.” Mr. Chase spoke from his own personal experience; for he had married when he was young, poor, and unknown, and his success began with his marriage. Take any young man of average intelligence and industry—a lawyer, clerk, or journalist—he makes enough to live comfortably and to save, but he is not willing to follow Mr. Micawber’s philosophy of happiness: “Income, £100 a year; expenses, £99 19s.—happiness. Income, £100 a year; expenses, £100 1s.—misery.” Which, in plain English, means—make more than you spend, and you will be happy; spend more than you make, and you will be miserable.
Our young lawyer, clerk, or journalist is not satisfied to live comfortably: he must live luxuriously. He must smoke the best cigars, drink the choicest wines, wear the most fashionable clothes; he must belong to a club, play billiards, go to the opera; he must drive to the park, when he can ride in the city cars; he must spend his summer holiday at Saratoga or Long Branch—in short, he must live as extravagantly as the idle sons of rich men with whom he associates. To do this, he must necessarily live beyond his means.
These are the young men who say they cannot afford to marry. They can afford to marry if they will give up expenses which are always useless and often dangerous. Addison says with admirable truth: “All men are not equally qualified for getting money, but it is in the power of every one alike to practise the virtue of thrift; and I believe there are few persons who, if they please to reflect on their own past lives, will not find that, had they saved all those little sums which they have spent unnecessarily, they might at present have been masters of a competent fortune.” Certainly, if young men will practise the habit of saving “those little sums” which are so often “unnecessarily spent,” they will no longer have to complain that they cannot afford to marry.