[PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE.]
By the Author of "How to be Happy Though Married," etc.
A minister of one of the many denominations once began an extempore marriage service with these words, "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" When no reply was forthcoming he said, "Let's proceed." Now I think that it is only those who are wickedly careless, or so stupid that they are without anxiety, who make this venture without due preparation, and this preparation should begin, as it seems to me, with our earliest years. Not, of course, that little boys and girls should be always thinking of and planning for marriage, but that their parents and guardians should remember that this is a fate in store for them, and that one day these children will have homes of their own which they will either curse or bless.
That some preparation is required for marriage was authoritatively recognised by the ancient state of Belgium, as I gather from a picture which I once saw in the Historical Society's collection of paintings in New York. The scene is the inside of a peasant's house in Belgium. On an easy chair sits a fatherly old priest who is catechising a shy, awkward-looking country bumpkin. Near him is his lady-love. She would gladly prompt him only the priest is keeping a sharp eye upon her. In the background is the girl's mother preparing a wedding repast in case the young people pass their qualifying examination. Underneath is the name of the picture—"Catechism before marriage according to the ancient State of Belgium as necessary for state and matrimonial security." Now we think that this was a very good rule, which provided that before young people should take upon themselves the great responsibilities of marriage, they should have learned at least this much of the catechism, how to do their duty to their neighbour. Of course husband and wife are more to each other than mere neighbours, but they are that at least, and if they do not do their duty towards each other, homes will be wretched, and where homes are miserable the state cannot but be weak, so we see that it was a matter for state control.
Suppose a man spends his youth not in settling his habits, which is what we ought to do when young, but in sowing wild oats, do you not think that he will reap a crop of wild oats in his domestic life?
"Who is the happy husband? He who scanning his unwedded life
Thanks Heaven with a conscience free 'twas faithful to his future wife."
Who, on the other hand, is a miserable husband? He who cannot bring to his marriage a clean bill of moral health, who cannot make upon his wife the best of all marriage settlements, the settlement of habits in the right direction. And even young ladies require some preparation for marriage. If they are frivolous and flirty and have no higher notion of worship than to burn incense to vanity, they will not be happy themselves in married life and assuredly they will not make their husbands happy.