121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married. Of what use are her accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and her romantic epistles? If she be good in her nature, the first little faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever. I once saw a very striking instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match, and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, the pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however, though in double quantity, would not pay the baker and butcher; and, after an absence of little better than a year, I found the husband in prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like, was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate of mothers. All the music and all the drawing, and all the plays and romances were gone to the winds! The husband and baby had fairly supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has, I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. They have now a numerous family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.
122. But, this is a rare instance: the husband, like his countrymen in general, was at once brave, humane, gentle, and considerate, and the love was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it made losses and sufferings appear as nothing. When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked Mrs. DICKENS where her piano was, she smiled, and turned her face towards her baby, that was sitting on her knee; as much as to say, 'This little fellow has beaten the piano;' and, if what I am now writing should ever have the honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer of a renewed expression of my admiration of her conduct, and of that regard for her kind and sensible husband, which time and distance have not in the least diminished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until it shall cease to beat.
123. The like of this is, however, not to be expected: no man ought to think that he has even a chance of it: besides, the husband was, in this case, a man of learning and of great natural ability: he has not had to get his bread by farming or trade; and, in all probability, his wife has had the leisure to practise those acquirements which she possessed at the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case with the farmer or the tradesman's wife? She has to help to earn a provision for her children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store for sickness or old age. She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin, at once, to assist her husband in his earnings: the way in which she can most efficiently assist, is by taking care of his property; by expending his money to the greatest advantage; by wasting nothing; by making the table sufficiently abundant with the least expense. And how is she to do these things, unless she have been brought up to understand domestic affairs? How is she to do these things, if she have been taught to think these matters beneath her study? How is any man to expect her to do these things, if she have been so bred up as to make her habitually look upon them as worthy the attention of none but low and ignorant women?
124. Ignorant, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you to understand. A ploughman is not an ignorant man because he does not know how to read: if he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an ignorant man; but, a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays and sings: lovers may live on very aërial diet; but husbands stand in need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a constantly clean board, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all the 'accomplishments,' taught in all the 'establishments' in the world.
125. GOOD TEMPER. This is a very difficult thing to ascertain beforehand. Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim, interpreted into the contrary. By 'good temper,' I do not mean easy temper, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. Sulkiness, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman a wife; a constant inmate, a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a word all the while! Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time; but this is far better than the sulks. If you have your eyes, and look sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that, in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness arises from capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for sulkiness is, to suffer it to take its full swing; but it is better not to have the disease in your house; and to be married to it is little short of madness.
126. Querulousness is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no woman, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness. That she complain, and roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very well, more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It shows want of patience, and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of this, a cold indifference, is still worse. 'When will you come again? You can never find time to come here. You like any company better than mine.' These, when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the same civil smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were young), God, in his mercy, preserve me!
127. Pertinacity is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the party. To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become a pound in the wife. An eternal disputer is a most disagreeable companion; and where young women thrust their say into conversations carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner, and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will encounter them as wives.
128. Still, of all the faults as to temper, your melancholy ladies have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease. Most wives are, at times, misery-makers; but these carry it on as a regular trade. They are always unhappy about something, either past, present, or to come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in most cases; but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little want, a little real trouble, a little genuine affliction must, if you would effect a cure, be resorted to. But, this is very painful to a man of any feeling; and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is to give you a life of wailing and sighs.
129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of importance. The less favoured part of the sex say, that 'beauty is but skin-deep;' and this is very true; but, it is very agreeable, though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but we admire them, nevertheless. "Handsome is that handsome does," used to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome daughter. 'Please your eye and plague your heart' is an adage that want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago. These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is inconsistent with chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor to greater temptation than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that, therefore, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this matter stands.
130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the temptation when in their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no temptation at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state, this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the fault is in the husband. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard, his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no justification for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes open, made a solemn contract: if he have not beauty enough to please him, he should have sought it in some other woman: if, as is frequently the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought him the rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so many cases; as it is generally caused by the want of affection and due attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.