Advice to Young Men / And (Incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Youth, a Bachelor, a Lover, a Husband, a Father, a Citizen, or a Subject.

by William Cobbett

208. So much of a man's happiness and of his efficiency through life depends upon his mind being quite free from all anxieties of this sort, that too much care cannot be taken to guard against them; and, I repeat, that the great preservation of all is, the young couple living as much as possible at home, and having as few visitors as possible. If they do not prefer the company of each other to that of all the world besides; if either of them be weary of the company of the other; if they do not, when separated by business or any other cause, think with pleasure of the time of meeting again, it is a bad omen. Pursue this course when young, and the very thought of jealousy will never come into your mind; and, if you do pursue it, and show by your deeds that you value your wife as you do your own life, you must be pretty nearly an idiot, if she do not think you to be the wisest man in the world. The best man she will be sure to think you, and she will never forgive any one that calls your talents or your wisdom in question.

209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, nay, if to avoid misery and ruin in the married state, requires all these precautions, all these cares, to fail to any extent in any of which is to bring down on a man's head such fearful consequences; will you say that, if this be the case, it is better to remain single? If you should say this, it is my business to show that you are in error. For, in the first place, it is against nature to suppose that children can cease to be born; they must and will come; and then it follows, that they must come by promiscuous intercourse, or by particular connexion. The former nobody will contend for, seeing that it would put us, in this respect, on a level with the brute creation. Then, as the connexion is to be particular, it must be during pleasure, or for the joint lives of the parties. The former would seldom hold for any length of time: the tie would seldom be durable, and it would be feeble on account of its uncertain duration. Therefore, to be a father, with all the lasting and delightful ties attached to the name, you must first be a husband; and there are very few men in the world who do not, first or last, desire to be fathers. If it be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but that its duration ought to be subject to the will, the mutual will at least, of the parties; the answer is, that it would seldom be of long duration. Every trifling dispute would lead to a separation; a hasty word would be enough. Knowing that the engagement is for life, prevents disputes too; it checks anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a field with a weak fence, and with captivating pasture on the other side, and he is continually trying to get out; but, let the field be walled round, he makes the best of his hard fare, and divides his time between grazing and sleeping. Besides, there could be no families, no assemblages of persons worthy of that name; all would be confusion and indescribable intermixture: the names of brother and sister would hardly have a meaning; and, therefore, there must be marriage, or there can be nothing worthy of the name of family or of father.

210. The cares and troubles of the married life are many; but, are those of the single life few? Take the farmer, and it is nearly the same with the tradesman; but, take the farmer, for instance, and let him, at the age of twenty-five, go into business unmarried. See his maid servants, probably rivals for his smiles, but certainly rivals in the charitable distribution of his victuals and drink amongst those of their own rank: behold their guardianship of his pork-tub, his bacon rack, his butter, cheese, milk, poultry, eggs, and all the rest of it: look at their care of all his household stuff, his blankets, sheets, pillow-cases, towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his crockery ware, of which last they will hardly exceed a single cart-load of broken bits in the year. And, how nicely they will get up and take care of his linen and other wearing apparel, and always have it ready for him without his thinking about it! If absent at market, or especially at a distant fair, how scrupulously they will keep all their cronies out of his house, and what special care they will take of his cellar, more particularly that which holds the strong beer! And his groceries and his spirits and his wine (for a bachelor can afford it), how safe these will all be! Bachelors have not, indeed, any more than married men, a security for health; but if our young farmer be sick, there are his couple of maids to take care of him, to administer his medicine, and to perform for him all other nameless offices, which in such a case are required; and what is more, take care of every thing down stairs at the same time, especially his desk with the money in it! Never will they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him for coming home too late; but, on the contrary, like him the better for it; and if he have drunk a little too much, so much the better, for then he will sleep late in the morning, and when he comes out at last, he will find that his men have been so hard at work, and that all his animals have been taken such good care of!

211. Nonsense! a bare glance at the thing shows, that a farmer, above all men living, can never carry on his affairs with profit without a wife, or a mother, or a daughter, or some such person; and mother and daughter imply matrimony. To be sure, a wife would cause some trouble, perhaps, to this young man. There might be the midwife and nurse to gallop after at midnight; there might be, and there ought to be, if called for, a little complaining of late hours; but, good God! what are these, and all the other troubles that could attend a married life; what are they, compared to the one single circumstance of the want of a wife at your bedside during one single night of illness! A nurse! what is a nurse to do for you? Will she do the things that a wife will do? Will she watch your looks and your half-uttered wishes? Will she use the urgent persuasions so often necessary to save life in such cases? Will she, by her acts, convince you that it is not a toil, but a delight, to break her rest for your sake? In short, now it is that you find that what the women themselves say is strictly true, namely, that without wives, men are poor helpless mortals.

212. As to the expense, there is no comparison between that of a woman servant and a wife, in the house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages of the former is not the expense; it is the want of a common interest with you, and this you can obtain in no one but a wife. But there are the children. I, for my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at twenty-five, and having ten children during the first ten years, would be able to save more money during these years, than a bachelor, of the same age, would be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of time, he keeping only one maid servant. One single fit of illness, of two months' duration, might sweep away more than all the children would cost in the whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual waste and pillage, and the idleness, going on from the first day of the ten years to the last.

213. Besides, is the money all? What a life to lead!! No one to talk to without going from home, or without getting some one to come to you; no friend to sit and talk to: pleasant evenings to pass! Nobody to share with you your sorrows or your pleasures: no soul having a common interest with you: all around you taking care of themselves, and no care of you: no one to cheer you in moments of depression: to say all in a word, no one to love you, and no prospect of ever seeing any such one to the end of your days. For, as to parents and brethren, if you have them, they have other and very different ties; and, however laudable your feelings as son and brother, those feelings are of a different character. Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain altogether, are they generally of little expense? and are they attended with no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jealousy even, and are they never followed by shame or remorse?

214. It does very well in bantering songs, to say that the bachelor's life is 'devoid of care.' My observation tells me the contrary, and reason concurs, in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no one on whom he can in all cases rely. When he quits his home, he carries with him cares that are unknown to the married man. If, indeed, like the common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and a bundle of clothes, given in charge to some one, he may be at his ease; but if he possess any thing of a home, he is never sure of its safety; and this uncertainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to efficiency in life, how is the bachelor to equal the married man? In the case of farmers and tradesmen, the latter have so clearly the advantage over the former, that one need hardly insist upon the point; but it is, and must be, the same in all the situations of life. To provide for a wife and children is the greatest of all possible spurs to exertion. Many a man, naturally prone to idleness, has become active and industrious when he saw children growing up about him; many a dull sluggard has become, if not a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused to exertion by his love. Dryden's account of the change wrought in CYMON, is only a strong case of the kind. And, indeed, if a man will not exert himself for the sake of a wife and children, he can have no exertion in him; or he must be deaf to all the dictates of nature.

215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more striking proof of the truth of this doctrine than that which is exhibited in me; and I am sure that every one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth part of the labours I have performed, never would have been performed, if I had not been a married man. In the first place, they could not; for I should, all the early part of my life, have been rambling and roving about as most bachelors are. I should have had no home that I cared a straw about, and should have wasted the far greater part of my time. The great affair of home being settled, having the home secured, I had leisure to employ my mind on things which it delighted in. I got rid at once of all cares, all anxieties, and had only to provide for the very moderate wants of that home. But the children began to come. They sharpened my industry: they spurred me on. To be sure, I had other and strong motives: I wrote for fame, and was urged forward by ill-treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my enemies; but, after all, a very large part of my nearly a hundred volumes may be fairly ascribed to the wife and children.

216. I might have done something; but, perhaps, not a thousandth part of what I have done; not even a thousandth part: for the chances are, that I, being fond of a military life, should have ended my days ten or twenty years ago, in consequence of wounds, or fatigue, or, more likely, in consequence of the persecutions of some haughty and insolent fool, whom nature had formed to black my shoes, and whom a system of corruption had made my commander. Love came and rescued me from this state of horrible slavery; placed the whole of my time at my own disposal; made me as free as air; removed every restraint upon the operations of my mind, naturally disposed to communicate its thoughts to others; and gave me, for my leisure hours, a companion, who, though deprived of all opportunity of acquiring what is called learning, had so much good sense, so much useful knowledge, was so innocent, so just in all her ways, so pure in thought, word and deed, so disinterested, so generous, so devoted to me and her children, so free from all disguise, and, withal, so beautiful and so talkative, and in a voice so sweet, so cheering, that I must, seeing the health and the capacity which it had pleased God to give me, have been a criminal, if I had done much less than that which I have done; and I have always said, that, if my country feel any gratitude for my labours, that gratitude is due to her full as much as to me.

217. 'Care'! What care have I known! I have been buffeted about by this powerful and vindictive Government; I have repeatedly had the fruit of my labour snatched away from me by it; but I had a partner that never frowned, that was never melancholy, that never was subdued in spirit, that never abated a smile, on these occasions, that fortified me, and sustained me by her courageous example, and that was just as busy and as zealous in taking care of the remnant as she had been in taking care of the whole; just as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, when brought down to a mean hired lodging, as when the mistress of a fine country house, with all its accompaniments; and, whether from her words or her looks, no one could gather that she regretted the change. What 'cares' have I had, then? What have I had worthy of the name of 'cares'?