It being, therefore, the law of nature that man and woman should unite in matrimony, what rule of selection may we establish which, in all cases, shall be productive of agreeable association, financial success and such physiological conditions as will result in the improvement of offspring?
It has been stated that Order is Heaven’s first law. With equal force it might be added that Harmony is the first law of nature. The law of Harmony pervades all nature, and men and women have long since learned to recognize it in many departments of study, inferior in dignity and importance to the topic of this lecture. As you have long studied harmony in its application to music, and colors, I introduce the study of harmony to you to-night, but it is harmony in its relation to Humanity in the law of matrimonial selection. There is harmony and discord in music; there is harmony and discord in the science of colors; and in the grand symphony of Humanity, the law is just as applicable; its obedience results in the beauty and accord of domestic felicity, its disobedience furnishes the deformity and discord of society.
All ladies recognize the law of harmony in colors; and in the selection of a dress or bonnet, they try to secure colors that will harmonize with their complexions. They do not all understand the law sufficiently to always conform to it, as I frequently see ladies in my audience who have blundered in this respect, and who wear articles hideously unbecoming. But they all try, and you cannot inflict a greater punishment upon a woman than to compel her to appear in church, or at a lecture, in a costume in which she knows she has violated this law. But, ladies, just think for a moment, if it is a misfortune to have to wear for a season a dress or bonnet which is not becoming to you, what a calamity it is to be compelled to wear a husband who does not harmonize with you, and that for life. And the worst of it is, they never wear out.
Every musician in my audience understands that, in music, if I strike two notes, of the same pitch and quality, I have produced no harmony, I have only intensified the volume of the tone. If I strike a first and third, or a first and fifth, I produce harmony, because the vibrations of those notes, in combination, are such as produce an agreeable sound. If I strike certain other notes, I produce a discord, and the sound is unpleasant. We cannot have harmony without a difference in pitch and quality, but we can have difference in pitch and quality without harmony. To produce perfect music, we must have soprano, alto, tenor and bass to carry all the parts. The tenor and soprano would furnish us a very poor concert, and the alto and bass alone would produce rather monotonous music. But we have studied harmony in music until we have evoked divine results, and our achievements in harmony of colors has beautified the world with transcendent art.
In the Science of Humanity there are certain combinations of constitution which, in matrimonial association, are harmonious. There are certain other combinations which are discordant. The union of harmonious natures results in agreeable association, financial success and perfection of offspring. The attempted union of discordant natures results in domestic misery, divorces by wholesale, pauperism, disease and crime, and worst of all, the perpetuation of all these evils in a deformed, diseased and vicious posterity.
In stating the law of harmonious selection, the general rule is, that the parties should bear a complementary relation to each other. That is to say, there should be such a combination of temperaments, dispositions and appearances, that any departure from the correct ideal of perfect humanity in the one should be supplied by the development of the other, in order that the two organizations, when added together, should constitute a perfect type of Humanity.
The reasonableness of this rule is apparent the moment that its effects upon offspring are comprehended. The child inherits the joint organization of the parents. It can never be better than the sum total of the parental organizations. It may be better or worse than either of these, according to circumstances. It can never be better than both, except as education may develop possibilities as inherited from both. If, therefore, the father is capable of transmitting to the child certain vigorous elements of constitution, which were weak in the mother, and on the other hand the mother endows the child with certain graces of intellect which were deficient in the father, the result is perfection of offspring through complementary association.
The same rule holds good in the matter of amiable association. When each contributes to the other, elements of character necessary to convenience and happiness, the mutual esteem and respect generated by the knowledge of the indispensableness of each to the other’s interest, is the surest guard to amiability.
Likewise as to financial affairs. It is easy to understand that the individual will be most successful in the affairs of life, who unites in himself all the elements of a perfect organization. Therefore, in the consummation of all partnerships, matrimonial or purely commercial, the application of this rule unites in the organization every element essential to success.
In the application of this rule, it is necessary to consider, First, the character of the individual under examination; Second, the type of humanity we desire to form; Third, the ideal character necessary to the accomplishment of the end in view.