FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 A BOOK FOR SOME MEN AND ALL WOMEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 JENNIE CUNNINGHAM CROLY. 
 
 (JENNIE JUNE.) \ V 
 
 " If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie ? We should 
 have no law but the inclination of the moment." 
 
 GEOBGE ELIOT. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 LEE, SHEPARD, AND DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1875.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 
 
 BY LEE AND SHEPARD, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 19 Spring Lane.
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 IT is a fact that no one will dispute, that there is 
 great apparent dissatisfaction with our present social 
 conditions, and with the relations that men and 
 women bear to each other. It breaks out in the 
 form of "complex" and "free love" communities, 
 in periodicals devoted to undermining marriage as 
 an institution, in speeches and lectures advocating 
 " easy " divorce, and more seriously in the actual 
 belief entertained by many good men and women, 
 that marriage is a relic of barbarism, is opposed to 
 individual freedom, and is, in fact, only a traditional 
 and tolerated form of domestic slavery. 
 , Some may dispute it ; but there are really good 
 'men and women who believe that marriage which 
 could be terminated at will, or no marriage at all, 
 would be better than permanent, indissoluble mar- 
 riage, which " ties " people together for life, whether 
 they will or no. 
 
 3
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 This being tied, is to many a very terrible idea. 
 Interfere with the mighty pronoun / ? never ! Per- 
 sonal freedom is the dearest of all rights, the most 
 sacred of all duties, and every other should be sub- 
 ordinate to it. 
 
 Grant all of this ; but pray say, where does 
 personal freedom begin ? 
 
 We are tied from the moment we enter the 
 world, and are probably the better and the happier 
 for it, though we may rebel against it. We are 
 actual slaves to circumstances which preceded our 
 birth, which enclosed us in a skin, which governed 
 our height, our color, our shape, our strength or our 
 weakness, and over which we had not the least 
 control. We are tied after birth to certain natural 
 laws, which we very imperfectly understand, and 
 of which we can only see the results. We are tied 
 with cords woven by time itself to the habits and 
 traditions which have preceded us ; and more strong- 
 ly still are we tied by our instincts and desires, 
 which, blind and unreasoning as they are, we are 
 compelled to obey. 
 
 We tolerate our servitude because we imagine 
 it is ourselves we are serving ; but, in reality, it 
 is a bundle of habits, opinions, prejudices, and pe-
 
 PREFACE. 5 
 
 culiarities, which have obtained a habitation, and 
 to which has been given a name ; and even that 
 
 
 
 name John, or Jane, as the case may be is 
 not our own, but is shared by many other atoms 
 of humanity, more or less like ourselves. 
 
 We see, then, there is very little of the freedom 
 of which we boast so much in the matter. 
 
 The strongest human instinct next to that which 
 sustains life, is for companionship ; and as men 
 and women were made for, and are necessary to 
 each other, it follows, that, so long as the world 
 exists, they will live together under some, if not 
 the present conditions and circumstances. 
 
 Are the present the right conditions ? and if not, 
 in what respect are they wrong ? That everything 
 is not quite right, is self-evident. There are no 
 fixed or universal laws in regard to marriage. What 
 is marriage in one state, or in one part of the world, 
 is not marriage in another ; and what would be per- 
 fectly, respectable and proper to do in one place, 
 in another would consign the individual to odium. 
 
 Moreover, there are no laws regulating the terms 
 upon which men and women should come together. 
 All the details of a copartnership which is to last 
 a lifetime, which involves the interests of children
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 and the welfare of society, are left to the justice 
 and the judgment of the parties themselves, who 
 are not unfrequently as imbecile as they are rash 
 and unthinking. 
 
 Thus we see the most terrible results from mar- 
 riages which ought never to have taken place ; and 
 these consequences are attached as a load to the 
 back of individuals and society. 
 
 Even under the best conditions, marriage suffers 
 from the anarchical ideas prevalent in regard to it 
 ideas fed by trifles incident to the happiest state 
 of existence, but which exert an uneasy and dis- 
 quieting influence, where they do not lead to open 
 disloyalty. 
 
 Apart, however, from exceptional evils and false 
 or mistaken ideas, marriage as it exists, is open to 
 criticism, because it places men and women in false 
 positions ; and what these positions are, wherein 
 they are false, and how they can be improved, 
 it is the object of the following pages to show. 
 That this has been crudely and imperfectly done, 
 no one is better aware than the writer ; but if 
 the ideas and suggestions contained herein were 
 believed to be wholly destitute of value, they would 
 never have seen the light.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. MAIDENHOOD 9 
 
 II. WHAT EDUCATION DOES FOR GIRLS 16 
 
 III. BOY AND GIRL LOVE 26 
 
 IV. QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE 34 
 
 V. ENGAGED 45 
 
 VI. THE " HONEY-MOON." 63 
 
 VII. THE DUTY OF THE WIFE 61 
 
 VIII. DUTIES OF HUSBANDS 75 
 
 IX. DUTY OF PARENTS 87 
 
 X. MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP 100 
 
 XI. MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE 109 
 
 XII. MARRYING FOR MONEY 120 
 
 XIII. MARRYING WITHOUT MONEY 129 
 
 XIV. MARRYING FOR A HOME 139 
 
 XV. TRUE MARRIAGE 151 
 
 XVI. THE FUTURE HUSBAND 163 
 
 XVII. THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE 172 
 
 XVIII. MARRIED FOREVER 184 
 
 t
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 XIX. HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS 103 
 
 XX. MODERN BRIDALS 204 
 
 XXI. THE SIN OF IGNORANCE 214 
 
 XXII. DIVORCE 223 
 
 XXIII. DOMESTIC SERVICE. . 227
 
 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MAIDENHOOD. 
 
 " Standing with reluctant feet 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet. 
 
 Gazing with a timid glance, 
 On the brooklet's swift advance, 
 On the river's broad expanse. 
 
 Deep and still, that gliding stream 
 Beautiful to thee must seem, 
 As the rivers of a dream." 
 
 ALL girls anticipate, with more or less of satisfac- 
 tion and pleasure, the great event of leaving school. 
 Not unfrequently they look back upon their school- 
 days as the brightest part of their lives ; but at the 
 same time their stories have not been told, the future 
 is all before them, and they are impatient to raise the 
 curtain, turn over the pages, and see the delights 
 that may be in store for them. 
 
 Poets and novelists have said and sung the charms 
 of sweet sixteen, or thereabouts, until they have sur- 
 
 9
 
 10 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 rounded that interesting period with a halo of sweet- 
 ness and simplicity which may or may not belong to 
 it, and certainly cannot be found among our modern 
 boarding-school and " society " young ladies. 
 
 Whatever is the reason, girls even at the age of 
 romantic sixteen, are rarely now addicted to poetry or 
 sentiment. They may be betrayed into it, but they 
 recover themselves immediately ; are generally hard, 
 dry, and practical as a Massachusetts lawyer ; little 
 given to moonlight and reverie, and thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the amount of income necessary to mar- 
 ried manly and womanly happiness. 
 
 The sweet reluctance, which Longfellow so ex- 
 quisitely describes, nuist be looked upon as a poetical 
 license or a figure of speech, for it is as far removed 
 as possible from the haste with which young girls 
 seek to escape from the reminiscences of childhood, 
 and the ardor with which they pursue possible oppor- 
 tunities for achieving the honors and responsibilities 
 of womanhood. 
 
 Still, the poet's picture is a natural, and ought 
 to be a true one. The young girl, who has passed 
 an innocent and happy childhood, wakes to the con- 
 sciousness that she is a woman, and should feel timid 
 and almost terrified at the thought that she has passed 
 the boundary, arid a woman's life, with its unknown 
 freight of cares and pains, lies before her. 
 
 Few, however, think at all upon the subject. They 
 have been educated with the idea of outstripping, out-
 
 MA 1DENHO OD. \\ 
 
 shining 1 , or outdoing somebody, and the idea of being 
 left behind in the matrimonial chase is too dreadful to 
 think of. 
 
 Moreover, with most, getting married is put down 
 as a financial necessity. They have no other way of 
 getting a living, except the vulgar one of directly 
 earning it, and that is out of the question. 
 
 There was a time when maidens experienced, and 
 even cherished, illusions in regard to their future 
 husbands and matrimony ; but, strange to say, rose- 
 colored though their dreams confessedly were, they 
 seemed less anxious to realize them than modern 
 young ladies, whose dreams are not rose-colored or 
 illusory at all, but based upon a wide observation and 
 the experience of their married lady friends, who are 
 generally full of warnings, and not at all chary of 
 either information or advice. 
 
 To be sure, every young lady has confidence in her 
 own sagacity, and fully intends to avoid the rocks upon 
 which her friends have split. Her faith, however, 
 rests less upon illusions than upon her confidence in 
 herself, and her assurance of her own attractions and 
 unerring tact and judgment. 
 
 How can she have illusions, when existence, its 
 shams, its pretences, its poverty of purpose, its reality 
 of weariness, has been daily before her ? How can she 
 help looking upon money as the chief good, and any 
 means as lawful for its acquisition, when every ill that 
 flesh is heir to is set down to the want of it, and its
 
 12 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 absence groaned over as the lack of the one thing 
 needful to earthly happiness ? 
 
 \Ve say that girls have no illusions, but it is not 
 true. Their illusions are, perhaps, as strong as ever, 
 but they take a hard and practical, instead of senti- 
 mental, form. They imagine that there is no happi- 
 ness without money ; that love is a myth of the poet's 
 brain, or rather a disease of the imagination real 
 while it lasts, but soon over, and at best dependent on 
 the comfortable possession of an abundance of this 
 world's goods for its continuance and security. 
 
 Instead of imagining any single male individual the 
 pink of perfection, and the embodiment of all the 
 virtues, as young women are popularly supposed to 
 do, they are very apt to believe, as they have been 
 told, that men are all alike, selfish, unreasonable, and 
 tyrannical, and that a woman's business is not to love 
 them, but to learn how to manage them. 
 
 Marrying with these ideas, which are born of the 
 practical theories and money-getting spirit of the 
 age in which we live, women sometimes find them- 
 selves surprised by a poetical beauty in existence of 
 which they had never dreamed. They had actually 
 acknowledged themselves selfish, and accepted life 
 and its aims as mercenary and ignoble, and they wake 
 to a consciousness of something better and higher. 
 Their romance comes after marriage ; and the poor man 
 who had put his hand in the matrimonial bag at a 
 venture, finds, to his astonishment, that he has drawn
 
 MAIDENHOOD. 13 
 
 a prize, and that the modern sensible young lady, 
 wno talked business and laughed at love in a cottage, 
 is as simply credulous and loving, as capable of exer- 
 cising every womanly virtue, as the unsophisticated 
 creation of any poet's brain. 
 
 A German writer has said that it is extremely for- 
 tunate the world was so made that no amount of blun- 
 dering on our part could permanently or seriously 
 affect it. It is so with men and women. We talk of 
 circumstances, habits, and theories changing them, 
 forgetting that human nature is stronger than theories, 
 breaks through circumstances, and survives in the 
 young woman of to-day, in spite of teachings and 
 warnings, love of fashion, and fondness for display. 
 
 Maidenhood, that threshold upon which the young 
 girl lingers before entering the portals of wifehood 
 and motherhood, ought to be a period of great enjoy- 
 ment, not only to the daughter who has just emerged 
 from the school-room, but to her parents and family. 
 Her freshness, her helpfulness, her kindness, her ac- 
 tivity, her varied accomplishments, ought to be a 
 perpetual source of pleasure at home, and it is here 
 where her duties and occupations should be found. 
 
 . Society may be indulged .in to a certain extent, as 
 a source of personal gratification and polite acquire- 
 ment, but it has no claims paramount to those estab- 
 lished by nature, and cemented by the performance of 
 parental obligations. Up x to this time no return has 
 been possible for the years of thought, care, anxiety,
 
 14 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 and patient waiting. Now, it is compensation 
 than enough to receive a child, grown into a woman, 
 beautiful with all the charms of youth and health, 
 glad and happy in the mere possession of existence, 
 and grateful for the conditions which make life so full 
 to her of pleasure and promise. 
 
 In England, where young women rarely marry be- 
 fore they are twenty-one or twenty-two years old, the 
 period between leaving school and becoming wives is 
 occupied partly by social gayeties, but principally in 
 acquiring household information and practice. 
 
 To the grown-up daughters are frequently intrusted 
 the keys of the store-room, the distribution of supplies, 
 the making of desserts, the care of the parlors, and 
 the general superintendence of the table. It is the 
 grown-up daughter who rises in the morning to see 
 that breakfast is properly prepared, who arranges the 
 bouquet of flowers upon the mantel-piece, who sweeps 
 up the last vestige of cinders or ashes from the grate, 
 who places the morning's paper by her father's plate, 
 and sees that her mother has her arm-chair and foot- 
 stool. 
 
 The grown-up daughter also embroiders slippers, 
 makes neck-ties, hemstitches handkerchiefs, crochets 
 edgings, puts upon her own clothing quantities of 
 dainty ruffling and tucking, and makes of her nest of 
 a room a small bower of beauty. 
 
 Is not this better, maidens of America, than prome- 
 nading all day and dancing all night ? Is it not bet-
 
 MAIDENPIOOD. 15 
 
 ter than rising pale and slipshod at ten o'clock in the 
 morning, and dozing the sunshine away in a rocking- 
 chair, or upon the lounge, while " mamma " and the 
 dressmaker make or alter a dress for the next evening's 
 party ? 
 
 Is it not better than running a constant chase after 
 pleasure, to the neglect of every duty, and finding it, 
 after all, stale, flat, and unprofitable ? 
 
 0, girls, young sisters, this brief hour, which you 
 wish at an end, is the most precious of your lives ! 
 Spend it so that you will love to look back upon it. 
 Cherish your mother before you leave her, make happy 
 your father who has done so much for you, be the 
 sunlight of a home which your absence will darken, 
 and be thankful for an opportunity to perfect yourself 
 in the sweet household ways and womanly graces 
 which exalt the maiden, and crown the wife in the 
 eyes of her husband. So shall your maidenhood be 
 the promise of a beautiful and happy motherhood a 
 motherhood which would bless and save the world.
 
 16 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT EDUCATION DOES FOR GIRLS. 
 
 THE habits and education of American girls are 
 simply destructive to their future as wives and moth- 
 ers, and quite as great a barrier to success in an inde- 
 pendent career. There are no women in the world 
 from whom so much is expected, or who try to com- 
 pass so much in one little life, as American women. 
 They must shine equally in the parlor and in the 
 kitchen ; they must be indefatigable as baby-tenders ; 
 prudent and lynx-eyed as housekeepers ; they must 
 be ten Bridgets rolled into one while their husbands 
 are poor ; they must be able to entertain princes, and 
 appear as the most brilliant and accomplished of 
 women when he becomes rich ; they must be the tra- 
 ditional ivy, trusting, tender, confiding, gentle, and 
 passive while he is speculating away the future, and 
 the oak, when, as so often happens, he sinks under 
 the pressure of his reverses. Arid, incredible as it 
 may seem, there are some women who are all of these, 
 and many more who make the attempt, and die like 
 the old martyrs, though without the martyr's honor.
 
 EDUCATION FOR GIRLS. 17 
 
 To fulfil her destiny, therefore, the American girl re- 
 quires a sound constitution to start with, and an 
 almost perfect physical training. Her studies should 
 be judiciously blended with that activity which is es- 
 sential to the development of her body. Her scholas- 
 tic discipline ought not to take her entirely away from 
 home, for it is in a well-ordered home alone that the 
 habits are formed which influence her future life, while 
 her assistance should not only be valuable to the 
 mother, but serve as the introduction to a very prac- 
 tical and essential part of her education. 
 
 The text-book system, which monopolizes the best 
 years of every young girl's life, and expends them in 
 cramming her with words which are forgotten almost 
 as soon as spoken, is not only useless, but wasteful 
 and injurious. Excepting in cases where special 
 training is necessary for some particular pursuit, the 
 education should be as general as a woman's life and 
 duty, and the home life recognized as forming an im- 
 portant part of it. Boarding-schools for girls have 
 long been considered by thoughtful men and women 
 as an almost unmixed evil, nor are the women's col- 
 leges by any means an unmixed good. Any system 
 which isolates a girl from family life, shuts her up 
 with girls only, at an age when the imagination 13 
 easily excited, feelings quickly wrought upon, and the 
 entire emotional nature of the woman liable to morbid 
 and exaggerated expression, does her a cruel wrong, 
 and the result is the hybrid creature that we see, selfish 
 2
 
 18 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 and appropriative, absorbed in her own plans and ideas, 
 which she considers new, because they come fresh to 
 her, and great, because she has had nothing adequate 
 to measure them by. 
 
 This production of the schools goes to the home 
 which has made years of sacrifices to give her the 
 advantages it is supposed she has received goes, 
 filled with her own vanity and conceit, and feeling 
 herself an inhabitant of an altogether better and loftier 
 world than the one which her father and mother in- 
 habit, and, by virtue of her assumed superiority, she 
 is allowed to become useless and worthless. She has 
 many grand intentions, but as they all involve a sub- 
 stratum of real hard work and self-denial, they fall 
 through, and she is kept like a piece of china, for 
 show on great occasions, until some man is deluded 
 into marrying her. 
 
 She is spoken of as being educated and accom- 
 plished, when, in reality, she has neither a sound 
 mind nor healthy body. She has no conception of 
 duty in life, except that of making it as easy and 
 pleasant to herself as possible. As- a married woman, 
 she does not want children, because it will interfere 
 with her freedom, and because she considers taking 
 care of them an inglorious occupation, good enough 
 for those who have no aspirations beyond it, but en- 
 tirely unfitted to her. Her school education has not 
 taught her any duty as wife and mother ; it has not 
 even shown her the penalty affixed to transgression
 
 EDUCATION FOR GIRLS. 19 
 
 and evasion of natural law ; it has never suggested 
 to her that she cannot go on indulging her selfishness 
 forever without her sin finding her out. 
 
 The woman regulates the dress, the food, the social 
 life of the world they are the principal things with 
 which she has to do ; yet technical education, even 
 yet, hardly touches them, and has no fixed or scien- 
 tific basis of thought upon which to guide its action 
 in regard to them. The best educated girls, so called, 
 violate the rules of health and good taste both in 
 their dressing and eating, the same as the most igno- 
 rant, because thorough, sound, scientific instruction 
 upon these points is not made part of a technical 
 education. 
 
 It is said that women ought to receive the same edu- 
 cation as men. In only one sense is this true, and 
 that is thoroughness. Women are rarely taught any- 
 thing so that they know it so that it becomes a 
 part of themselves, which is the only way in which 
 knowledge can be made useful or available. 
 
 The lives of women are and must be different from 
 those of men, and they require, after the first rudi- 
 mentary instruction, a different kind of knowledge. 
 They ought to be instructed in the chemical compo- 
 sition of food, and the physiological reasons for cloth- 
 ing. The whole arcana of living should be opened to 
 them, all that can be known of herbs, and fruits, 
 and spices, and flowers, should be theirs. Botany 
 should be studied with reference to its uses, as well
 
 20 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 as the mere acquisition of its technical nomenclature. 
 Every woman ought to be her own and her family 
 physician, and might be easily, if she understood, to 
 begin with, her own physical condition and require- 
 ments ; because sickness would be almost unknown, 
 and a knowledge of alleviating simples, and right 
 preparation of correct articles of food, would be suffi- 
 cient, in the majority of cases, to restore a healthful 
 equilibrium. 
 
 To a certain extent the supremacy of a woman in 
 social life is acknowledged, and the necessity of an 
 acquaintance with its duties and obligations admitted 
 in fashionable schools. But how is it taught ? and 
 what are its duties supposed to be ? 
 
 Why, first, how to bow gracefully, and how to enter 
 a room without embarrassment. Secondly, how to 
 talk without saying anything, and how to so modulate 
 voice and manner as never to exhibit the smallest 
 trace of feeling. Third, to respect and weave together 
 in the social life only those material elements which 
 are of the least value, and accept the evidences of 
 wealth as deserving the highest attention and con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Now, we do not mean to say that these ideas have 
 no claim to respect, but they ought not to be taught 
 as the essentials, the groundwork, of our social life. 
 
 Our business as women is to work for the good of 
 others, first in the family, secondly in society. The 
 first social question with women, therefore, should be,
 
 EDUCATION FOR GIRLS. 21 
 
 What is, or will be, for the good of those beyond my 
 family circle, whom I can reach ? and, second, How- 
 can I express it? The society education that girls get 
 in schools teaches them to cultivate people for what 
 they can get out of them, not for what they can give 
 to them to dissimulate and politely reciprocate, but 
 never deal truthfully, and, above all, not forgivingly 
 or generously. It is socially proper to profess friend- 
 ship where you feel dislike, but it is low and degrad- 
 ing to forgive a slight, where perhaps none was in- 
 tended, to ask an explanation, or magnanimously for- 
 give a wrong. 
 
 Is this a fitting basis for the social life over which 
 women preside ? Is it not of a piece with their follies 
 in dress, their ignorance and avoidance of the most 
 vital interests that belong to their daily life ? 
 
 Men are naturally and necessarily ignorant of these 
 questions ; their life lies outside of them, and they 
 accept, as they must, the woman's interpretation of 
 them. I have often felt sorry for the helplessness of 
 men, when it came into relations with the ignorance 
 of women. They must accept the version of social 
 life which women give them, just as they must some- 
 times accept a dirty and untidy house, a disorderly 
 table, ill-cooked food, and shirts rent, or hosiery 
 unmended. 
 
 It is easy to say that men ought to be taught to 
 help themselves ; but we must take the facts as they 
 are, and these, as a general rule, give us men incapa-
 
 22 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 citated for attention to social and personal details, by 
 the absorption of time and strength in other direc- 
 tions, just as women are rendered incapable of out- 
 door life and work, except in isolated instances, by 
 the pressure of household duties. 
 
 The consciousness which men have of their help- 
 less social and domestic condition is the great induce- 
 ment, in the absence of more perfect self-knowledge, 
 and a higher sense of duty, for men to marry. To 
 become an integral part of the great social and hu- 
 man fabric they must marry, their lives must be in- 
 terwoven with the life around them. They must give 
 back to the tide of humanity something of what they 
 have received from it, or it cannot flow on and con- 
 tinue to perform its appointed work. Women are 
 not, as some of them seem to think, simply born to 
 be taken care of ; they are sharers, helpmeets, and 
 co-laborers of men, and have a still higher responsi- 
 bility vested in them, that of vitally influencing and 
 controlling the life of men. Men are only bound to 
 put to the best use the strength and power given 
 them ; women can make that power greater or less, 
 or deprive them of it altogether, by neglect or culti- 
 vation of their own physical and mental faculties. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that the majority 
 of young men look for helplessness in a wife ; they 
 sometimes take it in their admiration of a sort of 
 beauty which may accompany it, or in their ignorance 
 of the consequences which it entails upon themselves
 
 EDUCATION FOR GIRLS. 23 
 
 and their children. But the majority certainly do not 
 prefer it. On the contrary, they look for wives who 
 combine the most opposite qualifications and attrac- 
 tions, and, as a rule with persons who want everything, 
 they sometimes get nothing, or worse than nothing. 
 
 What they do want, however, whether they recog- 
 nize it or not, is a supplement to themselves, to ren- 
 der their work finished and complete ; and if they 
 found in young women truth, earnestness of purpose, 
 forgetfulness of self, and general recognition of duty, 
 it would elevate their own ideas, and bring them up 
 to the standard of a true and noble manhood. 
 
 But, instead of this, what do they find ? System- 
 atic deceit and dissimulation, absorption in themselves, 
 a craving for universal admiration, an entire neglect 
 of duty, an unhealthy love of pleasure, an utter ig- 
 norance of what constitutes true happiness, and a 
 willingness to grasp at anything which promises im- 
 munity from the labor and responsibilities of ordinary 
 life. Instead of the health and vigor natural to the 
 young, they find only the semblance of these quali- 
 ties, and behind it, broken constitutions and inability, 
 as well as unwillingness to perform the functions of 
 wife and mother. Fifty years ago the bodily weak- 
 ness now common among young girls was unknown, 
 except in rare instances among married women who 
 had borne many children. The fact as it exists now 
 ought to be the subject of serious attention and in- 
 vestigation, for, until this difficulty is overcome, pres-
 
 24 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 ent and future must be dwarfed and defrauded of 
 moral and intellectual as well as vital force. 
 
 The indulgence of appetite, the passion for dress 
 and display, the sacrifice of every truthful and wo- 
 manly consideration at the shrine of fashion, now 
 common among American girls of every degree, is 
 full of the saddest auguries for the future. We can 
 have no mothers until we have women who prize their 
 womanhood beyond false hair, chalked complexions, 
 painted eyebrows, white hands, and stunted feet. We 
 can have neither wives nor mothers until we have wo- 
 men who think more of truth, honor, sincerity, and 
 the purity of an untainted life, than of jewels and 
 laces, fine houses, and personal beauty made up of 
 disgraceful shams. More than this, we can have no 
 manhood worth the name until we first have a true 
 and pure womanhood, capable of living its own life, 
 and setting itself against the vices and weaknesses 
 common to the age. 
 
 It is our social life which forms the heart of hu- 
 manity, and its healthy or unhealthy condition deter- 
 mines the state of the rest of the system. The grow- 
 ing tendency to selfish indulgence of all kinds is de- 
 praving us morally and physically. The breaking up 
 of homes, the substitution of boarding-house and res- 
 taurant life, public corruption, and want of public 
 integrity, are all evidences of it. 
 
 Women can stem this tide of national iniquity ; 
 they can preserve in our country those elements of
 
 EDUCATION FOR GIRLS. 25 
 
 faith, honor, devotion, personal purity, and love of 
 truth, which founded and made it what it has been. 
 Will they not do it ? Or must it fulfil the destiny of 
 other nations rise to greatness, and sink to decay 
 in the abyss created by its own rottenness ? The 
 young women who read this shall answer.
 
 26 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BOY AND GIRL LOVE. 
 
 THERE is a critical period in the lives of nearly all 
 men and women, which, if they outgrow, leaves them, 
 for a time, possibly a little sadder, but generally 
 wiser, and with a much better prospect for permanent 
 happiness than if their early dreams had been realized. 
 
 From fifteen to twenty may be taken as the average 
 time for this singular, sentimental, and sympathetic 
 development ; but, of course, it may commence ear- 
 lier or later, according to climate, conditions, and cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 I call it singular ; yet, in reality, there is nothing 
 peculiar, unnatural, or unworthy in this evidence of 
 opening manhood or womanhood, except the illusions 
 and absurdities with which idle imaginations have in- 
 vested it ; and if the hearts and lives of men and 
 women were honest :nid true, and pure and natural, 
 there could be nothing dangerous in a sentiment which 
 lies at the foundation, and serves as the inspiration, 
 of the best emotions of the human heart the wor- 
 thiest acts of human life.
 
 AND GIRL LOVE. 2? 
 
 There is, undoubtedly, an influence, refining and 
 educational, in the first affection which the girl or boy 
 experiences for the opposite sex. For the time being 
 it is so real, so absorbing, that it changes the aspect 
 of the whole world, even to the outward senses. The 
 sky is clearer, the sunshine wanner, the grass green- 
 er, the flowers more brilliant in hue, the very atmos- 
 phere purer and more tender in its unfolding. 
 
 All this is, natural : and though, contrary to novel- 
 ists and story-writers, it rarely finds its consummation 
 in a happy marriage, yet it passes away without in- 
 flicting any deadly injury, and leaves no bitterness 
 behind. 
 
 There are cases where the first inclination of a boy 
 or girl becomes the lasting attachment of the man 
 and woman ; but such instances are so exceptional, 
 that one may search memory and the experience of 
 friends in vain to find one, while the list of those who 
 look back on the "mistake" they made, or barely 
 escaped making, can be filled at a glance. 
 
 The danger of early " falling in love " lies in im- 
 maturity, and the extravagant laudation of a passion, 
 which is generally as short-lived as it is baseless and 
 unreal, by poets and imaginative persons, who hawe 
 created much genuine unhappiness by exaggerating 
 fancied miseries. 
 
 In nine cases out of ten it might as well be said 
 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred first love is 
 no love at all. It is simply the attraction which is
 
 28 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 frit by dawning manhood and womanhood for the 
 other sex, developed in a given direction by acquaint- 
 ance, proximity, or the accidents of social life. 
 Taste, intellect, reason, and judgment have hardly 
 yet asserted themselves, and, at any rate, exercise no 
 controlling influence over the imagination. The first 
 great desire and object of the young existence is to be 
 happy ; and companionship, with that one object, is 
 deemed the single essential to that happiness. 
 
 At this stage they scout the very idea of reason 
 and duty ; consider it cold-blooded and cruel to talk 
 of anything which involves attention to the ordinary 
 business of life ; and wish, almost to expectancy, that 
 some sympathetic prince or fairy would carry them 
 away from the obstacles and difficulties of the heart- 
 less world, and set them down in that cottage in Ar- 
 cadia which pays no rent or taxes, and which has 
 been inhabited by lovers from time immemorial. 
 
 The god of love is always represented as blind ; 
 and, as a boy god, shooting his arrows at random 
 among boys and girls, lie certainly should be. Young 
 love sees nothing, knows nothing, is interested in 
 nothing but itself and its own desires ; and this fact 
 alone is sufficient evidence of its want of truth and 
 reality. 
 
 Moreover, this blindness is responsible for the 
 wretched consequences of immature passion for the 
 ill-assorted unions, the half-born, imbecile children, the 
 poverty, the loathing, the weariness of life, which are 
 the natural results of early weakness and folly.
 
 EOT AND GIRL LOVE. 29 
 
 
 
 It is hard to make girls believe that they will ever 
 thank God on their knees for saving them from a mar- 
 riage, upon which, at the time, all their hopes and all 
 their interest in life seems to depend ; and yet it has 
 happened in many thousands of cases, and will in 
 many thousands more, before men and women learn 
 to treat this sentiment gently, restrain it wisely, and 
 make use of it, as it was intended, to develop in 
 young manhood and womanhood that grace and aspi- 
 ration which comes only with the experience and ed- 
 ucation of the heart. 
 
 But there is a modern and very general phase of 
 boy and girl flirtation, sometimes dignified with the 
 name of love, which possesses hardly the thin veil of 
 sentiment to disguise its coarseness, and to which I 
 turn with actual distaste and reluctance. 
 
 The white-robed divinity of ssventeen, beautiful, 
 wise, innocent, yet wholly unconscious of her attrac- 
 tions, whom we have all known from childhood, is 
 now pretty well understood to be a fiction of the im- 
 agination. Yet there should be still the link of a 
 girlhood, charming in its freshness, its enthusiasm, its 
 sweetness, its purity, between the child and the wo- 
 man ; and the modern girl, who, with paints, and 
 pads, and false hair, and Grecian bends, deforms her 
 body, and with lies, affectations, and slavish depend- 
 ence, dwarfs her soul, destroys this ideal, and puts in 
 its place a thing of shreds and patches, a libel upon 
 all girlhood and womanhood, a something which only 
 serves for men to hang gibes and sneers upon.
 
 30 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 For a bit of magnesia and millinery even boys can 
 feel no honest respect, and BO their very admiration 
 becomes impertinence, and they learn to despise the 
 girl before they are capable of loving the woman. 
 The majority of boys are sufficiently vain, and ignorant, 
 and shallow, but they are saved, at least, from much 
 of the petty trickery aud deceit of girls by the im- 
 perative requirements of active business life. They 
 are expected to be useful, and their dress and habits 
 must conform to this necessity. Short hair, simple, 
 uniform dress, and work, ennobles them to a certain 
 extent, and brings them into more healthful relations 
 with themselves and others. 
 
 Girls, on the contrary, are expected to be idle. 
 There is nothing for them to do. There are the ser- 
 vants to do the housework, and mother to superintend, 
 and papa to provide the means, and their business is 
 to get married. If they were ever so industrious, 
 and girls are naturally industrious, there is literally 
 nothing that they are allowed to do which offers the 
 slightest motive to exertion, except dressing and 
 changing the fashion of their clothes. Idle young 
 men resort to gambling, horse-racing, and other dis- 
 reputable methods of killing time. What can idle 
 young women do ? 
 
 It follows that the attentions of men afford the only 
 change from the monotony of their objectless lives, 
 and they spend their time in dressing, and making 
 themselves attractive, to secure these.
 
 BOY AND GIRL LOVE. 31 
 
 At the age when girls first begin to realize their 
 existence as women, useful, active employment is 
 most necessary. Nor is it work alone that is re- 
 quired, but work with an object, a motive that will 
 prove an incentive to exertion, prevent sentiment 
 from becoming morbid, and weakness from degener- 
 ating into causes of life-long suffering and remorse. 
 The idleness of girls is undoubtedly one of the causes 
 of depravity in boys. Having no pursuits in com- 
 mon but those of recreation and pleasure, girls sim- 
 ply act as tempters from the serious business of life, 
 and fail altogether to'use the influence they possess 
 to stimulate boys to higher aims, to more perfect 
 ideas of manhood. 
 
 The best finish to an education that a young man 
 could find would be a companionship with an intelli- 
 gent, pure-minded, aspiring girl, who possessed" the 
 power and the will to work out the problem of life 
 for herself, and was capable of infusing into another 
 soul the fire that kindles her own. But it is so rare 
 that young men find such companionship among girls, 
 that they do not think of seeking for it. If they are 
 in earnest, if they have a great object, a serious pur- 
 suit, they seek sympathy, if at all, among their own 
 sex, and leave girls to the society of those who are 
 interested in ties, in picnics, in calls, in spending two 
 weeks at Saratoga, in ball-room flirtations and vanilla 
 ice-creams, to the exclusion of such a question as. 
 How can I attain a more perfect manhood ?
 
 32 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Girls and boys ought not to many, and fortunately, 
 it is very seldom they do ; but the idle sentimental- 
 ism or familiarity, which the boy remembers only with 
 a sneer when he becomes the active energetic man, 
 leaves its ineffaceable marks upon the heart and mind 
 of the idle, purposeless girl. The first love, which 
 had a little genuine enthusiasm in it, is succeeded by 
 flirtation, for the sake of rivalry ; and that, by deter- 
 mined efforts, in which the heart has no part, to sim- 
 ply capture a husband. 
 
 The experience which God provided, as the beauti- 
 ful dawn to a golden day, has been perverted or lost 
 sight of. The boy brought no strength or aspiration 
 to the shrine at which he worshipped ; the girl no 
 higher ideals of life, no more truth, honor, or fidelity, 
 no more knowledge of the facts and principles which 
 govern human existence and multiply the power of 
 human enjoyment. The man expects from the wo- 
 man a purer morality than he finds in the world about 
 him ; the boy looks upon the girl as a being cast in a 
 finer mould than himself, and unconsciously demands 
 from her resistance to the very snares that he sets 
 for her. 
 
 I have no desire to rob girls of their sunshine. I 
 wish only to make it perpetual. I would not have 
 them less merry or less light-hearted. I would -only 
 have them use their youth, their beauty, their social 
 freedom, in such a way as to leave no sting no re- 
 gret behind.
 
 BOY AND GIRL LOVE. 33 
 
 Boy and girl love is one of the experiences which 
 assists the growth of the man and woman, and may 
 be the prelude to the beautiful harmony of two united 
 lives ; but the future man and woman must not be 
 sacrificed to it must not be compelled to carry for- 
 ever the bitter remembrance of early folly. 
 3
 
 34 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 
 
 MARRIAGE is undoubtedly the most important act 
 of our lives, to men as well as women ; and this, not 
 because affection is the " whole existence," in the 
 sense in which the poet meant it, of either one or the 
 other, but because the consequences are far-reaching ; 
 because it not only affects powerfully our own char- 
 acters and destiny, but calls into existence other indi- 
 vidualities, and through them operates upon mankind 
 at large for good or for evil. 
 
 The question of marriage is not one, therefore, that 
 we can consider solely with reference to ourselves ; the 
 community is interested in it, humanity is interested ; 
 for, while the latter derives its strength from the good 
 and strong, it is chargeable with the burdens laid 
 upon it by the wicked and the weak, and is held re- 
 sponsible for the imbecility and wretchedness created 
 by hasty and ill-considered unions, whose results are 
 never thought of by the parties concerned. More- 
 over, marriage is, at least nominally, for life, and 
 therefore requires qualities that will grow better with
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 35 
 
 age and use, that can stand the friction and hard usage 
 to which circumstances are certain to subject them. 
 One can endure ignorance, or silliness, or stupidity, or 
 bad temper, or fault-finding, or assumption, or conceit, 
 for a day ; but who would want to live with them for 
 all time ? 
 
 If we were choosing a house for a permanent home, 
 we should be careful of its location, of its surround- 
 ings, of the manner in which it was built, and of its 
 future as a good and improving piece of property. 
 Why should we not be still more careful in estimating 
 qualities upon which depend, not only our own chances 
 for happiness, but the future of the state, the credit 
 or the shame of whole communities, and even the 
 public at large ? 
 
 But the advocates of easy divorce say, "Why 
 should marriage be ' for life ' ? It is a matter in which 
 the individuals themselves are at least principally con- 
 cerned, and ought to depend upon their own will. If 
 they find that their happiness depends upon the sun- 
 dering of marriage bonds, and the formation of new 
 ties, no law should stand in their way. Are we to be 
 compelled to abide forever by the consequences of a 
 single mistake ?" 
 
 If our individual happiness, sought and obtained in 
 our own way, were the principal object of existence, 
 then this argument would be sound ; but it is not. 
 We are sent into this world, environed, as was shown 
 in a preceding chapter, by certain conditions, com-
 
 36 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 pelled to act in accordance with certain laws. Mis- 
 takes, even when made through ignorance, entail con- 
 sequences which we cannot evade, but which we must 
 suffer, and our chief care should be to confine such 
 consequences to as small a circle as possible, and 
 allow as few of the evil results as may be to fall upon 
 innocent and unoffending persons. Our business in 
 this life is to perform duties, and accept with thank- 
 fulness the measure of happiness that comes with 
 them. Doubtless we owe duty to ourselves as well as 
 to others, but it is best performed by considering it in 
 its relation to others. Marriage is an institution 
 whose value depends upon its permanency. A mar- 
 riage which could be dissolved at will would be no 
 marriage at all ; its action would be disintegrating ; 
 it would corrupt and destroy the very foundation of 
 human society, instead of offering a solid basis upon 
 which to erect the social superstructure. It would 
 annihilate the home ; it would deprive children of 
 their dearest rights in mother's love and father's care ; 
 it would open the doors to domestic profligacy, treach- 
 ery, dishonesty, and brutality ; it would take away 
 the strongest incentives to purity and uprightness of 
 conduct, to industry, to the creation and perpetuation of 
 an honorable name, and to all those virtues arid ameni- 
 ties which wait upon, and add dignity and lustre to 
 the social character of the individual. 
 
 Every one has felt or witnessed the evil results of 
 a wandering, vagrant, uncertain life, the loss through
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 37 
 
 it of all sweet household associations and memories, 
 the acquisition by it of lawless habits and tendencies, 
 which are forever at war with the order which must 
 govern society in its corporate capacity. If these 
 are the results of the absence of cohesive power 
 found in a permanent home, what must be the conse- 
 quences of a system of marriage which possesses no 
 cohesive power at all, except the uncertain and treach- 
 erous one of " personal attraction " ? There are 
 many persons who think this the only and sole ground 
 for union, and who assert that, when this ceases to 
 exist, separation should take place. But we do not 
 always know when it has really ceased to exist ; we 
 are acted upon by diverse influences, which, in different 
 states of body, produce different states of mind, dur- 
 ing the existence of which the higher spiritual and 
 afiectional nature of men, and women too, is partially 
 or entirely obscured. In this condition, almost every 
 one could subscribe to the words of the poet, " Mau 
 delights me not, nor woman either." Without a 
 mental spectroscope such as has not yet been discov- 
 ered, how are we to distinguish with certainty be- 
 tween incipient dyspepsia, a natural infirmity of temper, 
 and a diminution of personal attraction. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are cases of such exceptional 
 enormity, that it is not only undesirable, but impossi- 
 ble for parties to remain together. There are others, 
 where it is clearly discovered that a mistake has been 
 committed, and the question is simply, Shall we strive
 
 38 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 to undo it, or abide by it, and make the best of it ? In 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we should say, 
 decidedly, the latter. The reasons are, first, because 
 there are many who would be as likely to make a 
 second or third mistake as the first ; secondly, because 
 their paramount duty is to others, not to themselves ; 
 third, because a law of nature is, if we commit a fault, 
 that we must suffer the consequences, and it is our 
 business to do this ourselves, and, as far as possible, 
 prevent suffering from falling on innocent persons. 
 
 Moreover, it is the testimony of the most eminent 
 lawyers in the country, that differences which termi- 
 nate even in appeals for divorce, are by no means in- 
 dicative of hate, or even permanent indifference on 
 the part of married persons. Out of fifty divorces, 
 it is stated, at least forty-five have been, or endeav- 
 ored to be, re-married, and the other five were proba- 
 bly only deterred by pride, and the influence of 
 friends. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that what we need, to 
 correct some of the evils in marriage, is not liberty 
 to commit the same error a second time, but such 
 qualifications as will prevent us from making a mis- 
 take in the first place ; or, having made it, do the best 
 we can with it not coward-like, remove our burden 
 to the shoulders of society. 
 
 The first qualification for marriage is health. This 
 is indispensable, not only because health and strength 
 are required, and should be brought to the performance
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 39 
 
 of new duties, but because it is a positive crime to 
 perpetuate disease. 
 
 The second qualification is self-reliance. No woman 
 is fit to be a wife until she has discovered that she 
 can take care of herself; a mere hanger-on is forced 
 into a condition of dependence, and remains there ; 
 she is not the companion or equal of any man she 
 cannot fill in her department the place that he does in 
 his. She ought not to be a mother, because she can- 
 not properly rear, or, in case of an emergency, provide 
 for her children. Moreover, she is tempted to act a 
 falsehood, and marry a man she does not love, by the 
 necessity of resorting to marriage as a means of ob- 
 taining a livelihood. 
 
 The third qualification for marriage is judgment, to 
 discover and properly estimate those qualities and 
 conditions which offer the surest basis for happiness 
 in married life. 
 
 Poetry and romance have done so much to unsettle 
 the ideas of girls, and boys too, on this point, that it 
 is almost impossible to make them believe that reason 
 or common-sense can or should be exercised in regard 
 to it. 
 
 " I know not, I care not, if guilt 's in that heart, 
 I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art." 
 
 This poetical fiction of Moore's, and kindred rhapso- 
 dies, have done more to corrupt youthful ideas, and 
 afford an excuse for wilful disobedience, and the in- 
 dulgence of morbid sentiment, than any direct effort 
 which could have been made for that object.
 
 40 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Love, according to poets and novelists, is a plant 
 of such eccentric, and altogether irresponsible growth, 
 as renders it entirely independent of, and not to be 
 judged or acted upon by ordinary rules. If it takes 
 poisonous form, men and women must eat the poison, 
 and die ; if it blesses, we may enjoy the bloom and the 
 fragrance. Such a theory of love is in accordance 
 with the fantastic imaginings of uncontrolled and un- 
 disciplined minds, but is absurd as entering into and 
 forming part of the regular system of divine provi- 
 dence. Love is undoubtedly to the emotional world 
 what sunshine is to the natural world its vitalizing 
 influence. But it is to be guided, controlled, directed 
 to the proper objects, and may even be cultivated in 
 the right direction. 
 
 The possession and exercise of judgment saves us 
 irom the commission of hasty acts of folly, which 
 often result in deep distress and humiliation, if not in 
 life-long regret ; and why should it not be called upon 
 to aid us in the most important act of our lives, as 
 well as in the trivial affairs of every day ? It would 
 be well for all young people to remember this, and 
 refuse at once to prosecute any affair of the heart 
 which the judgment does not sanction. 
 
 The fourth qualification for marriage, not by any 
 means fourth in importance, is truth. There is no 
 vice that so utterly sinks one person in the estimation 
 of another as the discovery of insincerity and false- 
 hood. One can forgive almost anything if it is re-
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE. 41 
 
 deemed by openness, honesty, sincerity, and truth. The 
 intimacy of married life, the unity of interests, the 
 necessity for perfecting that basis of respect which 
 offers the best security to permanence of affection, 
 renders truth and candor of the highest value as quali- 
 ties in wife or husband. One desires, above all things, 
 that the person who is nearest and dearest to us, 
 should be one upon whom we can implicitly rely, 
 whose loyalty will be unstained, whose word will be 
 unquestioned, whose character and conduct will be 
 free from the meanness, the pettiness, the cowardice 
 of lying and evasion. The temptation to deception is 
 strong during the first years of married life, in order 
 to keep up the illusions which it is felt on both sides 
 have surrounded previous intercourse, and because 
 there is a lack of knowledge on the part of all men 
 of all women, and vice versa, which places them at 
 the outset at the greatest possible disadvantage in 
 their new relations. 
 
 The wife, for instance, has been taught that certain 
 things are wrong, and certain things are right ; and 
 she intends to square her husband by her rule, and 
 make him the reflex of her father, her brother, or 
 somebody else's husband, whom she has set up for a 
 model. 
 
 Her husband, on the contrary, has been brought up 
 with very stringent notions as to what it is right for 
 women to do, but very lax ideas concerning men, and 
 he is probably as unlike as possible this ideal man
 
 42 FOR BETTER OR WORSE 
 
 whom he is to imitate. To save trouble, therefore, 
 and as a concession to her ignorance, he commences 
 a system of falsifying and petty deception, and she of 
 fretting and fault-finding, until confidence and affection 
 are both shaken, and the charm and brightness seem 
 to have been taken out of life. 
 
 All this might have been spared if there had been 
 perfect truthfulness on both sides from the beginning, 
 and that spirit of consideration and forbearance which 
 constitutes the fifth and necessary qualification for 
 married life. 
 
 It is a mistake which most young people make, to 
 expect the best which marriage can give them in the 
 "honeymoon," or within the first few months of their 
 matrimonial existence. What does not come to them 
 then of sympathy, trust, consideration, kindness, and 
 loving forbearance, can hardly be expected, they 
 imagine, to develop itself afterwards. Never was 
 there greater error. The best proof of the divine 
 character of the institution of marriage, is the fact 
 that living together in this relation improves and en- 
 nobles both men and women, if there is any good 
 material in them to work upon, and often lifts them 
 right out of the selfishness which marked their first 
 desire for, and enjoyment in each other's society. 
 Time, and especially the development of the truest 
 and purest form of affection, the parental. trans- 
 forms the thoughtless woman and the self-assertive 
 man into the thoughtful, tender, self-sacrificing wife
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOX MARRIAGE. 43 
 
 and mother, husband and father, who, looking back 
 upon the first years of doubtful happiness, find nothing 
 in them to compare with the more perfect fruition 
 which experience and the education of lives devoted 
 to care for others have brought them. 
 
 The sixth and last special qualification for marriage 
 is industry. There is no position in life that relieves 
 men or women from the necessity for active exertion ; 
 and there is no condition of body or mind so hopeless 
 as that of indolence. The active worker is saved 
 from a thousand temptations that beset idleness, and 
 is always more or less ennobled by labor, no matter 
 what the character of it may be. Idle men are less 
 common in this country than idle women, because, in 
 one case, it is considered discreditable, in the other, 
 a sort of badge of honor ; but, practically, in both 
 cases it is hurtful to mind and body. It seems a small 
 thing to the young, fond, and inexperienced girl, that 
 her lover prefers lounging to active employment, and 
 is willing to accept help from any source rather than 
 earn his daily bread ; but it will seem a very hard and 
 cruel thing when she, and, perhaps, children are de- 
 pendent upon his exertions for immunity from cold 
 and starvation. 
 
 As for young women themselves, not a few of them 
 boast that they have always been idle, and always 
 intend to remain so. Some, indeed, take great credit 
 to themselves for frankly telling their lovers that they 
 cannot work, and never intend to learn ; that useful-
 
 44 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 ness is not their forte, and the like. This is charming 
 candor, no doubt, in a young and pretty girl ; but 
 there is hard selfishness, and a shameful willingness 
 to barter herself for what she can get in exchange, at 
 the bottom of it. It is most assuredly very different 
 from the spirit which marriage, with its new pleasures, 
 yet new cares, and quite new burdens and responsi- 
 bilities, requires. 
 
 All may be summed up in one word : willingness 
 to do one's whole duty, as soon as we find out what 
 that duty is. This is, in reality, the key-note to a 
 useful and happy life, married or single ; and when 
 children are born and educated to consider duty the 
 first object of existence, instead of selfish gratifica- 
 tion, we shall hear very little of social evils, or the 
 disorders incident to married life, for each one will 
 think of others before himself, and, with less of natu- 
 ral passion and appetite to combat, will learn to dis- 
 tinguish between the true and the false, and find 
 inclination walking hand in hand with the dictates of 
 reason and conscience.
 
 ENGA GED. 45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ENGAGED. 
 
 SOME writers have advocated the idea that women 
 should choose their husbands, or at any rate, feel as 
 free to do so, as men to choose their wives. They 
 argue that in such a case, not only would a better se- 
 lection be made, but gratitude would inspire their 
 efforts to make their husbands' lives happy, as well 
 as love. 
 
 For my own part, I doubt if ever a change so radi- 
 cal as this would alter or greatly modify the experi- 
 ences of the married. The chances for discovering 
 character before marriage are less in the case of men 
 than of women, and much less importance is attached 
 by society to their faults and peccadilloes. With the 
 constant pressure upon girls ffom all directions to 
 marry as soon as possible, they could hardly be ex- 
 pected to form a wise judgment, and would be more 
 apt (save in a few exceptional cases) to take hasty and 
 imprudent matrimonial steps than they are now. 
 
 To be " engaged/ 7 is the triumph and secret object 
 of the young girl's life. It raises her upon a pedestal,
 
 46 FOR BETTER OR WO USE. 
 
 and at once makes her an object of interest to 
 her family and friends. All past faults are buried in 
 oblivion ; all her present follies and foibles are ex- 
 cused. She is privileged and petted ; she is the re- 
 cipient of a thousand attentions, and invested with 
 the rights, without having to perform the duties, of a 
 *wife. 
 
 No wonder girls consider the being engaged of 
 more importance than whom they are engaged to. 
 In this, as in everything else, they are taught, edu- 
 cated, and encouraged to sacrifice the higher to the 
 lower, to make that which should be the means the 
 end and ultimate of their desires and aims. 
 
 To a young man, the being engaged is a very seri- 
 ous matter, and thousands are saved from committing 
 themselves by the knowledge that they cannot afford 
 it. It is not only the diamond ring that seals the en- 
 gagement that has to be provided for, but a long list 
 of expenses of every description. Birthday gifts and 
 holiday gifts, not only to the fair fiancee, but more or 
 less to the members of her family. Boxes of bon-bons, 
 baskets of flowers, invitations to opera, theatres, soi- 
 re'es, and receptions, and, most important itcrn of all, 
 the carriages necessary upon these occasions. 
 
 Such demands require a fortune to supply them ; 
 and many young men have been tempted to their ruin 
 rather than appear " mean," the worst word in a 
 young lady's vocabulary that can be applied to a 
 man.
 
 ENGAGED. 47 
 
 Honestly, and without embarrassment, there are 
 few young men who can meet these requirements. 
 Salaries will not do it ; and in the early stages of 
 mercantile life, all the capital that can be obtained is 
 needed to compete with older and more experienced 
 rivals. 
 
 The majority of young men, therefore, relinquish 
 the idea of being " engaged " at all. Freedom has 
 its attractions for them ; upon a moderate income they 
 can live, and, to a certain extent, enjoy the pleasures 
 of bachelordom ; and, besides, they know perfectly 
 well that the lapse of time has no terrors for them ; 
 that their chances, while young, are small in compari- 
 son with those of a well-to-do man of forty, and will 
 improve in proportion as their resources become 
 ample. 
 
 This view of the case, probably, does not lessen 
 the real number of marriages. Nearly all men marry 
 some time or other. But it is acting curiously upon 
 the present generation of young girls, making them 
 old maids ere they become wives, or condemning 
 them to the unnatural fate of young wives of elderly 
 or middle-aged men. 
 
 Either way the effect is bad, both upon young men 
 and women, rendering them selfish, and subverting 
 the whole theory of marriage, which is that of one- 
 ness and identity of interests, tastes, and sentiments. 
 
 It is true that the marriages of June and January, 
 or June and October or November, are often not
 
 48 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 nearly so unhappy as might bo supposed ; in fact, 
 they sometimes realize, apparently, all that could be 
 expected of wedded bliss. The elderly husband is 
 lover-like in his attentions to his young wife, who, in 
 her turn, is charmed with the ease and elegance of 
 her position, and declares she would not exchange her 
 "Charles" (middle-aged men, married to young 
 women, like to be called by their given names) for 
 all the younger men in the world. Does he not give 
 her money without asking ? Does he not keep her 
 supplied with chocolate and caramels ? Does he not 
 like to see her handsomely dressed ? Is he not 
 always ready to accompany her to places of amuse- 
 ment ? What can she ask for more ? 
 
 Certainly nothing, so far as her own pleasures and 
 amusements are concerned, and nothing, if personal 
 gratification is the principal object of existence. 
 
 But men who live to middle life and then marry, or 
 who marry young girls after having buried one wife, 
 display, even in their affection, a refinement of selfish- 
 ness. They treat their young wives as children, coax 
 and caress them, make them the sharers of their 
 lighter pleasures, but not of their thoughts. 
 
 Such marriages are rarely productive of offspring ; 
 the middle-aged or elderly man likes his comfort, and 
 associates children only with measles, whooping-cough, 
 and disturbed rest. The girl-wife is delighted to find 
 herself wife and child in one, and becomes more help- 
 less, more self-absorbed, and more indulgent to her
 
 ENGAGED. 49 
 
 own whims and fancies as the years roll on. Both 
 finally attain the measure -of that sensuous and mate- 
 rial individuality which finds its highest gratification 
 in the delights of the eye and the palate, and the ab- 
 sence of any disturbing elements. 
 
 But is this the life calculated to develop manhood 
 and womanhood in men and women ? I think not. 
 Life has important duties. It is, at the best, a long 
 struggle, of which we never can see the results, though 
 we are always striving for them. 
 
 All experience demonstrates, however, that we 
 never accomplish less than when we work for our- 
 selves. What we gain of the show we lose in the 
 reality ; and, though a truthful, conscientious life 
 seems but fragmentary and unsatisfactory, it is found, 
 at last, to have been rich in the higher experiences, 
 and in the effort which garners up a harvest of bless- 
 ings in the present and for the future. 
 
 Girls should look upon an engagement as a serious 
 if not a solemn act. Not as a means of procuring 
 bouquets and bon-bons, but as a promise to take upon 
 themselves the obligations, the duties, and the respon- 
 sibilities of womanhood. There is no occasion to be- 
 come sober or dreary, or to ignore pleasure. The 
 mistake we make throughout life is in disassociating 
 ideas of labor and duty with pleasure, when, in reality, 
 the highest happiness we know is found in the per- 
 formance of every-day duties, in the accomplishment 
 of every woman's work. 
 4
 
 50 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 There are thousands of young men who would 
 willingly become engaged, who would willingly marry, 
 and thousands of young women who would be happy 
 in becoming their wives ; but social etiquette pre- 
 vents the young man from saying, " I wish to marry, 
 but my income will not admit of costly gifts to you, 
 or an establishment after we are married. With 
 economy it will keep us in comfort, and I will do my 
 best to make you happy, if you, for your part, will 
 assist in making our home the paradise which every 
 woman can make for the man she loves." 
 
 These words are not said through fear of ridicule 
 or contempt, and the young man grows middle-aged 
 in the billiard-room, or the solitary attic of his board- 
 ing-house ; and the young woman sees with alarm the 
 first track of the crow's-feet in the corners of her fair 
 cheek, wonders why young men are so backward in de- 
 claring themselves, and redoubles her efforts to make 
 herself'attractive by all the pretty toilet arts she cau 
 devise. 
 
 A word as to the conduct of young girls who are 
 "engaged" towards their lovers. American ideas 
 tolerate an amount of freedom between the sexes, 
 which has both its evils and its advantages. But 
 there is an absurd custom in families of always leav- 
 ing an engaged couple alone, of giving up to them 
 the exclusive use of the back or the front parlor, as 
 the case may be, which is foolish, and ought to be 
 abandoned.
 
 ENGAGED. 51 
 
 Young women cannot be too careful of their ac- 
 tions under such circumstances, as the very freedom 
 and laxity of modern society has destroyed much of 
 the binding- nature of the obligation which formerly 
 attached to engagements, and they are nowadays as 
 often broken as kept. Should this occur, the young 
 lady will have saved herself much after-humiliation 
 by the exercise of a little maidenly reserve, and would 
 not unfrequently save such a catastrophe, as her 
 modesty would surely enhance her attractions in the 
 eyes of her lover. 
 
 Moreover, the best way to judge of each other's 
 character is by familiar intercourse in the family circle. 
 If a young man drops in of an evening, and finds the 
 time pass pleasantly in chatting with the old lady, in 
 showing pictures to the baby, and in helping a school- 
 boy brother with his " sums/' be sure he will make 
 an excellent husband ; but if he considers eveiybody 
 in the way, and has "engagements" elsewhere un- 
 less he can take his lady-love into a corner, beware of 
 him. He will make a selfish, and, some time or other, 
 neglectful husband. 
 
 In the ease and unconsciousness of every-day life, 
 a thousand indications will also serve to show to 
 the gentleman the character of the one whom he 
 has selected to be his wife and the mother of his 
 children. If she has occupations, is patient under 
 small annoyances, thoughtful, and considerate for 
 others, sought for by the little ones when they are in
 
 52 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 a difficulty, and relied upon as the helper of her mother, 
 she will prove a treasure, though her hair is sandy 
 instead of auburn, and her nose a pug. 
 
 Mere personal beauty is really a matter of so little 
 importance after people are married, that I am sure 
 many men, and probably not a few women, wonder 
 how they could ever have been infatuated by it. Ad- 
 mirable personal qualities, on the contrary, acquire 
 constantly a higher value, and soon invest face and 
 form with a beauty which neither paint nor powder 
 is required to improve, and which time cannot im- 
 pair.
 
 THE HONEY-MOON. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE "HONEY-MOON." 
 
 IT is one of the mysteries why the first months of 
 married life should be called the Honey-Moon, in con- 
 tradistinction to the entire remaining part of matri- 
 monial existence, which, per consequence, should be 
 entitled the " Bitter-Moon." The observation and 
 experience of most married people will fail to carry 
 out this popular theory ; nine tenths of them will con- 
 fess, on the contrary, if questioned on the subject, that 
 the first months, perhaps years, of wedded life were 
 the least happy of any they had known, and much 
 more " bitter " than sweet. 
 
 It is natural, of course, for young novel-reading 
 girls to imagine that all their troubles end with those 
 of their favorite heroines at the church door ; and 
 that, according to the traditional formula, " they live 
 happy forever after." It is not in the least unreason- 
 able for them to suppose that much will be yielded to 
 the novelty of position, and the first enthusiasm of 
 marital affection, that will be withheld when the nov- 
 elty has worn oif, and the first glow of the lover's
 
 54 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 passion subsided into the calm assertion of the hus- 
 band's rights. 
 
 For, to a certain extent, this is true. Not a little 
 wretchedness is caused by the unguarded indulgence 
 of every whim, on the part of pretty and capricious 
 wives, by newly made husbands, who perhaps after- 
 wards try to remedy the mistake by a foolish and un- 
 necessary display of harshness and severity. 
 
 Very frequently, however, the most cherished illu- 
 sions are dissipated before they have had time for 
 realization, and husband or wife, or possibly both, ask 
 themselves, in despair, if this sort of association, of 
 companionship, of united wretchedness, is what they 
 have bound themselves to for the rest of their days. 
 
 Perhaps one is demonstrative, the other cool and 
 unimpassioned ; and while the delicacy of the last is 
 subject to repeated shocks, the first is groaning over 
 the idea that he or she was never loved. 
 
 The habits of young men, moreover, are so differ- 
 ent from those of young women, and it is considered 
 so manifestly improper for the latter to know anything 
 of the former before marriage, that it is no wonder if 
 the first revelations should occasion a sudden revul- 
 sion of feeling, and an amount of wretchedness which 
 seems to the gentleman totally unwarranted. 
 
 How many wives remember the agony of the first 
 night spent at the club, the first "stag" party, and 
 the coming home at three o'clock in the morning ; the 
 first refusal to gratify them in some little matter of
 
 THE HONET-MOON. 55 
 
 taste or fancy, and, above all, the first terrible convic- 
 tion of the fact, that, instead of a hero, and the no- 
 blest and the best, &c., they had only married a very 
 ordinary man, with an excellent opinion of his own 
 personal qualities, and a determination that, whatever 
 he might have done as a lover, he should exact 'from 
 his wife obedience to his will, and deference to his 
 superior judgment. 
 
 Is it surprising, under such circumstances, that the 
 petted girl, the centre of a lively circle, who never 
 knew what it was to spend an evening alone, who had 
 grown accustomed to having her wishes consulted, 
 should sit down amid her strange surroundings, in- 
 dulge in a good cry, and look at her trunks with 
 vague thoughts of packing up them and herself, and 
 hieing back to the parental roof, which she was so 
 glad to leave, but which seems now the safest, sweet- 
 est, and dearest spot on earth ? 
 
 So strong is the temptation, at least once, on the 
 part of many of those newly married to sever their 
 ties, that it is a matter of wonder that more among 
 the young, ignorant, and inexperienced do not do it. 
 It says much for the influence of the sober second 
 thought, and for that substratum of good sense which 
 generally underlies youthful folly, and is quickly de- 
 veloped, if ever, by the stern and practical realities 
 of married life. 
 
 A case in point is that of young Forceps, who took 
 Miss Rosalie Augustina from boarding-school at the
 
 56 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 age of sixteen, and married her. Forceps knew per- 
 fectly well at the time that Rosalie Augustina was a 
 giddy girl, totally unacquainted with anything relating 
 to a wife's duties ; nevertheless, he took her home to 
 his mother, a rigid disciplinarian, and severely sensi- 
 ble person of the New England type, and to his sis- 
 ters, one of whom taught school, while the other 
 assisted efficiently in doing the housework, and in 
 chorusing poor little Rosalie Augustina's shortcom- 
 ings. 
 
 For a short time Forceps bravely stemmed the tor- 
 rent ; but continued complaints soon impressed him 
 with the belief that he was an injured individual, and 
 had made a fool of himself in marrying at all. Mrs. 
 Rosalie Augustina did not mend matters, of course, 
 by shedding torrents of tears, and giving him to un- 
 derstand that she considered mothers and sisters-in- 
 law plagues, housework a nuisance, and a husband 
 a banker and attendant, who should be always ready 
 on call. 
 
 A series of bickerings resulted, within the year, in 
 the disappearance of Rosalie Augustina, who, how- 
 ever, was too proud to go to her old home, and sought, 
 in a fit of romantic indignation, shelter and employ- 
 ment in a distant city. Fortunately she obtained 
 both, and an amount of experience that convinced her 
 that she had thrown away her happiness. Her hus- 
 band about the same time arrived at the same conclu- 
 sion, and set on foot inquiries, which resulted in a
 
 THE HONEY-MOON. 57 
 
 meeting 1 , and finally in a happy reunion. Few of 
 those who are admitted into the loving family circle 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Forceps to-day, imagine how near 
 both lives were wrecked by youthful ignorance and 
 misconception. 
 
 Mutual misunderstanding is, however, by no means 
 confined to the very young. Persons who have mar- 
 ried at an age when they ought to know better, some- 
 times come very near to splitting on some domestic 
 rock. 
 
 Mary Steadfast and William Wiseman were consid- 
 ered, in their own immediate circle, the distinct rep- 
 resentatives of the male and female virtues. Both 
 had arrived at years of discretion, and when they 
 married, everybody said, What an admirable couple 
 they will make, and how happy they will be ! But 
 within a very few weeks both could have told a very 
 different story ; each possessed a strong will, and 
 each felt an obstinate conviction of being always in 
 the right. Two days of silent, sullen bitterness 
 within the honey-moon, and then Mary, unable to 
 bear longer the weary, aching sense of her loneliness, 
 walked a mile to her old home, and, notwithstanding 
 her mother's entreaties, refused to return. 
 
 Three days she staid and wept, and was soothed 
 by her mother, who understood and pitied, while oth- 
 ers blamed. Three nights she slept in the sanctuary 
 of her own old room, untroubled by the careless ad- 
 vent of heavy boots, or the meanderiugs of dirty
 
 58 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 collars and stray neckties. In the mean time her 
 husband was first indignant, then alarmed, but too 
 proud and stubborn to make the first advances, or ex- 
 hibit even a desire to bring his truant wife home. 
 Her mother, however, knew that this state of things 
 could not last always, and a short, but wise and kind 
 note was despatched to William Wiseman, recom- 
 mending him to call that evening and take Mary 
 home, making no allusion to her absence, and treat- 
 ing her precisely the same as if it had never occurred. 
 
 William was sensible enough to do so. Mary was 
 also sensible enough to be thankful that nothing worse 
 came of giving way to an uncontrollable impulse, and 
 soon learned to adapt herself to what at first had 
 seemed so intolerable in her new position. Four 
 bonny children now own to the name of Wiseman, 
 and it is not likely that either will ever know, or even 
 remotely suspect, how near their parents once came 
 to figuring in a suit for divorce or legal separation. 
 
 But it is riot all who think such thoughts who pro- 
 ceed to such extremities, or even give them verbal ex- 
 pression ; on the contrary, the larger number get rid 
 of their illusions and disappointments as best they may, 
 wisely saying nothing about them, and are rewarded 
 by the realization of more happiness than they Bad 
 ever dared to expect. 
 
 It is a pleasant surprise to the wife of several 
 years' standing to find that the delicate attentions and 
 thoughtful consideration which she supposed belonged
 
 THE HONET-MOON. 59 
 
 peculiarly to the first period of married life are more 
 frequently the growth of her husband's respect and 
 affection ; that the habits which clung to him at first, 
 as part of his season of " wild oats " and resistless 
 impulse, have disappeared in the maturity of a thor- 
 oughly awakened manhood. 
 
 It is no less gratifying to the husband to find the 
 thoughtless extravagance and the pettish caprices of 
 girlhood lost in the new and infinitely more attractive 
 womanhood of the wife and mother. The gentle, 
 earnest woman, newly baptized in her love for that 
 great mystery, her own little child, is something en- 
 tirely different from the light-hearted, prettily, selfish, 
 exacting mixture of curls and ribbons that he mar- 
 ried. 
 
 Newly made brides are apt to consider themselves 
 objects of envy to all their friends and acquaintance, 
 but I confess I never see one without a dim, unde- 
 fined feeling of anxiety and pity. How will she 
 stand the ordeal of this great and abrupt transition 
 from a life shadowed only, perhaps, by fears lest she 
 should pass twenty without being Mrs. Somebody, to 
 the realization of the duties and obligations of a 
 double existence, in which, with equal powers, de- 
 sires as keen, aspirations as strong, ambition as pow- 
 erful, she must be content to bear a secondary part ? 
 
 One thing is certain : it is not beauty, or talent, or 
 genius which insures present or future happiness in 
 wedded life ; it is a large amount of that homely
 
 60 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 quality, good common sense. Beauty is a precious 
 gift, BO is genius ; but in the intimate association of 
 married life they not only lose attraction, but become 
 repulsive and venomous, unless accompanied by less 
 brilliant, but more kindly, solid, and enduring quali- 
 ties. 
 
 The honey-moon is, therefore, a creation and possi- 
 ble development, rather than the necessary conse- 
 quence of the first experience of wedded life. It may 
 be sweet and perpetual, though the opening scenes be 
 bitter ; at any rate, in ninety-nine cases it is better to 
 submit to, and make the best of the inevitable, than to 
 throw aside, or wantonly ignore the moral and legal 
 obligations which have been freely assumed. 
 
 In a really happy marriage between two good and 
 harmonious persons who love each other, the bright- 
 ness of the first moon resolves itself into the tender 
 and ever-growing sweetness of a perpetual honey- 
 moon, which age cannot wither, or custom stale ; but 
 yet the secret of their perpetual happiness will not 
 lie so much in their mutual perfections as in their 
 mutual forbearance. Knowing how much must be 
 forgiven, we must willingly forgive, if in married life 
 we would ever experience a "Honey-Moon."
 
 THE DUTT OF THE WIFE. 61 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. 
 
 IT is not customary, in fact, girls are not educated 
 to look at life from the stand-point of any duty, but 
 their duty to themselves. They are impressed with 
 the necessity of being married ; not because they can, 
 in this way, best fulfil the purpose of their being, 
 the law of human existence, but to secure personal 
 position, supply personal wants, or gratify personal 
 ambition. 
 
 Of course I do not mean that all women marry to 
 gain these objects, or that they are not, in many, per- 
 haps in the majority of instances, influenced by other 
 and higher considerations ; but I do mean to assert 
 that the inducements constantly held out, and the 
 motives always kept in view, are personal, instead of 
 human and social. That duty, the duty of knowledge, 
 of preparation, of fitness, rarely enters into the calcu-' 
 lations of the modern marriage, and when it does, 
 it is generally from a narrow and mistaken stand- 
 point. The first duty the only duty the wife is 
 taught is to "submit herself; " not to make her-
 
 62 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 self acquainted with her new relation, its obligations 
 and responsibilities ; not to use the best means to in- 
 fluence her husband in right directions simply sub- 
 mit herself to his pleasure. 
 
 If men were all God-like, and women alone human 
 and fallible, this would be right and proper. But the 
 most strenuous opposer of women's rights will hardly 
 claim infallibility, either in judgment or morals, for 
 men ; and if they have had any range of experi- 
 ence or observation, must admit the possibility of dis- 
 astrous consequences destruction even of domestic 
 happiness, and sacrifice of innocent children, to a reli- 
 gious sentiment of unquestioning submission on the 
 part of women ! 
 
 If the young wife finds in her husband the clear 
 perception, the sound judgment, the wise forethought, 
 the regard for truth and honor, which go so far to 
 make up real greatness and nobility of character, she 
 will generally, and at all events in time, yield to him 
 the privilege of deciding upon the most important 
 points which affect their common welfare. But too 
 often she finds none of these qualities. She remem- 
 bers the injunction " to honor and obey," and she be- 
 gins to wonder if it can mean, irrespective of all 
 qualities that command respect and obedience. 
 
 Being piously taught to look upon her husband as 
 standing in some sort towards her as God's represen- 
 tative, she naturally expects much from him ; ehe 
 looks to him not only for protection and support, rut
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. GO 
 
 for a strength that will make up for her weakness, 
 and almost argue exception from the common lot of 
 humanity. Instead of this she finds an individual 
 ignorant as herself of the most important bearings of 
 their new relation upon themselves and the world at 
 large. She finds a general idea that man is born to 
 rule, but no definite conception of how or why. In- 
 stead of wisdom upon which she can rely, she finds 
 prejudices which she is expected to adopt, a liability 
 to error which she is never to see, and which is never 
 to be acknowledged, and .an assertion of superiority, 
 based on the exercise of power, which she soon begins 
 to suspect is not well founded. 
 
 Her false ideas of duty leave her nothing, after mak- 
 ing these discoveries, to fall back upon. Her instincts 
 forbid her to yield obedience, when such obedience 
 conflicts with her sense of right ; and yet, does not 
 her vow at the altar compel her to regard submission 
 to the will of her husband as her first duty ? 
 
 It is not necessary to describe such struggles at 
 length, or to recount how they usually end. Every 
 one can remember and apply them for herself. 
 
 I would not have it understood from the foregoing 
 that a married woman's first duty is to look out for 
 her husband's faults, and exercise a direct censorship 
 over him ; on the contrary, I think her care and influ- 
 ence are most felt and best exercised in the strict per- 
 formance of her own duty, without reference to the 
 acts of her husband, and in the embodiment in herself 
 of a pure, truthful, loving womanhood.
 
 64 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Moreover, the ignorance, the want of judgment, 
 and other deficiencies on the part of the husband, are 
 generally balanced by at least equal shortcomings on 
 the part of the wife, and it is not best for either (pot 
 or kettle) to commence calling each other black. A 
 better method, at least for the wife, whose case we 
 are now considering, is to apply herself at once to 
 remedying her own defects, and in this way she may 
 find a cure for her husband's also. 
 
 The first duty of the woman is to accept the man 
 she has married for what he is, and make the best of 
 him, not only to the world at large, but to her own 
 consciousness. Let her always remember that if he 
 has not the good qualities of some other man, he has 
 his own, and that their faults, of which she knows 
 nothing, might be still more difficult to endure. 
 When we enter into a house, of which we intend to 
 make a permanent home, we seek out its sunniest 
 nooks, its most attractive features, and cultivate our 
 acquaintance with them, until they become a part of 
 our lives, and make up for many deficiencies. Just 
 so affection may be cultivated, must be, indeed, if the 
 flower, whose color and fragrance gladden our lives, 
 is to take root, and become a permanent and beauti- 
 ful tree. 
 
 Another duty of the wife is to accept the social 
 position in which marriage has placed her, fulfil its 
 obligations, improve it if she can, but spend neither 
 time nor strength in* complaints and repiuings at it.
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. 65 
 
 She had her choice to marry, or remain single, and 
 fight the battle of life for herself; she chose to marry, 
 and is bound by every sentiment of honor to assist 
 her husband to maintain his place as man and citizen, 
 to aid his best endeavors, to use her influence to ward 
 off temptation, and obtain and preserve for her chil- 
 dren the best dower they can receive, a useful and 
 honorable name a name untainted by falsehood, 
 corruption, untruth, or disloyalty to man or woman. 
 So much of this moral power lies in the hands of 
 women, that it should be a religious duty with them 
 to guard it sacredly, and use it as a trust for which 
 they will be held responsible. 
 
 Instead of stimulating and encouraging men to 
 mischief by their demands and exactions ; instead of 
 submitting to their will, in order to make them dupes 
 in return, it is the duty of wives to exercise a restrain- 
 ing influence upon the passions of their husbands, to 
 hold them by the reins of their own purity, truth, and 
 aifection, and prevent them, if possible, from becom- 
 ing ingulfed in the maelstrom of speculation, ex- 
 citement, and mad indulgence, which wreck so many 
 noble but impetuous spirits, and shut them out of 
 sight and possibility of reinstatement forever. 
 
 Men nearly always take their first risk of soul or 
 body for the sake of a woman, and if she encourage 
 it for the sake of gain, greed and ambition take 
 possession of the souls of both, and drive out truth, 
 honor, integrity, all those virtues which lay the foun- 
 6
 
 66 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 dation of family name, which add the highest lustre 
 to. individual reputation. 
 
 Watchfulness and care on the part of the good and 
 true wife that she lead not her husband into tempta- 
 tion, seem to be especially demanded now, when we 
 are apparently entering upon an era of almost unex- 
 ampled national prosperity, the tendency o which 
 will be to lose sight entirely of the faith, the devo- 
 tion to principle, the self-denial, which built up our 
 greatness, and which alone can preserve it to future 
 generations. 
 
 Only this recognition by women of their duty, and 
 the performance of it, can save us from the fate which 
 has always overtaken great empires, when prosperity 
 has rendered them proud, indolent, boastful, and lux- 
 urious, and if enough cannot be found to stem the 
 frightful tide of fashion, indolence, and selfishness, it 
 will only remain for us to accept for ourselves and 
 our children the ruin we shall have helped to precipi- 
 tate. 
 
 There is another temptation which this age opposes 
 to the duty of the wife, and which is even more dan- 
 gerous than prosperity, because subtler, and presented 
 under a variety of seducing and attractive forms, and 
 that is Individualism. To women it puts on the guise 
 of an angel unlocking the gates of Paradise, and is the 
 herald of a gospel so sweet and entrancing, that they 
 yield without opposition to its fascinations, until they 
 find themselves sailing out of the smooth waters into
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. 67 
 
 a troubled sea, full of difficulties and conflicts, and 
 biding beneath its treacherous surface a still deeper 
 depth of blackness and darkness. 
 
 It sets itself from the beginning in active opposition 
 to all unity and harmony between husband and wife, 
 to all subordination of individual desire to the inter- 
 est of the family. It says to the wife, Why should 
 you be the mere echo of your husband ? Why should 
 your gifts and graces be absorbed in the drudgery of 
 the household, and the care of children ? Your first 
 duty and last duty is to yourself, and no other has 
 any right to interfere with it ; if you feel that this is 
 your highest, and truest, and best representative work, 
 why then do it ; but if you feel that you can do some- 
 thing else better, why then, in God's name, do that. 
 
 Does it not sound plausible ? Would it not be 
 likely to lead, I will not say mis-lead, any young and 
 inexperienced woman, conscious of some power, but 
 ignorant of the laws which govern her own being, and 
 control her relations with the world about her ? 
 
 By the estimate which the world puts upon that 
 which is known and recognized, is she not justified in 
 seeking personal fame, personal honor, personal recog- 
 nition ? Is she not justified in sacrificing to these, if 
 it is necessary, family ties, family affections, and 
 family interests ? She has not yet learned the very 
 unsatisfactory nature of public reputation, and how 
 utterly worthless it becomes when obtained at the 
 sacrifice of the fulfilment of known duty.
 
 68 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 I do not blame women for desiring personal repu- 
 tation ; I would certainly not prevent, but would rather 
 help them to achieve it ; but I would have them put 
 it upon higher ground than the low one of self, that 
 of duty to the family, or to humanity ; and they will 
 soon discover that we give to the world the best that 
 is in us, by doing the duty that lies nearest to us, and 
 that it is best to do it because it is duty, and not be- 
 cause it will bring us fame, or honor, or even honest 
 recognition. 
 
 It is not the mere ambitious desire for personal 
 reputation, however, which presents individualism in 
 its worst aspect ; it is the baleful influence, the per- 
 nicious tendency of the doctrines, and the destructive 
 moral and social ideas to which it leads. In spirit, it 
 is directly opposed to our highest moral conception, 
 that of subordination of the individual will to the 
 general good. 
 
 It puts self, and the lowest selfish instincts, before 
 the convictions of honor and duty. It tramples upon 
 whatever stands in the way of personal aggrandize- 
 ment and personal gratification, and, in fine, makes of 
 the individual a new golden calf, which it sets upon a 
 pedestal, and calls upon woman to fall down and wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Why should they not do so, they already ask, as well 
 as men ? I answer, because if they are the real pos- 
 sessors of the moral power attributed to them by 
 men ; of that fine and subtle moral and spiritual force
 
 THE DUTT OF THE WIFE. 69 
 
 which it is the dream of all good men and women will 
 -sometime be formulated into an active and all-pervad- 
 ing agency, and brought to bear upon the selfish and 
 brutalizing tendencies of every-day life, then they 
 ought to be superior to selfish and merely personal 
 considerations. They should be able to say to men, 
 It is not out of your selfishness, your individualism, 
 your political preferment, always built upon the bodies 
 of prostrate rivals ; or your personal successes, at 
 the expense of costly tears, that you get your chief 
 pleasure and satisfaction ; it is in your homes, your 
 families, your children ; in something which you 
 have done to mitigate pain, to create new sources of 
 enjoyment, and add to the real wealth and happiness 
 of the world, it is these that you prefer to think of, 
 and rest upon, as the material for a desirable and 
 hopeful immortality. 
 
 It is, therefore, in these acts of beneficence, not in 
 those of selfishness, that we wish to imitate you, and 
 not so much imitate, as work with you. We do not 
 wish to make another great, assertive, belligerent 1 
 in the world, to oppose itself to your /, but we ask, for 
 the good of the world at large, that the office of the 
 woman may be respected as well- as that of the man, 
 and that the bombastic /maybe resolved into an har- 
 monious We. 
 
 This may appear a digression ; but to those who are 
 acquainted with the spirit and tendencies of the age 
 it will appear less so, and I therefore proceed, with-
 
 70 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 out apology, to a most important part of the wife's 
 duty that of preparing the home, and making it 
 ready to be the birthplace and nurturing ground of 
 children. 
 
 When men understand their duty, and make it their 
 first business to provide liberally for the production 
 and maintenance of the home, and the rearing of 
 children, the work of the wife will be much less diffi- 
 cult. At present the comfort of the home, the wel- 
 fare of wife and children, is in many cases sacrificed 
 to selfish indulgence, or the gratification of ambition. 
 Instead of crowning them, as they should, with their 
 best endeavors, they calculate the lowest amount 
 upon which they can be made to subsist, and not un- 
 frequently marry, expecting women, not only to bear 
 children, and rear them, but provide for their sup- 
 port. 
 
 Such manhood is unworthy of an advanced civili- 
 zation ; it should receive the scorpion lash of a pub- 
 lic opinion that would render it infamous, and no 
 man should be allowed to marry who had not ability 
 and willingness to provide for those who would be 
 naturally dependent upon him. 
 
 Of course, it is not necessary that homes should be 
 magnificent, or even luxurious. Whatever the couple 
 themselves agree upon as sufficient to commence the 
 rearing of their ideal structure, is enough ; but there 
 must be truth, sincerity, and earnestness on both sides, 
 to render it thorough and permanent. The husband
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. 71 
 
 must provide the materials ; but the wife must bring 
 to her work love, patience, willingness, and knowl- 
 edge of how to perform it. The utter failure to re- 
 alize any duty as connected with marriage, permits 
 our girls to become wives without a thought of re- 
 sponsibility, much less a practical acquaintance with 
 the duties of their new position. This shameful ig- 
 norance renders many marriages unhappy ; it is re- 
 sponsible for much of the indifference, even repug- 
 nance, to marriage on the part of young men ; it 
 encourages indolence, and the shrinking from all trust, 
 and really destroys the integrity of married life, by 
 allowing girls to enter a sacred relation from purely 
 personal and selfish motives, and without a perception 
 of the high arid holy nature of the offices pertaining 
 to it. 
 
 A boarding-house, it should be understood, is the 
 sepulchre of the true joys, the hopes, the happiness, 
 the comfort of married life. There may be an exist- 
 ence in the far-off future, upon the communist, or 
 some other plan, that will realize an ideal of society 
 without destroying the family ; but it is not to be 
 found in any of the boarding-houses as they exist to- 
 day. 
 
 A simple family life, where the members are in 
 accord, and strive indeed to cultivate the spirit of 
 harmony with, and affection for, one another, is the 
 only one that encourages active and disinterested ef- 
 fort on the part of each for the good of all ; and this
 
 72 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 result springs mainly from the inspiration of a wise 
 and good wife and mother. 
 
 This brings me to another, and, perhaps, most im- 
 portant part of the duty of wife ; and this is, to be 
 herself the mother of her children. Does this sound 
 paradoxical ? It is not intended to- be so. It does 
 not enter into the scope of this chapter to discuss the 
 duty of mothers ; but there is no subject of greater 
 importance than the duty of wives, in becoming 
 mothers, to retain the care and guardianship of their 
 children. Could they once realize that it is spe- 
 cially the work that has been- given them to per- 
 form ; that it is the work by which they will be 
 judged ; that it is a work, the importance of which 
 they can never realize until they begin to enter upon 
 its fruition ; a work, the neglect of which will be a 
 source of eternal regret ; it would be at once a joy 
 and a privilege, instead of a restraint and annoyance. 
 
 " Anybody can wash children's faces, pick up play- 
 things, and mend torn trousers," says some tired, dis- 
 satisfied young wife and mother, who has not yet be- 
 gun to see much result from her days and weeks and 
 months of patient doing.* But "anybody" cannot 
 bring the mother love, the mother influence, the mother 
 forethought, the mother watchfulness, the mother 
 knowledge of the secret springs which actuate and 
 govern the unfoldings of these young lives. Wash- 
 ing faces and making trousers are not all of a moth- 
 er's duty. It need not bo any part of it ; although
 
 THE DUTY OF THE WIFE. f3 
 
 even these will repay the time and faithfulness ex- 
 pended upon it. But the influence of the mother's 
 presence, the inspiration of her best thoughts, the 
 charm of her happiest life is needed, and must be 
 given cheerfully, lovingly, as the sunshine to the 
 flowers. 
 
 Not till the time comes when the wife can be no 
 more a mother, does she fully know what she had, 
 and what she lost, in the baby. What would she not 
 give now for one of his laughing tricks, for one of 
 his sweet, baby efforts at expression, which were 
 wasted upon dull, insensate ears while she was shop- 
 ping, or visiting, or possibly writing an article, or 
 attending a committee meeting ? 
 
 Not a houseful of meagre, half-born, half-reared, 
 half-cared-for children does the true wife want, nor 
 will she have ; but the one, or two, or three, which, 
 born at the proper intervals, with mutual consent, 
 with happy anticipations, make of the small house a 
 paradise, in the truest sense of the word. There is 
 no home without children ; and there is no home 
 either where there are too many, or unhappily born 
 and badly-trained children. The conditions require 
 to be met in order to arrive at the complete result. 
 
 It is a great temptation, in these days of fresh ac- 
 tivities, for women to leave the more confined field of 
 home duty, and take a place among the workers in 
 apparently more extended spheres of usefulness. But 
 it is, in most instances, a mere exchange of a birth-
 
 H FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 right for a mess of pottage. The glory is very poor 
 very evanescent ; the struggles, the pains, the sor- 
 rows, the heartbreaks, in full measure ; the loss of 
 sweet home associations and memories, very real and 
 very sure. 
 
 There is no woman so happy as the happy wife ; 
 none so truly consecrate to good work as the faithful 
 mother. Happy wife ! Faithful mother ! Would 
 the Queen of England have exchanged these titles for 
 the empty greatness of her crown, after an experi- 
 ence of both ? I think not.
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 75 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 
 
 MONEY is said to be the root of all evil ; but the 
 proposition, though generally accepted, does not in 
 the slightest degree prevent all the world from toil- 
 ing after money, nor many from taking very doubtful 
 means of obtaining it. There must be something 
 wrong in the statement, therefore, something against 
 which the general sense of mankind rebels, to render 
 the moral effect of a moral aphorism so utterly nuga- 
 tory. Money cannot be all evil ; it must do some 
 good ; it must possess some very desirable and bene- 
 ficial possibilities, to make it the object of such eager 
 craving, such universal homage, as is, with rare ex- 
 ceptions, yielded to it. 
 
 A more correct reading, it seems to me, would be 
 this, that Selfishness is the root of all evil ; and it is 
 individual selfishness, which is peculiarly the product 
 of our modern civilization, and which lies at the root 
 of all the difficulties with regard to marriage. 
 
 It is the habit to credit women and their extrava- 
 gance with not only the modern restlessness and un-
 
 76 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 happiness in the matrimonial relation, but with the 
 modern tendency to old bachelorhood among men. 
 This is false and unjust unjust because it is false. 
 The growth of luxury undoubtedly has something to 
 do with the reluctance of young men to bind them- 
 selves by new ties and responsibilities ; but it is less 
 the fear of increased demands on the part of women, 
 than unwillingness to give up their own pet indul- 
 gences, to subordinate their selfish desires to broader 
 social duties. No more than women, do they under- 
 stand the duties involved in the new relation, but they 
 somehow feel that it would interfere with their indi- 
 vidual pleasures; and their education has tended, 
 even more than that of women, to establish a belief 
 in a divine right to consult their own inclinations, 
 and secure their own personal comforts at any sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 Marriage, with men in general, is only an extension 
 of the same selfish idea ; few even take the trouble 
 to think whether they are calculated to add to the 
 happiness of any woman, much less fill an enlarged 
 place satisfactorily in the human and social economy. 
 
 The simple fact, plainly stated, is, that they want a 
 wife the "wife" being thought of more in the 
 light of a piece of property than anj'thing else. Add 
 individual preference to this fact, and the question 
 will assume one of two forms Can 1 ailbrd the lux- 
 ury ? or, Will she add enough to my comfort to make 
 it pay pecuniarily ? For men, when they fall in love,
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 77 
 
 generally do so with exactly what they condemn 
 viz. : delicacy, white hands, elaborately dressed hair, 
 a unique and strikingly fashionable toilet, a pretty 
 face, and an ignorance and helplessness which height- 
 ens, by contrast, their wisdom and strength. Their 
 aesthetic natures and luxurious tastes require to be 
 gratified by the presence of beauty, refinement, cul- 
 ture, ease, and plenty. Moreover, they want the 
 credit of being able to maintain the social position of 
 other men, but they do not want it to cost too much ; 
 and their selfishness, their idleness, or their incapacity, 
 takes refuge behind the flimsy and threadbare com- 
 plaints of women's extravagance. 
 
 The truth is, if men understand and perform their 
 duty, women cannot often be extravagant, because it 
 is part of that duty to assign from the income the 
 portion of it which is to be devoted to the creation 
 and maintenance of the home ; and if these limits are 
 observed, though the wife may fail, through igno- 
 rance, to make the best use of it, yet she will not, ex- 
 cept in those rare and exceptional cases which do not 
 come under the general head, involve him in pecuniaiy 
 difficulty. 
 
 The objections, then, which are commonly made to 
 marriage, on the ground of the faults and failures of 
 women, have little foundation in fact ; the cause is 
 far more likely to be found in the selfishness and 
 shortcomings of men. 
 
 It would be false to say that men have no ideas of
 
 78 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 duty, but they are less social than individual. It is 
 their duty first, as men, towards men, which they ac- 
 knowledge ; and second, as citizens, towards the 
 country to which they belong, and whose advantages 
 and position they share. But towards women, as 
 women, they seldom realize any duty. It rarely 
 seems to enter their minds, that, by being compelled 
 to be the mothers of the race, the whole body of 
 women are perpetually subject to physical disabili- 
 ties, which, even where she is not bound by actual 
 maternity, creates obstacles, impediments, and dis- 
 couragements, which are not shared by men. In- 
 stead of this, men accepC difference of function as evi- 
 dence of inferiority, and practically act upon the 
 proposition, that, not being able to contend for them, 
 women have no rights that men are bound to respect. 
 Is this overstated ? I think not. I appeal to the 
 consciousness of men if it is not true. I assert, 
 moreover, that the selfish ideal of life is a failure, that 
 they get no satisfaction out of it, and that when it 
 is too late they see it, and comprehend that to have 
 made it a success they should have started on quite 
 different principles. There is nowhere a more un- 
 happy being than the isolated man who has only his 
 own whims and caprices to consult. Life for him 
 has neither motive nor stimulus. He wished to se- 
 cure ease, to avoid care and responsibility, but he 
 finds himself cheated of his fancied enjoyments at 
 every turn. lie cannot, after all, expend his resources
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 79 
 
 wholly upon himself, and he is either forced, for the 
 sake of decency, to bear the burdens originally as- 
 sumed by others, or to drop out of the world un- 
 thought of, uncared for, unregretted, leaving no 
 thought that would help to keep his memory green 
 in the minds of those he leaves behind. 
 
 This is the fate of the isolated man : that of the 
 one who marries from purely selfish motives is not 
 much better. Naturally he fails of the happiness, or 
 advantage, which he sought. His wife, children, and 
 whole social existence will either be a disappointment, 
 or a weight that he cannot carry : they will sicken 
 or devour him. Whatever willingness or right in- 
 tention may have existed in his household in the be- 
 ginning will be crushed, or left to die of neglect and 
 want of appreciation. His wife will learn that she 
 has nothing to expect from his justice, his humanity, 
 or his love, and she will first cajole and then deceive 
 him. His children will share his spirit of selfish ap- 
 propriation, and only value parents or home for what 
 they can make out of them. His friends well, the 
 selfish man has not many friends, and the least said 
 of them the better. 
 
 But what are the duties of husbands ? They con- 
 sist, in brief, of man's duty to woman crystallized 
 by love for the individual, and desire to fulfil his own 
 part in the economy of nature, into perpetual care 
 and consideration for the interests and happiness of a 
 wife, with whose aid he hopes to build up a name and
 
 80 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 place in the world, perfect his own manhood, and per- 
 petuate in children the better qualities of both thus 
 securing to the future something better than has ex- 
 isted in the past. 
 
 A boy, at a district school, once gave as his own 
 definition of the word husband, " A. man that marries 
 a woman to take care of her," and the idea was very 
 creditable to him. A man ought to marry a woman 
 to take care of her. Her maternal function, its exi- 
 gencies and requirements, constitute her claim upon 
 him ; and even if that is not called into exercise, she 
 still shares the fate of her sex, and so requires pro- 
 tection ; she is still necessary to his happiness, still 
 stands in her natural relation of companion, sympa- 
 thizer, helper, and consoler. 
 
 The first duty of the husband to the wife is to re- 
 spect her her person, her functions, her inclinations, 
 her individuality. It is so much the habit of men to 
 think of " my wife " as of something over which they 
 hold exclusive control, that the best of them express it 
 almost unconsciously, and in a manner, frequently, 
 that the wife, though she may be silent on the sub- 
 ject, never forgets. He must always remember that 
 his wife is not a mere instrument of his pleasure, but 
 a coadjutor in the best work, the highest objects, the 
 worthiest aims of his life, and that, in sacrificing her 
 to his lowest instincts, he defeats his own noblest 
 purposes, and is false to the first principles of a true 
 manhood.
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 81 
 
 Girls are, as a rule, so entirely ignorant of what it 
 is most important they should know, that it becomes 
 a husband's duty to guard his wife, even against him- 
 self, from the consequences of her own want of 
 knowledge. Unborn children, sickly children, broken 
 constitution, life-long nervousness, weakness, and in- 
 validism, are the constantly recurring results of igno- 
 rance and ungoverned passion. 
 
 The second duty of the husband is that of recogni- 
 tion. " Husband and wife are one, and the husband 
 that one," has been the practical formula, and has 
 produced half the domestic difficulties that afflict our 
 social life. If the wife were, humanly, a nullity a 
 simple flesh-and-blood machine, called into existence 
 to perform certain work, fulfil certain offices, but not 
 possessed of the same intelligence or reasoning fac- 
 ulties as the husband, there would be cause for this 
 distinctive and utter subordination of her judgment 
 and will to his ; but no one, not even the most big- 
 oted advocate of the subjection of women, pretends 
 that this is the case to practically assume it, there- 
 fore, is to commit a great injustice it is to begin in 
 a way which is sure to lead to domestic unhappiness, 
 and end in the destruction of the brightest hopes. 
 
 How many men have said to themselves, "I must 
 begin as I mean to go on. One must be master, and 
 it is best that she should know which it is to be." 
 
 Now, the man who marries with the idea that either 
 must be " master," is not fit to marry at all. He 
 6
 
 82 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 ought to have been a slave-driver, and dropped out 
 of the world altogether with that ancient and once 
 respectable institution. There is no need for master- 
 ship on either side ; in fact, it cannot exist with hap- 
 piness and equality in marriage, because the con- 
 sciousness of submitting to wrong and humiliation, on 
 the one hand, and the unjust exercise of power on the 
 other, would poison the very springs of their enjoy- 
 ment, and sow the seeds of misery for future genera- 
 tions. The honest, cheerful, candid recognition, on 
 the contrary, of her woman's estate, of the importance 
 of her duties, of the provision they require in order 
 that she may fulfil them, the exhibition of confidence 
 in her judgment, of trust in her affection, in her will- 
 ingness, her desire to do right, will excite her love 
 and gratitude to the utmost, prompt her to a thousand 
 acts of wifely devotion, and induce her to yield vol- 
 untarily that respect for superior judgment, and that 
 deference for more practical knowledge, which could 
 never have been wrested from her by any display of 
 insulting tyranny. 
 
 There is much difference of opinion as to how far a 
 husband is bound to consult his wife's feelings and 
 inclinations in the minor matters of their daily life. 
 If both are sensible, both loving, both conscientious, 
 these things adjust themselves without any difficulty ; 
 but, unfortunately, this is not always the case the 
 wife is often ignorant and exacting ; the husband self- 
 ish and unscrupulous. She knew nothing about the
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 83 
 
 daily lives of men before she married ; he hates the 
 pettiness and rigor of her society conventionalities 
 
 It seems impossible for her to realize that there are 
 times when a man wants to be a man among men 
 when he gets utterly sick of kid-gloved regulations, 
 and would be glad to fraternize with the beasts of the 
 forest, were there no other way of getting out of the 
 rigidity of conventional life. Her dwarfed body and 
 soul, stunted within the sickly limits of fashionable 
 boarding-schools, cannot understand this at least, 
 not at first ; and if the husband has not the sense to 
 be frank, truthful, patient, and forbearing, there is 
 little chance for success in their matrimonial experi- 
 ment. 
 
 It was remarked in a previous chapter that the of- 
 fice of the wife would be easier if the husband only 
 understood his share of their mutual obligations. 
 This is quite as true of the other side. Husbands err 
 almost as much through ignorant kindness as domi- 
 neering cruelty. They know as little really of wo- 
 men as women of men, and they credit womanhood 
 with the weaknesses and follies of custom, of bad 
 training, and imperfect education. 
 
 The wife's demands and exactions are not unfre- 
 quently those of an inexperienced child, and these 
 are often weakly yielded to, while the exigencies and 
 necessities of a new condition are unnoticed or neg- 
 lected. It is quite unnecessary to specify the meth- 
 ods or the extent to which it is a husband's duty to
 
 84 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 gratify his wife's tastes and inclinations, oven were it 
 possible ; for, where there is affection, and a conscien- 
 tious desire to do right, the husband will remember 
 that by marriage the wife separates herself to a cer- 
 tain extent from her former sources of society and 
 enjoyment, and recognizing a degree of responsi- 
 bility on his own part for her happiness and wel- 
 fare, the details may safely be left to their united 
 judgment and discretion. 
 
 I come now to the positive duty of the husband to 
 place such part of the income at the disposal of his 
 wife as will enable her to meet her own and the family 
 requirements without the necessity of asking him for 
 the funds necessary to meet each separate item of ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 Even if husbands generally met these demands with 
 willingness and promptitude, it would still be humili- 
 ating to the last degree for the wife to be subjected 
 to such petty surveillance and control ; but when, as 
 every one knows is the fact, money is extracted from 
 many men with as much difficulty as a tooth, the po- 
 sition becomes simply intolerable, and all the worse, 
 because there is no remedy for it. 
 
 The wife, as mistress of the household, must have 
 the means and authority vested in her hands ; and the 
 more distinctly and decidedly her responsibility is ac- 
 knowledged the better. If men wish to do the house- 
 keeping, then let them do it, the wife being fore- 
 warned, before she becomes a wife, so that she may
 
 DUTIES OF HUSBANDS. 85 
 
 be prepared to provide the income. But if women 
 are to properly fulfil their domestic functions, men 
 must supply the means, as they would for any other 
 business which required resources, and which they 
 mean to aid in carrying on according to their best 
 ability. 
 
 Another duty of the husband may be mentioned in 
 this connection, and that is, as soon as practicable to 
 make some provision, according to his ability, for the 
 possible contingency of his death. Marriage, as a 
 rule, not only deprives a woman of the power of 
 earning her own living by outside labor, but makes 
 other and imperative demands upon her time and 
 strength. Moreover, in laboring for the physical ne- 
 cessities of herself and others, she does so with the 
 disadvantage of having to compete with male labor, 
 which, being uninterrupted, obtains higher compensa- 
 tion, and with the additional disadvantage of having 
 her strength wasted by the claims made upon her at 
 home as well as abroad. 
 
 If men could know the cruel straits, the little hu- 
 miliations, the torturing anxieties suffered by women 
 left with children, and without resources, they would 
 make it their first care to guard against even the pos- 
 sibility of such a contingency. 
 
 Although men are not less bound by the dictates 
 of honor and conscience than women, yet they dislike 
 the sound of words that imply restraint, and .there- 
 fore " duty " has never found favor with them. But
 
 86 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 there is nothing harsh in it after all ; it brings its own 
 wonderful compensations ; and we have only the choice 
 of being bound by our duty to others or slavery to 
 ourselves. 
 
 The duty of the husband, in short, involves nothing 
 degrading ; it is only one condition of the perfect 
 manhood, which it should be the object of all good 
 men to attain.
 
 DUTY OF PARENTS. 87 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DUTY OF PARENTS. 
 
 TRADITION and custom, born of a theological idea, 
 have combined to lay a great deal of stress upon the 
 duty of children to their parents, but afford very 
 little insight into the duty of parents to children ; yet 
 the last is first in order, and by far the most impor- 
 tant, inasmuch as it really involves and insures the 
 other. 
 
 The popular impression has been that parents exer- 
 cised proprietary rights over their children, but were 
 perfectly free from any accountability to them that 
 the gift of life gave them undisputed power over their 
 persons, tastes, feelings, affections, interests, in fact, 
 over their whole being. Without considering that 
 life is a blessing only as it brings with it the condi- 
 tions necessary to development, the faculties required 
 for the comprehension of its laws, the enjoyment of 
 its sweetest relations and highest possibilities, it has 
 been taught by religion and morality that life belonged 
 to those who gave it, firstly to God, secondly to the 
 parents.
 
 88 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 This false primary position has been the cause of 
 innumerable errors in physics and morals, as well as 
 religion. Parents have been held wholly irresponsi- 
 ble, while life has been dedicated to God, who was 
 held to be sole arbiter of it, and who it was supposed 
 " gave," and " took away," in an arbitrary, wholly 
 unaccountable, and not to be questioned manner. 
 
 This idea was unworthy and subversive of the 
 Divine character and purposes, as it was weakening 
 and destructive to the best interest of parents and 
 children. God does not give life, or any other of his 
 gifts, and then hold the tenure in his own hand, sub- 
 ject to the action of a capricious and irresponsible 
 will ; he gives them into our own keeping, and it is 
 only by after-knowledge and experience that we 
 discover that their value and permanence are de- 
 pendent upon certain conditions, mainly within oui 
 control. 
 
 Life is a blessing, or a curse, according to the con- 
 ditions which surround it ; and it is the duty of those 
 who perpetuate it, to make it as much as possible 
 the one, and remove it as far as possible from the 
 other. 
 
 From this point of view, therefore, marriage must 
 be looked at not as an act simply concerning two in- 
 dividuals, but as one which affects the happiness and 
 welfare of future generations. Thus the duty of 
 parents begins back of marriage itself, with a knowl- 
 edge of, and submission to, those circumstances which
 
 DUTY OF PARENTS. 89 
 
 wisdom and experience teaches would entail misery 
 upon the as yet unborn. Sparta became famous as a 
 nation of heroes, by rejecting the weak and the imbe- 
 cile among its progeny, and at once putting an end 
 to their wretched little lives. America in the twen- 
 tieth century will improve upon that, by refusing to 
 vitalize disease and incapacity, by ceasing to perpetu- 
 ate the weakness, the folly, the imbecility, the wick- 
 edness of preceding generations. 
 
 Few men or women think of this when they marry. 
 Men follow where their fancies or passions lead them, 
 women obey the cruel necessities of their social posi- 
 tion ; but not one but desires afterwards, with an in- 
 tensity which oftentimes swallows up all other incli- 
 nations, to see themselves reproduced at their best. 
 Not in a dwarfed, or a distorted image, which, after 
 all, none can fail to recognize not one's self at the 
 worst, and the weakest, but one's self supplemented 
 by a happy art of nature, and sent forth of the best 
 and the noblest ; complete in the perfect union of 
 souls, in *bhe harmony between the rnind and the body, 
 in the ease and completeness with which both perform 
 their office, in the strength and symmetry which 
 grows out of right conditions, out of proper mutual 
 adaptability. 
 
 It is a crime for one person to wilfully maim 
 another, to wantonly inflict an injury which results 
 in loss of faculties or limb why should it not be 
 crime to force into existence miserable epitomes of
 
 90 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 human beings, halt, lame, blind, scrofulous ; morally 
 depraved, mentally imbecile, or otherwise, shut out 
 from all knowledge of, or sympathy with the best and 
 noblest part of humanity ; so dependent on the rest 
 of mankind for all that nature requires, as to render 
 life distasteful to themselves, and a burden to others ? 
 
 But, the child born, and well born, the next duty of 
 the parents is to provide a home suited to its proper 
 growth and development, and the first, best, and 
 most needed quality of the home is permanency. It 
 is not at all necessary that it be beautiful, or luxuri- 
 ous, or located upon a certain side of the street, or 
 upon any street at all ; but it is very necessary that 
 it should be permanent, that it should have an atmos- 
 phere of security, and of that serenity and repose 
 which grows out of assured possession. It may have 
 very little of external attraction in the first place, but 
 it will gradually acquire the evidences of the refine- 
 ment, culture, and best qualities of its occupants. A 
 permanent habitation must become an expression of 
 the character of the owners ; it must gather within 
 itself unconscious witnesses of the hearts that have 
 throbbed, the brains that have thought, the hands 
 that have worked to produce it. The materials matter 
 not so much, domestic tyranny will make a prison of 
 the mansion as well as of the cottage ; domestic love 
 will make either seem dearer than any spot on earth 
 beside. 
 
 The home provided, another, and most important
 
 DUTY OF PARENTS. 91 
 
 duty of parents, is to give personal care to the chil- 
 dren. This naturally falls principally to the lot of the 
 mother; it is hers "to bear, and to rear," and no 
 change in the social or political aspect of things can 
 alter this provision of Nature ; it is to this work that 
 her strength must always be mainly given. The 
 father's presence and influence, however, are none the 
 less needed because personal care is the special prov- 
 ince of the mother ; on the contrary, he supplies an 
 indispensable element, in his, generally, broader views 
 of life' his greater acquaintance with the world, his 
 more practical aptitudes and tastes, in addition to his 
 special function of providing the wherewithal for their 
 comfortable subsistence. 
 
 I have seen homes, not the home of the drunkard, 
 or the gamester, or of persons who had in any way 
 ostracized themselves from good society, but of re- 
 spectable men and citizens, pillars of churches, and 
 pets of fashionable women, which never brightened 
 at their approach. Where the children saw in it 
 only the signal of cessation from their innocent games 
 and pleasures, where, during the period of the 
 father's stay in the house, the whole family were ex- 
 pected to be on the alert, ready to fly at his bidding, 
 without thanks or acknowledgment for the service 
 rendered, and receive with silent submission the im- 
 patient gestui'e, or the harsh reproof which sometimes 
 came instead. 
 
 There are other homes, where, with smaller re-
 
 92 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 sources, less of natural capacity, and fewer social ad- 
 vantages, there is vastly more happiness, simply be- 
 cause there is less selfishness, and a better realization 
 of duty. In such homes the coming of the father is 
 anticipated with delight, the hours of his stay are the 
 holiday part of the day, and his participation in their 
 reading, in their studies, in their pleasures, stimulates 
 their faculties, and relieves the mother for a time from 
 responsibility. 
 
 It is a great advantage when parents can make the 
 home of their children in the country ; it lightens their 
 cares infinitely, and provides the influences for body 
 and mind, which are so much needed to lay a right 
 foundation for the future. 
 
 As soon as possible, the child should pass from the 
 house to the garden, and thence to the barn, and the 
 stable, the hen-coop, and the rabbit-hutch. Their first 
 acquaintance should be with Nature, in its animate 
 and inanimate forms ; with the grass, the trees, the 
 flowers, the broad meadows, and the distant hills ; 
 with those objects, in short, which convey the liveliest 
 impressions of this new and strange world into which 
 they have come, and of whose life they now form a 
 part. 
 
 Years afterwards they will want to participate in 
 the active life of men and women. All the human 
 voices in their souls will cry out for companionship ; 
 but for the first years of a child's life, mother love, 
 father care, the society of the woods, the fields, the
 
 DUTY OF PARENTS. 93 
 
 birds, the insects, and all the natural interests, and 
 charms of out-door life, will better form a young- 
 mind, and cultivate the child's heart, than if passed 
 amid all the splendors and pleasures wealth can 
 procure. 
 
 No greater misfortune can befall a little life than to 
 be thrust upon the world at such a height that its ex- 
 istence is necessarily an isolated one. Separated from 
 its natural protectors, consigned to hirelings, debarred 
 from contact with all that is sweet, and gracious, and 
 tender, obliged to see with other's eyes, hear with 
 other's ears, and speak with other's tongue. 
 
 Many fathers have crushed all the beauty and hap- 
 piness out of their own lives and those of their chil- 
 dren by their anxiety to save money for them. Money, 
 which they fondly hoped would redeem them from the 
 necessity of toil, and enable them to take their place 
 beside others whose fortune and position they envied, 
 but which only held a lamp to the glaring defects of 
 early education and habits, and finally plunged them 
 into excesses which shortened life, and laid them in 
 unhonored graves. 
 
 How to use money is more a matter of education, 
 habit, experience, thought, and culture, than how to 
 obtain it ; and the person who has been shut out from 
 the broader fields of human intelligence, who has led 
 a narrow, meagre, sordid life, with no interest in it 
 but the single one of making and saving money, will 
 find that when it is in his hands it has no value for
 
 94 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 him ; he docs not know what to do with it. The fine 
 house it would buy would be a prison to him, the 
 servants it would hire would be so many mouths to 
 feed, so many bodies to clothe. The dainties upon 
 which he could feed have less attraction than the food 
 to which he is accustonted. And as for books and 
 pictures, the difference to him is simply that of frame 
 and binding. No money wrested from the clutch of 
 a dead man's fingers can make amends for wrongs 
 done his family during his lifetime, and the first and 
 greatest of these wrongs is the neglect to supply them 
 with the means for the proper development and exer- 
 cise of all their faculties. 
 
 A cheerful, well-ordered home, simple in its sur- 
 roundings, but abundant in its intellectual and social 
 resources, and an education fitted to position and 
 capacity, are the best investments that parents can 
 make for their children, and are absolutely sure of a 
 return. A fortune is an almost certain impediment 
 to high mental or moral achievement ; but an un- 
 blemished name, character for honorable enterprise, 
 the associations of harmonious family life, and of high 
 intelligence and culture, are sources of a pure and 
 life-long satisfaction, and confer distinction as much 
 beyond that of mere money as the star is beyond the 
 gaslight. 
 
 The plain duty of parents, therefore, is to secure 
 this positive good to their children first, and rest con- 
 tent in the knowledge, that if fortune should then
 
 DUTT OF PARENTS. 95 
 
 shower her favors upon them, they would at least 
 know how to use them to advantage. 
 
 An idea that their children belong to them, is a 
 very common error of parents, and particularly of 
 some fathers. They have been accustomed to look 
 upon everything in the spirit of " I," and " mine ; " 
 and that they have a moral and perfectly legitimate 
 right to control the destiny, so far as they can, of the 
 children whom they claim as their own, they have not 
 a moment's doubt. 
 
 The idea, of course, is an absurd one, born of their 
 egotism, but it does a vast amount of mischief, and 
 has crushed hope and aspiration out of many a young 
 heart. 
 
 The truth is, our children are individuals like our- 
 selves. They do not belong to us, but to the hu- 
 manity of which they form a part ; they are here, or 
 ought to be, to perform certain work, and it is simply 
 the duty of parents to provide for them in their help- 
 lessness, and fit them to execute that work. 
 
 If they have done all their duty ; if they have 
 given to them a sound mind in a sound body ; if 
 they have surrounded them with healthful physical 
 and mental conditions ; if they have stimulated ac- 
 tivity, and a free and full development of all their 
 faculties, instead of narrowing them down to their 
 prejudices, and repressing their natural instincts and 
 most innocent devices by an exercise of arbitrary will, 
 there is no doubt of the final result of the satisfac-
 
 96 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 tion of the parent, and the influence for good upon the 
 future, which he will exercise through his offspring. 
 
 The development of the faculties, it must be remem- 
 bered, is not confined to simply letting them grow 
 it involves direction, and putting them to use. No 
 young man, or young woman, whatever their social 
 position, ought to be allowed to reach the age of 
 twenty years without having been taught how to earn 
 a livelihood, without having acquired some practical 
 knowledge which would enable them to stand upright 
 in the world, without fear or favor, and carve their 
 own way through it if need be. Parents cannot se- 
 cure the continued possession of riches to their chil- 
 dren, but they can place them in possession of some- 
 thing better than money, of an education and train- 
 ing that will enable them to use their own powers, 
 and rely in any emergency upon their own resources. 
 There is a spirit of restlessness in this country, which 
 has heretofore been very unfavorable to the establish- 
 ment of permanent homes, and which has been fostered 
 and greatly stimulated by the rapid growth and de- 
 velopment which compels so many social changes. 
 
 The desire to try new fields of activity and enter- 
 prise is not surprising in the descendants of a migra- 
 tory race, and success invariably brings with it the 
 desire to give the world evidence of the fact, in an im- 
 proved style of living. This is all natural and right 
 enough, and would be relieved of many of its worst 
 features, if parents realized a duty, in the first place,
 
 DUTT OF PARENTS. 9f 
 
 in providing an attractive home, and subordinated 
 other ideas to it. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the large number realize no 
 ,-duty in the case at all. If food and shelter are pro- 
 vided, it is considered sufficient ; the rest is a matter 
 for their convenience, selfishness, avarice, or ambition 
 to determine. 
 
 A home, whose associations were all pleasant and 
 harmonious, would be likely to retain its hold upon 
 the affections of its occupants, and they would just as 
 naturally gravitate to it in later life as the needle to 
 the pole. Parents cannot expect, and should not, 
 that their children will always remain with them, nor 
 do they generally desire it. But in such a matter 
 they should consult the interests of their children, not 
 their own, unless it happen, as it sometimes does, 
 that what is the interest of one is the interest of 
 both. 
 
 Undoubtedly, if parents recognized more fully their 
 obligations towards their children, constructed the 
 family more upon the principle of community of inter- 
 ests, and less upon the system of despotic authority 
 and arbitrary appropriation, families would remain 
 more together, and realize to some extent, that dream 
 of unity which is the hope of so many good men and 
 women. 
 
 Let us at least work, and pray that it may be so. 
 We live in an age of such rapid material progress, 
 that victories over selfishness, cruelty, and the base 
 7
 
 98 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 spirit of gain, sink into insignificance beside the con- 
 quests achieved over masses of inert matter, llail- 
 roads must be built, and new sources of wealth 
 opened, whether families thrive or not. No one stops 
 to think of the kind of citizens they are preparing to 
 take care of, and enjoy all this material wealth and 
 prosperity. Men take infinite pains to improve their 
 breed of horses ; they provide costly stables, and ex- 
 pensive grooms, they select the air most favorable to 
 their health and growth, they construct their enclo- 
 sures with exact reference to their needs and habits, 
 and gauge the condition of perfect production with 
 all the accuracy of a mathematical calculation. 
 
 But how is it with the human product, which is of 
 such infinitely greater importance? No attention is 
 paid to conditions at all it is a mere matter of acci- 
 dent, the responsibility being conveniently laid upon 
 the shoulders of Providence, which has exactly the 
 same to do with it, and no more,' that it has with the 
 breeding of any other animals that is to say, cer- 
 tain laws are provided for the regulation of such mat- 
 ters, and as far as they are complied with, the result 
 is certain. If it were not so if we were the sub- 
 jects of a capricious will, the world, with its wheels 
 within wheels, could not exist. 
 
 So universal is the action of these natural laws, 
 that parents can no longer escape the resposibility of 
 their own acts. If they bring children into the world, 
 they are morally bound, and should be legally, to
 
 DUTT OF PARENTS, 99 
 
 surround them with the conditions favorable to life 
 and health. Personal care is what is needed on the 
 part of the parents, and the example of true, pure 
 lives which round out into the fulfilment of our 
 dream of perfect manhood, of noble womanhood.
 
 100 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP. 
 
 THE great changes which have taken place within 
 the past few years, the increased cost of living, the 
 rapid growth of luxury, and the necessities resulting 
 from the crowded state of the great cities, have con- 
 tributed to a very material alteration in the social con- 
 dition of the women of this country, and to the ad- 
 vancement of many theories calculated to relieve men 
 of the burden of exclusive maintenance, and charge 
 it partly upon women. 
 
 This idea is repugnant to the generous and chival- 
 ric tone of the American character, but is beginning 
 to find currency from the pressure of the times, the 
 admiration felt for English literature and English ideas, 
 and the controlling influence which the presence of a 
 great foreign element, of less liberal habits and opin- 
 ions, exerts among us. 
 
 America has heretofore, and to some extent truly, 
 been called the " paradise " of women. Here they 
 have generally received not only courteous and con- 
 siderate treatment, but a certain deferential homage,
 
 MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP. 10 1 
 
 all the more graceful on the part of those who paid 
 it, because it was a tribute to weakness, instead of 
 being exacted by strength. 
 
 Men ordinary in other respects became brave, heroic? 
 knightly, and tender in their relations to women. Men 
 coarse and rude to each other became polite to women, 
 old as well as young, because they were women, 
 and men of all classes found their pleasure in saving 
 their wives, mothers, and sisters from hardships, and 
 promoting their comfort by every means in their 
 power. 
 
 Straws show which way the wind blows ; and the 
 change in the behavior of men, calling themselves 
 gentlemen, on the street cars, and in other public con- 
 veyances, towards women, affords evidence of the 
 truth, that influences are at work to destroy the little 
 prestige which has served as some compensation for 
 the loss to women of the free and independent exist- 
 ence which naturally belongs to men. 
 
 Superficial people say, the fault is in women them- 
 selves ; that they have grown discourteous, and no 
 longer acknowledge favors conferred. But this is 
 false ; and if it were true, would be no excuse for a 
 want of gentlemanly conduct on the part of men. It 
 is not necessary for men to resign all their rights and 
 privileges to women in public conveyances, or any- 
 where else, but there are many reasons why women 
 are less able to endure physical fatigue than men, and 
 a considerate man will remember this, and save women 
 mnecessary suffering by every means in his power.
 
 102 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 It is notorious that upon the ferry-boats which ply 
 between New York and its suburbs, women can hardly 
 get a seat in the cabins devoted to their accommoda- 
 tion. To avoid the smoke and reeking atmosphere 
 of what is called the " Gentlemen's " cabin, men flock 
 into the " Ladies' " cabin, appropriate the seats, and 
 allow women to stand beside them, in front of them, 
 and around them, without moving an inch. 
 
 Such acts of discourtesy pave the way very naturally 
 for the English idea of marriage as a business partner- 
 ship, to which the wife shall contribute her share of 
 the common expenditure. 
 
 And, indeed, at first sight, such an arrangement 
 seems by no means an unjust one. To the English 
 mind it is not only equitable, but highly honorable 
 and praiseworthy. 
 
 The English, it must be remembered (I speak of 
 the masses), are only just emerging from barbarism 
 as regards women. Among the poorer classes, the 
 women labor universally, in addition to performing 
 their domestic duties ; and when I say the poorer 
 classes, I do not mean the very poor, but respectable 
 tradesmen, shopkeepers, clerks, and the junior mem- 
 bers of the professions ; and as, until very recently, 
 Englishmen could, and usually did, appropriate their 
 wives' earnings, it is considered, and realty is a mark 
 of commendable progress, that they should have been 
 allowed to exercise the right of control over their 
 earnings, and disburse the same for themselves
 
 MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP. 103 
 
 The weaknes-s of the argument, the injustice of 
 a mere business arrangement as existing between 
 husband and wife, lies just hei % e : in the enormous 
 difference between their respective physical and do- 
 mestic liabilities. 
 
 Marriage ought to be a partnership in the truest 
 and best sense of the term, but it can never be justly 
 a partnership in a pecuniary sense that is to say, 
 in the sense which demands from the wife a money 
 contribution to the domestic fund, in addition to her 
 risk and her cares as wife and mother. 
 
 But it may be charged that women are not faithful 
 in the performance of their duties as wives and 
 mothers. Who told you they were not? Look 
 around upon your friends and acquaintances, and 
 count upon your fingers the derelict wives and 
 mothers. To one who is fashionable and frivolous, 
 and neglectful of her duties, you will find ten who ac- 
 complish the work of two persons, either as maid of 
 all work in addition to wife and mother, or by outside 
 labor in addition to domestic responsibility that can- 
 not be got rid of. 
 
 Moreover, what motive is presented to women to 
 induce them to be good wives and mothers, beyond 
 their own natural affection and instincts ? None at 
 all. Under the present system, the more exemplary a 
 woman is, the less compensation and acknowledgment 
 she receives ; while heartlessness and extravagance 
 obtain their own terms, and, if accompanied by per- 
 sonal charms, are not only excused, but applauded.
 
 104 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Is not this all wrong ? Does not the woman who 
 bears children, who cares for them, who superintends 
 the household, earn her share of the income ? and is 
 she not entitled to a voice in its disposition, just as 
 well as the man ? In this sense, as well as upon the 
 higher basis of mutual confidence and affection, mar- 
 riage should be a partnership in which both should 
 claim equal rights, on the ground of equal though 
 different duties. 
 
 As it is at present, marriage is too often a mere 
 game of cross-purposes and conflict of opposing in- 
 terests. The husband looks upon the wife as a neces- 
 sary domestic invention, to be managed as cheaply 
 as possible ; she upon him as a selfish, appropri- 
 ative creature, who must be conciliated, but whom 
 she is perfectly justified in hoodwinking and de- 
 ceiving. This creates a domestic atmosphere in 
 which few of the virtues can thrive, and the influence 
 of which extends far beyond the household in which 
 it originates. 
 
 It is true that marriage, imperfect as it is, has been, 
 and is still, though less than formerly, desired by 
 women, but it is simply because they have had no 
 other resource. Without it they have been shut out 
 from position, from society, from participation in the 
 commonest pleasures and enjoyments of social life, and 
 from all prospect of achieving for themselves a home 
 for the future. The needle, or employment in a fam- 
 ily, were the only resources by which women could
 
 MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP. 1Q5 
 
 obtain a livelihood, and are still the dependence of 
 nine tenths of those who work for their living. 
 
 The aspect of affairs has very materially altered, 
 however ; these are no longer the only resources. 
 The pen, the medical college, the artist's brush, and 
 the draughtsman's pencil, have already released many 
 women from drudgery, and opened the path to her of 
 an honorable independence. 
 
 More gratifying and encouraging still is the fact 
 that women are beginning to lose their timidity, and 
 seek the rewards of business skill and enterprise. 
 Most of the large millinery and dressmaking estab- 
 lishments are carried on by women, but we have, in 
 addition, women as prosperous proprietors of men's 
 and women's furnishing goods, of ladies' hair-dress- 
 ing and hair-making saloons, of fruit and canning 
 stores, of restaurants, of dry goods and clothing 
 houses, and more than one in the city of New York 
 has made a fortune in the purchase and sale of real 
 estate. 
 
 A possibility of achievement as the reward of her 
 own exertions will soon make the mere name of wife, 
 without freedom of action or equality of position, very 
 undesirable to clever, intelligent women ; and if a man 
 wishes to secure a companion for himself, and a good 
 and creditable mother for his children, he must offer 
 greater inducements than the chances of the shelter 
 and table he may be willing to provide, and the dress, 
 not a costly one, and the shoes, not dear ones (no
 
 106 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 mention made of stockings), which a grave court re- 
 cently decided a woman may claim of her husband. 
 
 Worse than this, hunger, starvation, nakedness, she 
 may be willing, nay, happy, to share with him but 
 it must be with the understanding, that if better falls 
 to their lot, she has a right to a share in that also 
 not the grudged right of the tolerated dependent, but 
 the free right of an equal partner in the firm, who, 
 knowing its resources, and acting in concert, or being 
 willing to be guided by its business manager, shares 
 cheerfully its losses, or enjoys making her own dispo- 
 sition of some portion of its gains. 
 
 Undoubtedly, a certain value is attached to the ma- 
 ternal function but nowhere is so little considera- 
 tion attached to it as in the family, and by husbands, 
 at least so far as their wives are concerned. The 
 bearing of a child involves a long period of incon- 
 venience, and more or less of suffering ; it involves 
 that mortal agony which is all the human system 
 can endure, and live ; it involves a future of un- 
 ceasing watchfulness and care. Is all this worth 
 nothing ? It ought to be the best paid work in the 
 world. 
 
 But have women no interest in children for their 
 own sakes ? Certainly they have, but it is not unnat- 
 urally weakened by the unequal demands made upon 
 them. Men have nothing to dread with reference to 
 children, no physical risks or suffering, no sacrifice 
 of personal comfort or pleasure. If they " take the
 
 MARRIAGE AS A PARTNERSHIP. 1QT 
 
 baby," it is as a plaything to amuse an idle moment, 
 not as a duty to which every other consideration must 
 give way. From women, the suffering and sacrifice 
 both are required, and the modern theory is, that they 
 must aid in the support of their children besides, 
 without thinking it any hardship. 
 
 There is no objection to men and women entering 
 into a business partnership any more than there could 
 be to two men sustaining the same relation, but it 
 ought in that case to be a mere business contract, into 
 which the idea of children or household should not 
 enter. The moment a woman becomes wife, she as- 
 sumes the liability of being a mother, a responsibility 
 which unfits her for pi-operly discharging business ob- 
 ligations. If no pecuniary value is attached to this 
 function, and its weight of work and cares, it leaves 
 her in a perfectly helpless condition, wholly depend- 
 ent, and therefore wholly subordinate to the will and 
 desire of her husband. 
 
 It is time that this condition of things were changed. 
 Let the idle, the frivolous, the weak, continue to ac- 
 cept for themselves the doubtful shelter, the grudged 
 food, the reluctant clothing ; but the women of thought 
 and brain, who have the courage and capacity to 
 carve out their own way, if need be, and whose pres- 
 ence and affection should prove the most powerful in- 
 centive to deeds worthy of an exalted manhood, need 
 not, and ought not, to accept so humiliating a posi- 
 tion.
 
 108 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 As a condition of marriage, let them demand per- 
 fect equality, equality of claim upon the income, in 
 acknowledgment of the value of the wifely and motherly 
 function, equality of right in the disposition of it, as 
 a return for the time spent, and labor performed in 
 the discnarge of obligations which unflt them for 
 other, and, possibly, more congenial employments. 
 
 When this principle of equality and unity of inter- 
 ests is acted upon, there will be a beauty, harmony, 
 and perfection in married life, such as it has never yet 
 known. Neither will it produce the social and do- 
 mestic revolutions that so many anticipate. The fam- 
 ily relations, the character of women, the race of chil- 
 dren, will be improved. Knowing that they have a 
 voice and a stake in the business concerns of the fam- 
 ily, women will learn to practise a wise economy, and, 
 while leaving the general management of outside af- 
 fairs to the proper head of that department, will, by 
 their prudence and insight, avert many of the most 
 disastrous consequences of business schemes and spec- 
 ulations. 
 
 If men are not prepared for this, let good women, 
 capable women, renounce marriage altogether, and 
 courageously determine to work out for themselves a 
 destiny which, if deprived of privileges shared in 
 common with the humblest of their species, is also free 
 from humiliation, from the fear of perpetuating an im- 
 perfect race, and glorious in its possibilities of per- 
 sonal achievement.
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. 
 
 IT will not be denied by any candid person, who 
 has had opportunities for observation, that vast num- 
 bers of the married, both men and women, consider 
 their own matrimonial essay as the great mistake of 
 their lives. Either they wish they had never married 
 at all, or that they had married some other person ; 
 and what to do under these circumstances is the prob- 
 lem which is shaking modern society to its centre. 
 
 Undoubtedly, one of the causes of mistaken mar- 
 riages is the very freedom to marry anybody, which 
 exists in this country, and is popularly supposed to 
 be a protection against them. Girls of sixteen, and 
 boys of twenty, rarely marry the persons they would 
 select at twenty and twenty-five, and the habit of indul- 
 gence which induces parents to yield to the first matri- 
 monial wishes of a beloved daughter has in thousands 
 of instances sealed her misery. Cause the second, 
 on the part of girls, is the desire to escape the re- 
 sponsibility of providing for themselves, the belief 
 that marriage gives them immunity from labor, or, at
 
 HO FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 any rate, that it provides them with a kind of labor 
 which the world recognizes as no barrier to social po- 
 sition, and to which no responsibility of livelihood is 
 attached. The dreadful mistake involved in this girl- 
 ish view of marriage, women are daily learning more 
 and more to appreciate. The temptations to a mis- 
 take in marriage present themselves with much less 
 importance to a man, his chances of securing by 
 patient waiting the hoped-for prize are much greater, 
 and the consequences of his mistake are infinitely 
 less disastrous to his individual happiness and pros- 
 perity than to those of the woman. 
 
 It is folly to say that suffrage, and the new order 
 of things for women, will remedy all this it will 
 not. So long as women bear the children, they will 
 be more or less dependent upon men, and men must 
 still do the out-door work of the world, with only the 
 requisite number of exceptions to prove the rule. 
 Moreover, at present, we have not the suffrage, and 
 the world goes on very much as it did, exacting the 
 pound of flesh from those who make an unwise con- 
 tract, and showing less mercy than the Venetian law, 
 for it not unfrequcntly takes the heart's blood with it. 
 
 A short time since, a married man and woman 
 eloped together. Six weeks afterwards, the man son I 
 for his former wife and the children whom he had do- 
 serted, to join him in a town at a distance from his 
 previous residence. They gladly went to him. At 
 the same time, the woman, abandoned, utterly with-
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. \\\ 
 
 out moans, returned stealthily to her lawful husband, 
 and begged to be allowed to fill her old place at Ijome. 
 But he had already taken steps to procure a divorce, 
 and he refused to receive, or even allow her to see her 
 children, a " proper " and dignified course of conduct, 
 which press and public applauded. 
 
 Without going far into the merits of this case, 
 without inquiring how far a man's social and business 
 position is compromised by moral delinquency, and it 
 certainly is more or less affected, if it is found out, it 
 is easy to see that men have an immense advantage, 
 an advantage which no theorizing and no voting can 
 ever entirely do away with. 
 
 With this advantage already existing upon the male 
 side, one is at a loss to imagine why certain cham- 
 pions of women's rights advocate " free divorce," as 
 this would immeasurably increase it, and deprive wo- 
 men of the little chance in marriage which they now 
 have. 
 
 If they should advocate celibacy for women until 
 Jaw and custom had established equality in marriage 
 relations, one could understand it, and it would com- 
 mend itself to a vast number of the thinking and in- 
 telligent part of the sex. But free divorce ! A suc- 
 cession of matrimonial mistakes, and such a muddle 
 as naturally follows upon this solution of the difficulty, 
 would hardly be an improvement upon the present 
 state of things. 
 
 A mistake in marriage being so much more serious
 
 112 FOR BETTER OR WORSE, 
 
 for women than for men, one would naturally think 
 they would exercise greater caution in taking so im- 
 portant a step. But, on the contrary, for the reason 
 before mentioned, namely, to escape the responsibilitj- 
 of their own livelihood, they are willing to take all 
 sorts of risks ; marry without love men not unfre- 
 quently inferior to themselves, arid carry a burden 
 and secret consciousness of failure forever. I have 
 in my mind at this moment a bright, intelligent, ac- 
 complished girl, who through family misfortunes be- 
 came a school-teacher in a country district. She bad 
 all the qualifications for a first-class instructress, and 
 might, step by step, have achieved an honored posi- 
 tion, if, like a young man under the same circum- 
 stances, she had started with the intention of doing 
 her best, and earning a permanent livelihood. But 
 no, she was always looking for the prince who was to 
 come and take her out of her hard, tedious life. She 
 found nothing ennobling in the weary round of school 
 duties. She despised the people among whom she 
 lived, and simply waited morbidly and repiningly for 
 the burden of her existence to be lifted from her own 
 shoulders, and borne by some one else. The prince did 
 not come, he so rarely does, but a rather coarse and 
 ignorant young farmer did. Uneducated, brought up 
 amid meagre surroundings, with narrow ideas, he was 
 the last person in whom a refined, sensitive woman 
 could expect to find sympathy or companionship. Yet 
 she married him. Why ? Ask almost the first woman
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. H3 
 
 you meet. Because she was tired, tired of keeping- 
 school, and saw no other way to get out of it. 
 
 Ten years afterwards she died in a lunatic asylum. 
 
 Her husband was not cruel to her, that is, he did 
 not beat her, but he did not understand her, and 
 could never see that her life of toil and drudgery, in- 
 finitely worse than teaching in the brown schoolhouse, 
 was daily becoming more and more intolerable to her. 
 His mother had delved in the back kitchen, had pre- 
 pared the meals for the farm hands, had made butter 
 and cheese, had scrubbed, cut carpet-rags, had made 
 up coarse unbleached muslin into shirts, and thick 
 gray cloth into coats and trousers, for forty years 
 Why should not his wife do the same ? 
 
 He could not realize that she was not made of the 
 same material, that her whole nature was starved, and 
 that healthy, strong, and vigorous, it refused to die, but 
 cried out for sustenance, for help, for sympathy, and 
 for power to rid itself of its obnoxious surroundings. 
 Once only she made an effort to change her life. She 
 begged to be allowed to go into the town, to open a 
 millinery, or give music and French lessons, and with 
 her own earnings pay a strong woman to do the 
 housework at the farm. But the outcry which this 
 proposition made among the husband's relatives was 
 fearful. A woman, indeed, to do the housework ! 
 Fine waste there would be. Might as well sell out 
 and go to the poorhouse at once. So the poor wife 
 shrunk back, afraid of the strength of the storm she 
 8
 
 114 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 had raised, and bore children whom she wished im- 
 piously might die, rather than perpetually mirror to 
 her her mistakes and her errors. 
 
 Occasionally there was a rift in the clouds, and it 
 was upon one of these occasions I saw her. She had 
 been invited to a social gathering, and there were 
 present some men and women of unusual intelligence, 
 whose society seemed to act as an inspiration to all 
 that was best and brightest in her nature. Without 
 any apparent effort, she became the centre of an ad- 
 miring circle, and her gayety and originality gave no 
 evidence of the trouble that was eating away her 
 reason and her life. 
 
 I have given this case at length, because this kind 
 of mistake is so common a one among girls, and 
 was made from so ordinary a motive. To be sure, it 
 rarely leads to such serious results few natures be- 
 ing so fine or so high-strung as to snap with the ten- 
 sion put upon them ; but if they do not break, they 
 must lose their fineness, and adjust themselves to a 
 lower key, and who can tell how much of suffering is 
 experienced before tha,t result is attained ? 
 
 The instance alluded to could never have occurred, 
 if the girl had been brought up with habits of self-re- 
 liance, and a true knowledge of her own powers and 
 capacities. Half the effort which was afterwards 
 given to the most menial and thankless drudgery 
 would have sufficed to give her means and position of 
 her own ; but she simply wished, like most girls, to
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. H5 
 
 get rid of the responsibility. Boys, it is supposed by 
 girls, have a natural aptitude for earning their own 
 living, and that of others. Not a bit of it. This 
 is a mistake also. Boys are shoved, bolstered, en- 
 couraged, drummed up to it. They are made to feel 
 ashamed if they cannot earn a living, while girls are 
 taught to feel ashamed of being able to do so. 
 
 With all this encouragement on the one hand, and 
 discouragement on the other, thei'e are thousands of 
 boys and men who are willing and glad to accept help 
 from any source, while there are certainly as many 
 girls and women who do not need it, who, on the con- 
 trary, assist male relatives to keep afloat, and pre- 
 serve that cherished article of their social creed, so 
 dear to women, the respectability of the family. 
 
 Thousands of men obtain the credit of living in good 
 style, of supporting families comfortably, of working 
 to pay milliners' and dressmakers' bills, who have 
 never paid out more than the very moderate sum left 
 after all their own wants, wishes, inclinations, and ca- 
 prices had been attended to who have never known 
 the whole cost of supporting a family in their lives, 
 because, to eke out the pittance grudgingly bestowed, 
 the wife has resorted to some one or more of the in- 
 genious ways in which women at once disguise and try 
 to cheat their poverty. I can remember wondering 
 how it came that the streets of New York were lined 
 with fine houses, so much of a size and pattern, and 
 never stopped pitying the men who were shut up in
 
 116 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 dens down town all day, in order to earn the money 
 to support in luxury a lazy wife and daughters at 
 home. 1 look at these fine houses with different eyes 
 now. I know that three fourths of them are board- 
 ing-houses that out of each one come every morn- 
 ing nicely dressed men, with white, glossy shirts and 
 collars, who leisurely take their way to the nearest 
 car or omnibus stand, and half an hour afterwards sit 
 back in an easy-chair, with their feet on a table, chat- 
 ting with a friend, gossiping it would be called, if it 
 was a woman, or reading the morning papers. 
 
 I can see the interior of every house, they are as 
 like as two peas, and in every one there is a tired, 
 dragged woman, crazed with the necessity of " mak- 
 ing both enfls meet," of making up for the short-com- 
 ings of insufficient, undisciplined servants, of satisfy- 
 ing her husband, of pleasing those "additions" 
 to the family they are not called boarders whose 
 weekly contributions assist to pay the gas arid rent, 
 and butchers' bills, of looking after the children, amid 
 all the other multifarious demands upon her time, 
 and of finding beefsteaks all tenderloin, and chicken 
 all breast. Is it possible that such women were 
 young, flower-like girls, shrinking from labor as from 
 degradation, and determined to marry to be " sup- 
 ported " ? I do not present this picture in order to 
 deter girls from marriage, but simply to show them 
 the sort of life they so heedlessly accept. But when 
 to the daily drudging cares and anxieties are added
 
 MARRIAGE AS A MISTAKE. H7 
 
 the knowledge and bitter realization of a "mistake," 
 for which existence offers no compensation, when to 
 labor and care is added the consciousness of crushed 
 energies, of a hopeless future, of a being linked with 
 incarnate appetite, selfishness, or habits, feelings, con- 
 victions, tastes entirely different to her own, what is 
 there to live for ? 
 
 Domestic peace, harmony, wedded love, in short, 
 softens if it does not remove the asperities of a com- 
 mon lot, but average married life without these is bit- 
 ter indeed. 
 
 It is a grave error to suppose that the evils of mat- 
 rimonial mistakes can be cured by " free divorce/' 
 even if the social complications which ensue did not 
 often render a resort to this alternative' impossible. 
 A better way is the avoidance of the mistake at first. 
 
 Let girls be educated to be patient, persevering, 
 independent, self-reliant, and conscientious; make 
 them self-supporting like boys, and proud of being so, 
 and they will be in no hurry to marry, and when they 
 do marry, they will not make mistakes. 
 
 Marriage does not release girls from responsibility ; 
 let this fact be impressed upon them ; on the contrary, 
 it doubles, trebles, and quadruples it. There are a 
 great many men who are incapable of taking the bur- 
 den of their own existence upon their own shoulders, 
 much less that of wife and family, yet they are often 
 the soonest to marry ; fools have always rushed where 
 angels fear to tread, and always will.
 
 118 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Men find it just as difficult to pursue a steady occu- 
 pation, to stay in one place, to lay the foundation of 
 their success, as women ; the only difference is that 
 they are whipped by a sterner necessity. Once a 
 woman, like a man, has conquered the first obstacles, 
 the chiefest among which is personal cowardice and 
 irresolution, begins to feel a consciousness of power, 
 and see the possibility of success, marriage would 
 present itself under an entirely new aspect. 
 
 Young men do not marry, because they do not wish 
 to sacrifice their personal gratifications to the claims 
 of wife and children. A young woman, independent, 
 self-reliant, conscientious, would say, Who should I 
 marry ? I can earn all I want, and have no one to 
 control me. Do I love this man well enough to re- 
 linquish my independence in the measure that a wife 
 must ? Should I be happy in sacrificing my hopes of 
 an individual career, and devoting myself to the care 
 of such a home as he can provide, and the rearing 
 of such children as we. may reasonably expect to be 
 born of our union ? 
 
 If she can answer these questions satisfactorily to 
 her own soul, then she may, and ought to rnarry ; for 
 right marriage completes both the man and the woman, 
 and perfects their happiness in the same ratio that a 
 mistaken marriage perverts and undermines all the 
 better qualities, destroys all chance of happiness, and 
 renders the last state of that man arid woman infinitely 
 worse than the first.
 
 MAP RI AGE AS A MISTAKE. \\ 
 
 Girls, the purity of your souls is more important 
 than the whiteness of your hands. Do not perjure 
 yourselves at the altar ; remember teaching school, 
 selling tapes and thread, sweeping somebody's carpet, 
 with a clean conscience, is beyond calculation better 
 than making a mistake in marriage.
 
 120 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MARRYING FOR MONEY. , 
 
 THERE is a story told of a young woman, who, when 
 she was asked why she married a certain man for his 
 money, replied that she married him for all that there 
 was of him worth having. 
 
 I do not believe this story myself, not because the 
 words might not truthfully have been said, but because 
 no woman, under such circumstances, would ever have 
 the heart to perpetrate the joke. Marrying for money 
 is not at all laughable to the parties concerned in the 
 transaction, and, indeed, I have known one case, 
 where it seemed as if the woman who had thus sold 
 herself aud she was young and beautiful never 
 laughed again. 
 
 It is not at all surprising, however, that women do 
 marry for money, nor are they wholly deserving of 
 blame on this account ; they are trained to the idoa 
 that money is the greatest good, that it is the single 
 essential to happiness, and at the same time impressed 
 with the conviction that it is derogatory to , their 
 womanhood to obtain it for themselves in any way 
 other than by gift, inheritance, or marriage.
 
 MARRYING FOR MONEY. 121 
 
 Dependent from their earliest childhood on an un- 
 certain sense of justice, or a capricious generosity, 
 taught that their principal business is the enhance- 
 ment of their personal attractions at any sacrifice of 
 truth, sincerity, independence, and self-respect, what 
 strength of mind or principle have they to oppose to 
 the temptation which is offered them of being their 
 own mistresses, with money, and opportunity to grat- 
 ify every repressed instinct, every vain desire ? 
 
 The disposition to spend money, to have the com- 
 mand of resources sufficient to satisfy individual wants 
 in the individual's own way, is as strong in the girl as 
 in the boy ; but while one is taught that everything 
 can be attained through his own energy, the other is 
 compelled to wait till some one will give her what she 
 needs, or encouraged to resort to tricks and subter- 
 fuges, which undermine her whole moral nature. 
 
 At twenty-one a boy is engaged in trade, commerce, 
 manufactures, or agriculture, is earning money, which 
 he receives at stated periods, and disburses in any 
 way he chooses. The girl, at twenty-one, is doing 
 interminable tatting and crochet, dusting parlors, 
 making calls, teasing her father, in good-natured 
 moods, for twenty-five cents to ride in an omnibus, or 
 twenty-five dollars to buy a new dress ; but always 
 objectless, purposeless, penniless, waiting for the 
 opportunity that is to give her freedom, and the com- 
 mand of a purse, as the enchanted princess of old 
 waited for the knight who was to free her from bond-
 
 122 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 age to the powers of evil, and with the same result 
 one sort of thraldom being always substituted for 
 another. 
 
 It is almost impossible to conceive the power wealth 
 exercises over the imagination of a girl of very limit- 
 ed means and intense desires. It is the wonderful 
 god whose touch, to her morbid senses, would turn 
 all the dull, gray hues of her life into gold. The pros- 
 pect of continual struggles, of pinching economy, of 
 a narrow income eked out by the usual methods and 
 makeshifts, has no attraction for her. She has been 
 there all her life, she knows just what it is, and she 
 knows also that, preaching and sentiment to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding, there is very seldom any 
 nobility of the soul, any spirit of contentment, or 
 willing self-sacrifice, connected with it ; that poverty 
 narrows and debases, rather than tends to enlarge- 
 ment and high-toned feeling, and that, other things 
 being equal, the man of wealth, who is accustomed to 
 treat all women with deference, will be more likely to 
 make a good husband than the poor man, who has 
 never seen women treated as anything but domestic 
 machines, created for the household comfort and con- 
 venience of men. 
 
 Love ! How can she stop to trouble herself about 
 love ? She has had some heart-aches in the solitude 
 of her own little room ; she has struggled with the 
 pain of seeing others preferred to herself, whom she 
 felt were inferior to herself; in the innermost recesses
 
 MARRYING FOR MONEY. 123 
 
 Mr 
 
 of her heart there is the image of one who has per- 
 haps never thought of her, and of whom she is, there- 
 fore, bound never to think, but of whom she would 
 never have thought to ask, Is he rich ? or, Is he poor? 
 He would have been all in all. 
 
 But that is out of the question. She has got to 
 marry. Her parents expect it ; it will rid them of a 
 burden. Her younger sisters anticipate it ; her broth- 
 ers begin to remind her that she cannot expect them 
 to dance attendance upon her all her life, and there is 
 the social pressure from five hundred friends, who re- 
 mind her of her age, and circulate reports respecting 
 her engagement to this and that individual, regardless 
 of her feelings, or the prejudicial effect upon her rep- 
 utation and future. 
 
 Yes, she must marry ; she sees no alternative, and, 
 since she cannot marry the one she feels she really 
 could love, why not marry money, and thus please 
 her parents, delight her brothers and sisters ( who will 
 expect to come in for a share of all her good things), 
 and excite the envy of her gossiping acquaintance ? 
 
 The temptation is irresistible. She accepts a man 
 she does not love, but whom, until she promised to 
 marry, she never actively disliked. The change in 
 their relations, which naturally follows, the greater 
 intimacy, the sense of proprietorship exhibited by her 
 purchaser, revolt her womanhood, and arouse feelings 
 which she is shocked to find obtain stronger and still 
 stronger hold upon her, as the time for the consum-
 
 124 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 mation of the human sale approaches, until only the 
 desperate necessity of the case prevents her from 
 breaking through the meshes which have been woven 
 around her, and making an attempt, at least, to regain 
 her lost freedom. Freedom ! she had looked upon 
 marriage a wealthy marriage especially as the 
 golden gate through which she would pass to life, 
 liberty, and happiness ; she knows now, by a myste- 
 rious intuition, that it will simply infold her with a 
 closer and more inflexible environment ; that she will 
 be consigned, body and soul, to the keeping of the 
 man who has purchased her, and that her future acts 
 - existence even will be the outgrowth of his 
 will, not of her own. 
 
 Even the personal belongings and adornments, in 
 which she expected to take so much pleasure, lose 
 their attraction when she realizes that they do not 
 belong to her, that she can neither buy nor sell them, 
 that they are the evidence of her husband's taste, not 
 her own, that he likes to see her wear them, likes to 
 have her beauty enhanced by them, but looks upon 
 them, and her also, as his property, bought with his 
 money, and held under his jurisdiction and control.. 
 
 This bitter experience must inevitably come to 
 women who, even under the most favorable circum- 
 stances, marry for money. They may be so fortunate 
 as to find in the man something worth having besides 
 his money, but the power which accompanies habitual 
 bestowmeui, added to that of conceded supremacy, is
 
 MARRYING FOR MONEY. 125 
 
 a test to which no mortal man could bo subjected, 
 and preserve the respect and consideration which he 
 would exhibit towards one who came to him on terms 
 of equality. 
 
 At the best, therefore, the position is a humiliating 
 one. But suppose the man to be coarse, brutal, over- 
 bearing, insolent, obstinate, and willing or habituated 
 to push the power he possesses over his dependants 
 to its limits, what can the woman who has sold her- 
 self to him expect ? to what does she bind herself 
 then ? The hidden experience of such women can 
 alone testify. 
 
 The idea that it is natural for women to receive, 
 and men to give, is as false in fact as it is degrading 
 in theory. It is more natural for women to give than 
 it is for men, and I appeal to the consciousness of all 
 women to bear me out in this statement. The first 
 thing that a woman who loves thinks of is to give, 
 and, alas ! because she has nothing else, she some- 
 times gives herself. Women possessed of property 
 not unfrequently give the whole of it joyfully into 
 the hands of their husbands ; and if there are now 
 efforts and legal enactments to prevent such sacrifices, 
 it is because men proved themselves, generally, un- 
 worthy of this unselfish trust and confidence, and, 
 instead of giving, appropriated greedily all that came 
 within their possession without gratitude, or even 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 Women who earn, or who become possessed of
 
 126 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 money, give quite as freely, quite as generously, as 
 men. I have known several poor young women, sud- 
 denly possessed of means through their own success- 
 ful efforts, whose first years of earnings were princi- 
 pally spent in cancelling by gifts the obligations 
 which they felt for little acts of kindness when they 
 were poor. I have known them for years to clothe 
 and otherwise aid families, whose support was osten- 
 sibly derived from some man, the " natural " guardian 
 and protector, but who was really hardly able to take 
 care of himself. Scarcely any self-supporting girl 
 but wholly, or in part, provides for the wants of some 
 helpless or enfeebled male or female relative. A 
 woman, who has made a fortune by her own exertions 
 in the city of New York, remarked to the writer, 
 " that, so far as her experience went, men had quite 
 as much faculty for dependence upon women, as 
 women upon men, the only difference being that they 
 require twice as much to "support" them, and can 
 do nothing, not even mend hose, in return. 
 
 This divine love of giving, which women possess so 
 largely, is greatly impaired, and if it had not been 
 inherent must have been wholly destroyed by the habit 
 of receiving from, and being dependent upon, men. 
 Habit is second nature, and even men, who are de- 
 pendent upon subscriptions and charities, shortly lose 
 their habits of self-reliance, and will take " gifts " as 
 readily as any woman. 
 
 All this is simply to show that a condition of abso-
 
 MARRYING FOR MONET. 127 
 
 lute dependence is as naturally repugnant to women 
 as to men, and that the higher the character of the 
 woman, the more dreadful will be the loathing of her- 
 self, when, through the apparent splendor, she begins 
 to realize the abjcctness of her condition. The house 
 she lives in, the dress she wears, the food she eats, 
 are his, not hers, and she must endure the impertinent 
 cook who pleases "his" palate, or the drunken 
 coachman who drives " his " horses, as best she may, 
 knowing that she herself is just as mere an appa- 
 nage of his household as either. 
 
 What would she not give now for a cottage with 
 the poor man whom she loved ? How she would re- 
 joice over an opportunity to cook their simple meals, 
 and use her leisure to make her home attractive and 
 inviting. How drearily and wearily pass her days, 
 without occupation, destitute even of the pleasure 
 she anticipated in conferring some of the advan- 
 tages of her new state upon her kindred, for her 
 husband is jealous of any thought or, act outside 
 of himself, and, though willing to spend money in 
 adorning and beautifying his own property, has no 
 intention of extending his liberality to her relatives. 
 In fact, to use his own elegant language, he " did not 
 marry her family." 
 
 So chains, the gilding of which makes no pretence 
 of concealing that they are chains, are all that she 
 has exchanged for her youth, her beauty, her glad 
 hopes, her bright expectations, and very bitterly she
 
 128 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 regrets the ignorance and folly that induced her to 
 sell her birthright for this mess of pottage. 
 
 There is not the same temptation for men to marry 
 money that exists for women, in the utter absence of 
 purpbse, objects, and means of their own. Men are 
 early forced into activity whether they will or no, and 
 the dependence which is considered so graceful and 
 becoming in woman is disgraceful and derogatory to 
 man. The man who would be content to sit down 
 and " live upon " his wife would be considered con- 
 temptible in any community. 
 
 There is everything, therefore, to prevent a high- 
 minded, self-respecting man, who is poor, from mar- 
 rying a woman who possesses wealth, and when such 
 a phenomenon does take place, he finds himself con- 
 fronted by two necessities : either to voluntarily and 
 imperatively resign all share in it, or submit to see his 
 disposal of it hampered by all the precautions which 
 can be taken against legalized swindling. This does 
 not tend to make him amiable towards his wife or her 
 money ; and so it often happens -that the so much de- 
 sired good is the source of positive evil, which de- 
 stroys all the sources of happiness in married life. 
 Something may be, and undoubtedly often is done, by 
 good sense and forbearance, to remedy the evils caused 
 by such mistakes ; but no act was ever committed by 
 man or woman from a base or unworthy motive that 
 did not bring retribution in some form, and at some 
 time. Sooner or later our sins must find us out, and 
 one of the unpardonable sins is Marrying for JMoney.
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONEY. 129 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONEY. 
 
 EVERYBODY admits, nay, asserts, that "marrying 
 for money " is a dreadful thing ; although there are a 
 few experienced and prudent middle-aged people, 
 learned in the price of butter and the wear and tear 
 of little dresses and shoes, who are not ashamed to 
 acknowledge that it is almost as bad a thing to marry 
 without money. 
 
 Still, as a general rule, the sentiment of society is 
 against them. Novelists, and story-writers in maga- 
 zines and newspapers, always select as their hero a 
 model young man who lives and supports his mother 
 or a family of younger brothers and sisters on a small 
 salary, and eventually marries his employer's daugh- 
 ter ; while the rich young gentleman is invariably a 
 brute and a villain, who ruins young women and breaks 
 his wife's heart. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that general principles 
 founded on ideas so crude and one-sided are sure to 
 be false. Yet this does not prevent them from being 
 received by a great many people, and creating a vast 
 amount of mischief. 
 9
 
 130 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Romantic young girls, for instance, think that love 
 in a cottage, with nothing a year to live upon, is just 
 as blissful as it is represented to be, and that only the 
 most miserably mercenary motives could ever induce 
 " anybody " which means their parents to think 
 the contrary. 
 
 Moreover, in all the story books they ever read, 
 when the hero and heroine fail to make both ends 
 meet, they always have a fortune left them, or find 
 an asylum with some poor, plodding, worldly-wise 
 persons who have worked away at the prose of exist- 
 ence while they have been cultivating its poetry, and 
 are supposed to consider it a privilege to share their 
 hard-won gains with others more ethereally and less 
 practically constituted. 
 
 This will do very well for a story, which can create 
 houses and money and friends at pleasure, and ignore 
 bills if it is not convenient to pay them ; but it does 
 not work so well in real life. 
 
 When people marry, they assume at once responsi- 
 bilities which they have no right to shirk or remove 
 to other shoulders than their own ; and it is very 
 rarely, indeed, that they find any willing to assume 
 them. Burdens self-imposed generally have to be 
 borne alone borne until the weary back bends or 
 the heart breaks, and tired body and soul can bear 
 no more. 
 
 I would not advise young women to falsify one 
 genuine womanly instinct for money ; but it is as well
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONEY. 131 
 
 that they should understand that its possession is not 
 necessarily a curse, and that the want of it involves 
 possible consequences of which, in the flush of youth- 
 ful hope and believing affection, they never dream. 
 
 As was before remarked, the poor young man, 
 be he clerk or mechanic, of story-books is always a 
 model. He is handsome, gentlemanly, polite, correct 
 in his habits, intelligent, aesthetic in his tastes, with a 
 great love of art and an- abhorrence of the mean and 
 vulgar. In his person, manners, or surroundings 
 there is nothing that can offend the most fastidious 
 taste ; the miseries of " apartments " and two-storied 
 suburban houses are carefully kept out of sight ; his 
 manage, if small, is always faultless. 
 
 All this, of course, is just as likely, and rather more 
 likely, to be false than true. But girls in love with 
 poor young men do not think of that. They invest 
 them with the attributes of their favorite heroes, and 
 are sadly disappointed to find that indolence and self- 
 ishness are as often the faults of a poor man as of 
 a rich one, and that poverty may be imbittered and 
 rendered infinitely worse to bear by coarseness, want 
 of habitual refinement, and that consideration for 
 others, and for women especially, which is the growth 
 of advanced civilization, of society, and intellectual 
 culture. 
 
 The faults peculiar to human nature belong to one 
 class as well as another ; but there are circumstances 
 which modify them, and under which persons subject
 
 132 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 to their influence suffer less from them ; and that edu- 
 cation and wealth are among these circumstances, few 
 that have had any experience in the world will deny. 
 
 Poor young men are generally the product of fami- 
 lies where the mother was a drudge, and household 
 courtesies almost unknown, and they are very apt to 
 look upon a wife as the mother's natural successor 
 as a servant whom they are not obliged to pay. They 
 do not realize or appreciate the sacrifice of tastes and 
 habits which they have never known ; make demands 
 upon her strength which she is totally unable to meet ; 
 and consider themselves sadly victimized if she should 
 happen to become an invalid, and unable to perform 
 the duties of housekeeper, seamstress, cook, nurse, 
 and special attendant upon themselves. 
 
 Moreover, a large proportion of the delicate young 
 wives of poor men are sacrificed to their husband's 
 early struggles, and die just in time to enable him to 
 start afresh with some gay young lady, quite willing 
 to assist him to spend the money which his wife has 
 laid down her life to help him make. 
 
 There arc many happy and successful matrimonial 
 ventures from which money and money calculations 
 are entirely excluded ; but they require the exercise 
 of an unusual amount of common sense, consideration, 
 and judgment on both sides to make them so. Girls, 
 under any circumstances, take a much larger amount 
 of risk when they marry than young men. They lose 
 at once their market value ; and if they marry poverty,
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONEY. 133 
 
 can only look forward to the constant pressure of 
 petty cares, to contracted and sometimes unpleasant 
 surroundings, to isolation from general society, to the 
 loss of youth, without the means to make advancing 
 age beautiful, graceful, or attractive. 
 
 Then there is the possibility of becoming widows, 
 with children dependent upon their exertions. And is 
 there any situation more forlorn or pitiable in the 
 world than that of a poor widow ? Her lot is doubly 
 desolate. It is not only her husband, but the bread- 
 winner who is absent ; and talk as we may about sen- 
 timental sorrows, there are few miseries so real and 
 terrible as existence without the food, the shelter, the 
 warmth, the protection, the comfort which make it 
 possible as well as enjoyable. 
 
 " Would you, then, exclude poor young men from 
 the chances of matrimony from its possibilities of 
 happiness ? " asks some frightened girl, whose love 
 sees paradise only in any condition with the man of 
 her choice. 
 
 Certainly not. I am not advising young men, but 
 young women, who have much more at stake. It is 
 always best for young men to marry ; it is in fact 
 necessary for their moral, social, physical, and spir- 
 itual well-being. But it is not at all as necessary for 
 women, if only they did not think so. 
 
 I do not, however, wish to be understood as advis- 
 ing young women not to marry, or not to marry poor 
 men. I would simply urge them to greater caution,
 
 134 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 and to bear in mind that it does not require so much 
 courage to marry a poor man as to patiently and 
 cheerfully bear the consequences of the act. 
 
 Society may not ignore you ; but you will gradu- 
 ally slip out from society. You must live where con- 
 venience, necessity, or another will directs ; inclina- 
 tion and taste will not only be subordinate, but al- 
 most forgotten in the incessant demands of duty, and 
 all must be performed cheerfully, and without expecta- 
 tion of thanks or gratitude ; for a poor man feels his 
 position as lord of creation quite as much as a rich 
 one ; is less likely to have acquired early habits of 
 deference, thoughtfulness, and care for women ; and 
 thinks, just as much as another man, that any woman 
 ought to be thankful for the privilege of being his 
 wife. 
 
 Excepting in the highest circles, very little atten- 
 tion is paid in this country to the standing and family 
 connections of candidates for matrimonial bonds, the 
 happiness of the parties being rightly supposed to de- 
 pend more upon themselves and their fitness for each 
 other than upon their family relations. Intelligent 
 and respectable family connections are, however, by 
 no means to be despised. If they do not make the 
 happiness of married life, they greatly add to it ; they 
 fill in part the place of the wife's early and most at- 
 tached friends, from whom she is very often separated ; 
 and, if they are wise and kind, may sustain and aid 
 her through many trying and difficult circumstances.
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONET. 135 
 
 Of family relations of an opposite character it is 
 unnecessary to speak. Men sometimes say that " they 
 did not marry their wife's relations ; " but young wo- 
 men will undoubtedly find it as possible and as disa- 
 greeable to marry their husband's relations as for their 
 husbands to marry theirs. 
 
 A little reflection as to consequences need not 
 frighten, but it ought to make young women careful 
 in deciding on the most important event in their lives. 
 To most men, the individuality of a wife is of little 
 importance so long as she represents to them their 
 average amount of daily comfort, the respectability 
 of their social position, and the welfare of their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 A still young man, blessed with his third wife, re- 
 plied to the question of a friend that he really did not 
 know which had been nearest and dearest to him. 
 They were like three good dinners, each considered 
 best at the time, and pleasant in the remembrance. 
 
 If this gentleman was not sentimental, he was at 
 least honest. 
 
 To a wife the husband is, or should be, much more 
 than this. Upon him she depends for her opportuni- 
 ties, her enjoyments ; and upon his energy, ambition, 
 and ability for the improvement and advancement of 
 their condition and means. His habits and prefer- 
 ences give the color to the household and its surround- 
 ings ; and, more than all, exert a paramount influence 
 on the character and future welfare of children.
 
 136 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Try as she may, believe as she may, start with as 
 many modern ideas of equality or superiority as she 
 may, the result will be the same eventually. From 
 the moment a woman becomes a wife she is in a state 
 of subjection. lie acts independently of her ; but 
 she cannot of him. He holds the balance of power 
 in the. shape of providing the money, and what he 
 wills, therefore, must be done. 
 
 Outside of her own house a woman has no distrac- 
 tions, nowhere to go. A man has his business, his 
 politics, his club, and, very often, a dozen places of 
 amusements, any of which are a legitimate resource 
 in case clouds obscure the domestic horizon. But a 
 woman has none of these resources ; her spirit can 
 only fret and chafe against its bars like a bird in a 
 cage. And it is this inability to throw off small 
 causes of irritation and annoyance which spoils many 
 a woman's sweet temper, and renders the wife, as the 
 husband complainingly asserts, very different fjjpm 
 the bride. 
 
 Is there, then, no happiness in married life, and es- 
 pecially in humble married life ? Yes, undoubtedly ; 
 especially if you are content that it be humble, and 
 courageously willing to accept the risks and obliga- 
 tions it imposes. But much faith, much patience, 
 and, above all, much love is required ; and unless you 
 can bring these to the altar, you had better sew for 
 your daily bread than marry any man, be he poor or 
 rich.
 
 MARRYING WITHOUT MONET. 137 
 
 There will be no equality in marriage for women 
 until they feel themselves independent of it ; until 
 they consider it .more honorable to earn their liveli- 
 hood than to barter themselves away for board and 
 clothes. 
 
 Where a strong and true love exists, it will prove 
 equal to every emergency, provided there is common 
 sense and judgment on both sides to back it up. But 
 love cannot exist independent of respect and esteem, 
 and marriage is a sharp test not only of the quality 
 of affection, but of its sources of inspiration. 
 
 It would not do to even guess at the number of 
 married people held together by the ties created by 
 children and the fear of social censure. But the ag- 
 gregate will surely be greatly lessened when young 
 women are willing to earn money instead of marrying 
 for it, and become the wives of poor men with a full 
 realization of what is in store for them. 
 
 Love is all-powerful, but it hath many counterfeits 
 which marriage lays bare ; and if marriage without 
 love be a sin, a marriage without either love or money 
 is a folly as well. Therefore, marry not for money, 
 but for love ; and if money comes with it, use it wisely 
 and be thankful ; but if it does not, be thankful for 
 the love, and content to do your part to make life use- 
 ful and happy ; for it is not money, after all, that 
 makes happiness, but the cultivation of gentleness, 
 refinement, and wise and kindly affections. And what 
 I would finally urge upon young girls, therefore, is,
 
 138 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 that whether there is money or not, it is all-impor- 
 tant that there be judgment, truth, temperance, taste, 
 refinement, thoughtfulness for others, sympathy, suf- 
 ficient knowledge of the world to make a man among 
 men, and the true gentlemanliness which shrinks from 
 fellowship with everything false, and mean, and coarse, 
 and wicked. 
 
 It is not of half as much importance as you think 
 whether you are married at all ; but it is of the great- 
 est importance to yourself and society at large what 
 you marry.
 
 MARK TING FOR A HOME. 139 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 "MARRYING FOR A HOME." 
 
 " 'Mid pleasures and palaces 
 
 Though we may roam, 
 Be it ever so humble, 
 
 There's no place like home. 
 A charm from the skies 
 
 Seems to hallow us there, 
 Which, seek where we may, 
 Is ne'er met with elsewhere." 
 
 THIS true picture of a love-created home has found 
 a response in every heart, and frequent utterance 
 from every tongue. It is no matter that the man who 
 wrote it was a wanderer, almost an outcast, who saw 
 the home that he painted only through cottage win- 
 dows, as he travelled on foot from village to village, 
 from hamlet to hamlet, a poor man, with neither home 
 nor kin, and many times no shelter for his wearied 
 body from the pitiless storm. Perhaps it is only as 
 wanderers that we ever fully appreciate the blessed- 
 ness of home ; at any rate, millions have believed in 
 it, and loved it all the more truly for the sweet record 
 that the homeless man has made of it.
 
 140 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 This tenderness of home and its associations make 
 us look with more kindness upon one who avowedly, 
 or, at least, obviously, " marries for a home," as the 
 phrase goes, than upon one who as obviously sells 
 herself for money. A homers so desirable, and the 
 wish for one so natural, that one is apt to forget the 
 inflexibility of the laws which govern the constitu- 
 tion of a home, and consider it made simply of bricks 
 and mortar, for which the homeless woman is almost 
 justified in bartering herself. Knowing no more than 
 this, thousands of girls and women do marry four 
 walls, expecting to find them home, and are only un- 
 deceived by bitter and most painful experience. The 
 four walls they have married are exactly like the four 
 walls they have left ; there is no difference in the 
 laths and the plaster, the stone-work or brick-work, 
 of which they are composed. They stand like Pyg- 
 malion's statue, waiting for life to be infused into 
 them. 
 
 This subtle principle of life is not the work of the 
 moment, an hour, or a day. It is the outgrowth of 
 the love, the faith, the patience, the willingness which 
 the newly-married exercise towards each other, and 
 expresses its vitalizing principle chiefly through the 
 woman. If she bring love, faith, and patience to her 
 work of developing the home, she will be sure to suc- 
 ceed ; but if the word home has no meaning for her but 
 shelter, provided at some other person's expense, sho 
 will fail of ever finding a home, though the walls of her
 
 MARRYING FOR A HOME. 141 
 
 house were never so thick, never so high, and never 
 so costly. 
 
 The phrase, therefore, "marrying for a home," is 
 incorrect, especially as applied to a woman, because 
 it is she whose work it is to create the home, and, 
 by marrying from any motive less than the highest 
 and truest, she disables herself, and, with ever so 
 good a will, finds herself unable to execute her work 
 for want of the requisite material, namely, patient love, 
 trust, tenderness, and forbearance. To put it more 
 plainly : A woman cannot marry for a home. It is a 
 contradiction in terms. She can only marry for a 
 shelter, and the willingness to do this must spring 
 from one of two causes, or both combined : inca- 
 pacity to provide for herself ; or a selfish desire to 
 impose the burden of providing for her necessities 
 upon some one else. 
 
 There are women who are born, and live, without 
 feeling that humanity at large, society, or even their 
 own immediate families, have claims, in return for 
 what has been bountifully bestowed. They accept 
 from earth, air, and sky, light, warmth, sustenance 
 from the past the treasures of art, beauty, poetry, ex- 
 perience, and wisdom, which it has garnered up 
 from the present social life, and all that makes it de- 
 sirable, without one thought of obligation, without 
 considering for an instant that for all this they are 
 bound to give back something, and that something 
 ilie beat that is in them. If they can add nothing to
 
 142 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 the wealth of the ages, do nothing- in return for the 
 benefits they receive, the quicker they cease to en- 
 cumber the ground the better. When any portion of 
 a body fails to add its quota to the general health, 
 strength, and perfection of the body, it is dropped, 
 and something else put in its place. This is as ap- 
 plicable to women, who are part of the great body of 
 humanity, as to men. 
 
 It may be argued that women are not responsible 
 for their dependence, because they are born to it, and 
 brought up to consider it natural and inevitable. 
 
 This is true to a certain extent; but they know 
 also, that a condition of uselessness, helplessness, de- 
 pendence, is of human ordering, not divine intention, 
 and that only a soul reduced to the depths of degra- 
 dation could accept it. They know that absolute de- 
 pendence, instead of being natural, is humiliating to 
 the last degree ; that the poorest and dullest nature 
 revolts from it ; that the law of reciprocity is as 
 true as the law of gravitation, and, if not fulfilled, 
 brings its punishment as inevitably. They know, 
 also, that the reeds upon which women lean are con- 
 stantly being broken ; that the operation of natural 
 law is not suspended upon their account, as it ought 
 to be if they were intended to be helpless and de- 
 pendent creatures ; that men die, or lose health, 
 strength, and fortune, and leave to women the task 
 of maintaining themselves and others ; that cold 
 hurts, and want of food kills them as it does men ;
 
 MARRYING FOR A HOME. \^ 
 
 pr:>of enough, in addition to the fact that they are 
 provided with precisely the same working and breath- 
 ing apparatus, to show that they are expected to do 
 their share in the world's work, and add their quota 
 to the general sum of intelligence, activity, and 
 achievement. 
 
 Looking at it from this point of view, marrying for 
 a shelter is as bad and immoral as marrying for money, 
 and the results are. not likely to be much more satis- 
 factory. 
 
 In the first place the object the avoidance of labor 
 and personal responsibility is always missed. The 
 labor of eight or ten hours per day would enable the 
 woman to make a home for herself ; but in the home 
 which she has accepted she works sixteen hours, 
 without pay or acknowledgment of service rendered. 
 She has obtained a home that is to say, the shelter 
 of four walls ; she eats the refuse of what is put upon 
 the table, and has a new dress when the owner, or 
 provider of the four walls, which she married, thinks 
 he can afford one. 
 
 Bitterly she looks back upon the time when the 
 money she earned was her own, to spend or not as 
 she pleased. Sadly she thinks of the little room, with 
 its one window, its little rocking-chair, its pictures, 
 which she had cut from illustrated books and papers, 
 its treasures in the way of little souvenirs which 
 adorned the small toilet-table, and feels that it is 
 avenged for her sin of falsehood and abandonment.
 
 144 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 No spot contained within the four walls to which she 
 has sold herself seems half so much like home as 
 that poor little room, that dear little room, which re- 
 quired so little, and yielded so much. 
 
 She realizes now what she ought to have brought 
 to the bricks and mortar, to the man that she mar- 
 ried, and that is, a love that would have purified 
 and sanctified every act of their lives a love that 
 would have made the coarse better than the fine, the 
 labor for comfort and happiness light a love, in 
 short, strong enough to teach the subject of it that 
 duty is better than pleasure, and that out of our ful- 
 filment of it grows our purest and truest happiness. 
 But she did not bring this love ; she hardly brought 
 toleration or respect. She looked upon her husband 
 as a sort of earthen cover, made to protect the more 
 delicate porcelain of her nature, and she resents the 
 numberless methods in which she is made to serve his 
 uses ; all the more sullenly and bitterly resents them, 
 because she knows she has brought this thing upon 
 herself, and must not only endure, but endure in si- 
 lence. 
 
 For the coveted shelter, she has not only to pay in 
 service and labor, but in the* subjection of will, act, 
 almost thought, to the being of another. Moreover, 
 she has not escaped that burden of responsibility 
 which weighed so heavily upon her only added to 
 its gross amount ; for, chary as men may be of their 
 joys, they readily and eagerly share their sorrows,
 
 MARRYING FOR A HOME. 145 
 
 and expend upon their wives all those terrors, and 
 anxieties, and heart-sicknesses which they disdain to 
 reveal to men, but which keep her upon the rack of 
 fear for the fate that may be impending over herself 
 and her children. 
 
 " Home ! " Is this hand-to-hand existence, with its 
 petty cares, miseries, deceptions, and embarrassments, 
 the life that she sighed for ? Is she never to know 
 the freedom from sordid care, for which she bartered 
 her soul's birthright, the blessedness of human love 
 and sympathy ! 
 
 Home ! How can she make home when everything 
 that surrounds her becomes distasteful to her ? when 
 she sees objects and circumstances only through the 
 jaundiced eyes of a miserable selfishness, when she 
 has placed herself in opposition to natural law by de- 
 manding everything and being willing to give noth T 
 ing when by one word, one act, she has made her 
 whole life a lie ? 
 
 Home ! The word is full of meaning, but not to her. 
 It means the fresh, young, unselfish love of two 
 hearts ; it means the happy faces, the joyous laugh, 
 the fond caress of childhood ; it means freedom from 
 carking care, from strife and contest, from the pride 
 and vanity of self-sufficient, worldly-minded men and 
 women ; it means pleasant memories of Christmas 
 time, of birthday festivals, of bits of sunlight and fa- 
 vorite pictures of the baby's first tooth, of moth- 
 er's quaint old teaspoons, of father's great teacup and 
 10
 
 146 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 saucer of sorrows softened like Rembrandt shadows 
 by the light of human love, and trust, and sympathy 
 of hearts always open, of a fireside always warm, of 
 a fullness so complete of the happiness that mortals 
 can aspire to, that we can say nothing more of the 
 Christian's possession of paradise than that he has ar- 
 rived at home. 
 
 Home ! How often is the name desecrated ! It 
 does not require much in the way of material sur- 
 roundings to make home. Brown stone does not 
 build it, damask curtains shut it out, fine furniture 
 raises a barricade against it, servants wage eternal 
 war upon it ; but it demands, and must have, love, 
 faith, honor, and truth. It may be poor, it may be 
 put up at auction, for sale to the highest bidder, but 
 it can never be sold. It melts intangibly away, leav- 
 ing cold objects, blank, dreary walls, a dull, lifeless 
 body from which the soul has departed. 
 
 No wonder the girl who marries for a home fails to 
 find it. No wonder she gives up the search after a 
 while as hopeless, and settles down into the belief 
 that there are only walls, no homes, in existence. 
 
 No wonder that she loses herself in a tangle of 
 metaphysics, false philosophy, and doubtful social 
 theories. She has no central fact from which to ra- 
 diate. Her very existence becomes a lie for which 
 she despises herself, and her principal source of com- 
 fort is in establishing theories which prove all women 
 to be as dissatisfied and unhappy as herself.
 
 MARRYING FOR A HOME. 147 
 
 It is from the ranks of such women as these that 
 the reckless, egotistic, subversive, arid insurrectionary 
 women come, and by these I do not mean all who are 
 called " women's rights women," for many are among 
 the truest, tenderest, most faithful of women to every 
 relation of life ; but I mean those who, by their want 
 of equipoise, by their advocacy of a loose and ficti- 
 tious morality, become social incendiaries, sowing the 
 seeds of dissatisfaction and revolt, which are the out- 
 growth of their own want of truth, honor, and integ- 
 rity, among those who ignorantly accept them as true 
 representatives of advanced ideas. 
 
 With less brains, but as much faculty for being 
 miserable, this same class of women help largely to 
 fill up the armies which throng our great boarding- 
 houses and hotels creatures who are women only 
 in name, who, without object, purpose, or occupation, 
 drag out a wretched existence : when it is night, 
 wishing it were morning ; when it is morning, wait- 
 ing for the night, depending upon the chance excite- 
 ment of visits and shopping for the little variety to 
 the horrible monotony of their lives, and looking upon 
 feeding-time like the animals in a menagerie, as the 
 most interesting event in the twenty-four hours. 
 
 Is this marrying for a home this stagnant, useless 
 existence, which depraves mind and body, takes out 
 of life all that makes it worth the living, and leaves 
 only a dry husk from which all the sweetness has de- 
 parted ?
 
 1-48 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 It seems really more wicked and less justifiable for 
 women to marry for this pretence of home than for 
 men, because women make home, while men cannot. 
 Given a clear conscience, and a sense of duty ful- 
 filled, and a woman will make home out of the small- 
 est nook, no matter whether it is under the earth or 
 close to the sky. Her bit of geranium and low rock- 
 ing-chair will find out where the sunshine strikes ear- 
 liest and stays longest, and her quick sympathies and 
 strong affection will render even such a place a very 
 paradise. 
 
 Men require these atmospheric influences, but they 
 cannot create them. They cannot sit still long enough 
 to infuse any part of themselves into the dull wood- 
 work, the hard stone, or the cold glass of their sur- 
 roundings. They like to feel the warmth, and bask 
 in the sunshine created by a loving woman's pres- 
 ence, but they are powerless to effect the same re- 
 sults. 
 
 And the simple secret is, that it takes time, strength, 
 patience, devotion, trust, and love to create the home 
 atmosphere, which they cannot bestow upon it which 
 they have to put to other and more material uses. 
 They rarely appreciate this, except in its final result ; 
 but it is nevertheless true, and it supplies the reason 
 why it is absolutely indispensable that a woman bring 
 great love and faith to her work. It is because so 
 much of it is bread thrown upon the waters. 
 
 Men are very apt to consider that the four walls
 
 MARRYING FOR A HOME. 149 
 
 are all there is of home, and that the woman has 
 nothing to do but sit down and enjoy it. But this is 
 a great mistake. The woman knows, or at least soon 
 discovers, that the very security, privacy, reserve, 
 and seclusion of home, are temptations to neglect the 
 performance of duty, especially when this is more 
 general than special in its character, and easily 
 slighted, without, for a time, very apparent results. 
 
 It requires wisdom, as well as all the strength of 
 human affection, to do the same thousand and one 
 little nothingnesses day after day, week after week, 
 month after month, and year after year ; to cultivate 
 the social amenities and niceties of refined domestic 
 life, in the face of bodily weakness, opposing inclina- 
 tion, and the certainty that no mortal will ever know 
 or give you credit for your efforts and your self-sac- 
 rifice. 
 
 Yet all the homes that ever existed were built of 
 single bricks like these, laid one upon another by 
 some woman, who, possibly, did not know the work 
 she was doing builded from instinct, like the bee, 
 and wiser than she knew. 
 
 The difference between the man and the bee is, 
 that the latter does from instinct what the former does 
 from knowledge ; and this must be the difference be- 
 tween the instinctive and reasoning woman. The 
 latter must know that, in her capacity of wife, it is 
 her place to build the home in the house provided by 
 the man. She must know, also, that to this work she
 
 150 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 must bring the proper materials love, faith, pa- 
 tience or she is less than the animal and insect cre- 
 ation, who will not act contrary to their instincts. 
 She is a fraud upon men, a libel upon women, a base 
 counterfeit that has no right of circulation among 
 true and honest men or women.
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 
 
 POPULAR ideas upon marriage run mainly 'in two 
 directions : first, the sentimental, or that view of it 
 which bases the union strictly upon the mutual love 
 and admiration existing between the parties concerned ; 
 secondly, the practical or business idea which reu- 
 ders marriage a copartnership, entered into mainly 
 from motives of personal and pecuniary interest. 
 
 In neither of these conceptions lies the ground- 
 work of just and true married life. Both are founded 
 in an individual idea, which, carried out, would sacri- 
 fice the larger claims to the lesser wants, the all-in- 
 folding tree to the little seed from which it sprang. 
 
 If individual happiness and material prosperity 
 were the sole or the highest objects to be attained by 
 marriage, it would present no problem to us vorth 
 solving it would be quite unnecessary that in .,'- 
 riage should exist at all. Men and women could 
 mate with whoever suited their fancy, enter into so- 
 cial partnerships upon a mercantile footing, and re- 
 main together ojily so long as it suited their interests 
 or pleasure to do so.
 
 152 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Such copartnerships could exist in social as well as 
 in business life, if no farther results were involved, 
 if, as was stated before, the happiness of the indi- 
 vidual, by the gratification of his inclinations, and in- 
 dulgence of his selfish desires, were the principal end 
 and aim of married life. 
 
 But this does not seem to be the case. While a 
 beautiful harmony of arrangement provides that a 
 marriage shall complete the happiness of the indi- 
 vidual, it nevertheless subordinates this condition to 
 the greater end to be accomplished, namely, the crea- 
 tion of the family. 
 
 Here is the real reason for the existence of mar- 
 riage, and the necessity for its recognition as a per- 
 manent, if not sacramental institution. The married 
 man and woman arc no longer to be regarded as in- 
 dividuals, they have no longer a right to act from an 
 individual stand-point. Through marriage, and from 
 its point of view, they cease to be individuals, and 
 represent an entirely different and more complex prod- 
 uct the family and it is its interests, its claims, 
 its responsibilities, its influence, which must be con- 
 sidered, and to which individual inclinations must be 
 subordinated. 
 
 Men and women might meet and part without any- 
 body troubling themselves as to consequences, if the 
 world had not to be populated, if there were no chil- 
 dren ; but it is not the man or the woman, it is the 
 children, after marriage, who are of the first impor-
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 153 
 
 tance. They make up in great part the hopes and 
 fears, the joys and sorrows of the present. They 
 represent the possibilities of the future, they repro- 
 duce the glory and the shame of those who have gone 
 before, and carry them into immortality. If marriage 
 could be dissolved at will, what would become of the 
 children ? Neither father nor mother alone can prop- 
 erly take charge of them ; the care and assistance 
 of both are necessary to their education and develop- 
 ment. Even the state, were legal provisions made, 
 could prove but a rugged step-mother, absolute and 
 totally devoid of that undying love, tenderness, consid- 
 eration, and sympathy, founded in the family, created 
 by a true marriage. In the animal creation couples 
 instinctively recognize it as a part of their duty to 
 protect and provide for their helpless offspring, and 
 never separate until the young have been taught, and 
 are fully able to take care of themselves. 
 
 Simple adherence to this primary rule would prac- 
 tically render marriage indissoluble, for the law re- 
 cognizes parents as responsible until children have 
 reached the age of discretion ; and few wives or hus- 
 bands would wish to separate after sharing the com- 
 mon interests of daily life together for upwards of 
 twenty years, or would be any happier for such sep- 
 aration. Experienced lawyers testify not only that 
 divorced couples wish to marry again, but that the 
 majority of them do so, and this in the teeth of ridi- 
 cule and the opposition of friends and relatives.
 
 154 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 The desideratum, therefore, appears to be a basis 
 for marriage which will afford us some sort of guar- 
 antee in the absence of infallible wisdom and judg- 
 ment of the formation of a true marriage, in contra- 
 distinction to a mistaken or false one ; and this basis, 
 I think, we find in 
 
 Love, acting as a motive, or incentive to tJie perfot-m- 
 ance of duty. 
 
 The question now arises, Can that union be called 
 marriage where love has ceased to exist ? and would 
 it not be better to dissolve such a connection rather 
 than live in the midst of hatred and dissensions ? 
 
 Undoubtedly there are instances where the inti- 
 mate relation of man and wife becomes not only in- 
 tolerable, but a crime against the moral nature not to 
 be permitted. Such instances are, however, rare, and 
 must be treated as a disease or misfortune. We do 
 not feed the whole world on medicine because a few 
 people are sick. We do not subject all women to 
 treatment of cancer because one woman has died of 
 it. Our laws take it for granted that men and women 
 are innocent until they are proved to be guilty, and 
 it would be manifestly unjust to make marriage laws 
 to suit the exceptions instead of the rule. 
 
 Accepting the fact that marriage involves sacred 
 duties, that the easy disruption of marriage ties pro- 
 duces anarchy, confusion, dismemberment, broken 
 lives, a reign of selfishness in which the weakest must 
 inevitably be driven to the wall ; it becomes a mat-
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 155 
 
 tor of grave doubt whether any conduct on the part 
 of the man or woman, who has assumed these obliga- 
 tions, releases the other from his or her share of them. 
 
 Two wrongs cannot make right. 
 
 An injured woman gave simple utterance to a no- 
 ble sentiment when she said that no act of her hus- 
 band's could make her false to the vows she had 
 spoken, to the duties she owed her children. 
 
 Here is a fact to which it seems to me necessary 
 to anchor fast, and which marks a sublime difference 
 between the true idea of marriage and that sentimen- 
 tal affection which is self-absorbing and self-seeking 
 in its nature and character, and whose first instinct is 
 to sacrifice whatever stands in the way of the attain- 
 ment of its object. 
 
 This is the great fact of duty. 
 
 We have not yet arrived at that state of growth 
 physically, mentally, morally, or spiritually when 
 we can be sure of ourselves, or of the always correct 
 action of our reason, our judgment, or even of our 
 affections. What we loved yesterday we dislike to- 
 day, and may love again to-morrow. We are still 
 under bonds to the perversities not only of the pres- 
 ent, but of past generations. We suffer a thousand 
 ills ; and when we suffer, we are not sure that we 
 love. We may even think we hate, and discover after 
 a while that it was not hate, but bile, or dyspepsia, 
 or overwork, or weariness, or debt, or difficulty, in 
 some other of the many forms in which it assails us.
 
 156 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Love, in its incipient stages, is no more to be de- 
 pended upon than its step-brother hate. It is 
 quickly born, and often as quickly dies. It may, by 
 cultivation and opportunity, become a plant of sturdy, 
 healthy growth, but it will still be subject to fluctua- 
 tions and changes. It may seem to be beaten down 
 for a moment by storms, but it will raise its head 
 again in the sunshine ; and he would be a poor social 
 economist who should, for this reason, tear it up by 
 the roots. 
 
 The love of the novelist, which is born in a mo- 
 ment, to live forever, which is unimpaired and un- 
 affected by time, condition, or circumstance, has no 
 counterpart in the experience of actual life. Not 
 that true love does not exist, but that it requires fa- 
 vorable influences, and, like all other best things, is 
 perfected by growth and culture. It may have been 
 born of passion and imagination, but it is quite as 
 likely to be the offspring of esteem and friendship. It 
 does not always show itself upon the surface, but it 
 survives shocks all the better when an element of 
 loyalty is mingled with inclination, and is none the 
 less true because it is given where honor and duty de- 
 mand it. If love and duty were incompatible, then 
 the moment love became duty, it would cease, which, 
 thank heaven, is not true. Love goes in harness very 
 well, even with imagination, when duty holds the 
 reins, while love in opposition to duty produces noth- 
 ing but unrest and disquiet.
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 157 
 
 I come now to the modern, practical, or business 
 idea of marriage, which is an outgrowth of the doc- 
 trine of individual rights, and a very worthy branch 
 of the parental tree. 
 
 It demands that the parties to the matrimonial 
 scheme shall be two self-supporting, separate entities, 
 each content to maintain themselves each willing 
 to contribute to the support of children, if such should 
 be born to them. 
 
 Many good men and women advocate this idea as 
 the only true basis of an equality in marriage as 
 the only method by which the woman can preserve 
 the distinctive dignity and complete independence 
 necessary to the acknowledgment of her equal posi- 
 tion by man. 
 
 There is a show of reason and justice in this pre- 
 tension which has no real foundation, and obtains its 
 apparent validity solely from the greater value which 
 has heretofore attached to physical over moral agen- 
 cies, and the necessity which has seemed to exist for 
 women to pit themselves against men, fight material 
 battles with material forces upon their ground, in or- 
 der to obtain recognition of power. 
 
 It entirely overlooks the fact, that the woman 
 must bear the children, that in this she can receive 
 no help from man, that she gives her strength to 
 them, is naturally and legally responsible for them, 
 and is compelled to admit their claims in a thousand 
 ways which do not affect men at all.
 
 158 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 If the moral influence and agency of women had 
 been properly recognized and appreciated by men, 
 such an idea could never have gained ground ; but, 
 once born, it found fitting nourishment in the habit of 
 masculine assertion and appropriation, and, false and 
 specious though it is, threatens the most deplorable 
 consequences, not only to individuals, but to the race. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the woman's place in a 
 true marriage is to build up the house, care for, and, 
 up to a certain period, educate the children. Some 
 one must do it, and who so well fitted for it ? But 
 for this work she requires means, and these it is the 
 man's business to provide. She needs also his as- 
 sistance, countenance, encouragement, and support, 
 to sustain her in its execution, and in return gives 
 what he must have, attention to his personal wants, 
 and the quiet, peace, and serenity of a well-ordered 
 home, after the toils, fatigues, and anxieties of busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Men will never know what the home can be, and 
 should be, until they make the woman responsible for 
 it ; until they stop treating her either as a drudge to 
 be ordered, or a doll to be dressed and petted, and 
 look upon her as she is, a very human part of crea- 
 tion, with a natural and most useful work to perform, 
 and great willingness to do it, if she only knew how, 
 and had the means to do it with. 
 
 It is, however, absolutely necessary that these be 
 supplied to her ; it is no part of her business to ju<>-
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 159 
 
 vide them for herself. If the wife goes out to earn 
 money to support, or help to support, the family, the 
 interests of the family must suffer. Her husband 
 loses the feeling of security and the certainty of care 
 which her presence affords ; the children, the moth- 
 er's protection and sympathy ; the household, that 
 guardianship which is essential to its prosperity and 
 well-being. 
 
 The wife and mother, if she is conscientious, suf- 
 fers most of all, in her divided interests, in the con- 
 tinuous struggles between her love and her duty ; and 
 finally, in her effort to accomplish all, renders herself 
 unequal to the performance of any part of her work, 
 and dies, leaving the memory only of her weakness 
 and want of judgment none of her willingness or 
 superhuman effort. 
 
 There is another point upon which T have enlarged 
 somewhat in a previous article, but which I desire also 
 to mention in this connection, and that is, that the 
 presence of the wife is essential to the formation of the 
 home. A true marriage teaches a man the value of 
 this part of a woman's work. His labor being princi- 
 pally to gather together the material forces, he naturally 
 places the most value upon them, and it not unfre- 
 quently takes him a long time to understand what 
 the influence is which his wife's constant presence 
 diffuses around his dwelling, or in what way the 
 nameless nothings with which her hands are busy af- 
 fect his happiness, and even his soul's growth.
 
 160 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 The newly married man, who takes his wife to the 
 home that his love and forethought have provided, 
 thinks he has done it all that she has nothing to 
 do but sit down and enjoy it ; and, generally, she ac- 
 cepts his view of the matter, and secretly wonders 
 why the new, bright house, with its spic and span 
 new furniture, does not seem as dear, and as much 
 like home, as the plain, gray old homestead she left. 
 No more than he does she realize the value of the 
 work she has to perform the long, slow, patient 
 work of years, which she must give in order to trans- 
 form this commonplace shell of bricks and mortar 
 into the hallowed spot round which sweet memories 
 will cluster. 
 
 He thought there was nothing more to do after pro- 
 viding for their physical wants, until he realized what 
 an empty, soulless place a mere house is, without its 
 ministering spirit. She believed that everything had 
 been done for her, until she discovers, by the difti- 
 culty with which she binds herself to her new sur- 
 roundings, that there is something lacking. This re- 
 luctance to enter into and take possession of her 
 kingdom, men are very apt to set down to natural, 
 womanly depravity ; they rarely recognize the effort 
 by which it is overcome as a sacrificial offering which 
 the woman lays upon the altar of her love and duty. 
 
 Heretofore, she has shared a home built by other 
 hands, now she has to construct one for herself, and 
 for those dearest to her. The house is there, the la-
 
 TRUE MARRIAGE. 161 
 
 / 
 bles arc there, the chairs arc there, the carpet is 
 
 smoothly put down, the curtains occupy their places ; 
 but into all these she must infuse life, vitality. She 
 dimly sees, though she may not be able to put it into 
 words, that it takes more labor and care to properly 
 use material things than it did to earn the money for 
 their purchase. 
 
 This labor and this care she must give to them. 
 
 In the golden age, when men understand their duty 
 to women, women will be much better able to per- 
 form theirs. Then it will be the women who will buy 
 and furnish the houses in which they are to live, in 
 which they are to construct the homes, rear and edu- 
 cate the children. It will be women who cannot, or 
 who do not wish to marry, who will be the designers 
 and architects of our houses, our real-estate agents, 
 our dealers in furniture, our makers of upholstery, 
 the intelligent and willing coadjutors of the mistresses 
 of the households, the good wives, and the true 
 mothers. 
 
 x Men have not only taken possession of their own 
 kingdom, but of that of women also. Let them yield 
 to the woman her place, respect her functions, en- 
 courage and sustain her in her work, and they will be 
 repaid by a paradise at home into which no serpent 
 can enter. 
 
 True marriage does not consist alone in a reciprocity 
 of feelings, but of duties also ; and true marriage 
 can hardly exist until men and women are trained to 
 11
 
 162 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 a full knowledge of what these duties are, of their 
 mutual relations, and of the obligations involved in 
 them. Then, 
 
 " In the long years, likcr must they grow, 
 The man be more of woman, she of man; 
 He gain in sweetness, and in moral height, 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that build the world ; 
 She, mental breadth, nor fail in childhood care : 
 Till at the last, she set herself to man, 
 Like perfect music unto noble words. 
 And so, these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers, 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be ; 
 Self-reverent each, and reverencing each. 
 Then comes the statelier Eden back to men, 
 Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm, 
 Then springs the crowning race of human kind."
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. 
 
 WHEN a boy-baby is born, there is great rejoicing ; 
 the very tone of the voice in making the announce- 
 ment indicates that it is considered matter for unusual 
 congratulation. Nothing is too good, or good enough 
 for him, and even the mother shares for a short time 
 in the glory, and is allowed to indulge her fancies for 
 the sake of the man-child she has brought into the 
 world. 
 
 This feeling is exhibited, more or less, through life. 
 Rudeness, exhibitions of temper, and passionate self- 
 will, that would be severely punished in a girl, are 
 only signs of strength of character, independence, 
 and manliness in a boy. 
 
 Of course, they early learn to consider their sex as 
 giving them a great advantage. They sneer at girls 
 and girls' ways, look upon the world as their birth- 
 right, and women as the natural subordinates to, and 
 dependents upon, men. 
 
 In families where good breeding and habits of cul- 
 ture and refinement have produced a feeling of chiv-
 
 164 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 airy and politeness towards women, this idea of su- 
 periority is not made unpleasantly apparent ; strength 
 is understood to be protective of others, rather than 
 of itself. The weaker element is recognized as the 
 finer, and loyalty to its claims upon masculine power, 
 tenderness, and devotion acknowledged as an indis- 
 pensable element of manly character. 
 
 The lower we go in the social scale, the less we 
 find this principle known or recognized, and the more 
 coarsely, and even brutally, women are treated. It is 
 during the reign of female sovereigns that laboring men 
 in Great Britain and elsewhere have sat down to their 
 meals alone, as a habit and a right, while their wives 
 stood and waited upon them. Even now, in thousands 
 of poor families in "England, Ireland, Scotland, and 
 America, the man is expected to eat the lion's share 
 of the food provided, while the wife and children pick 
 up what he has left. 
 
 All the injustice with which the poor man thinks 
 fortune has treated him, he, in turn, visits upon his 
 wife. To compensate for the submission which he is 
 obliged to yield abroad, he is a tyrant at home, and, 
 knowing no moral or intellectual superiority, backs his 
 commands with brute force. 
 
 There is nothing so unutterably humiliating to a 
 woman as to be in subjection to a man with mere 
 brute instincts. It is worse than poverty, or death, 
 or degradation in any other form. It is a living death 
 of body and soul. It is slavery without the name,
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. 165 
 
 unthought-of, unpitied, and thoroughly hopeless. No 
 emancipation can come to the mismated wife ; she 
 is bound hand and foot, and her fetters are stronger 
 than if they were made of iron or steel. 
 
 Compelled to act entirely in accordance with another 
 will, deprived of power not only over herself, but over 
 her children, seeing in. them the record of her great 
 mistake and miserable life, what wonder that she is 
 deprived of hope, and looks forward to death alone 
 with the anticipation of relief! 
 
 If women knew the destiny in store for them, many 
 would shrink from marriage as from condemnation to 
 a life of torture, and the larger number prefer a life 
 of independence of their own making, to the condi- 
 tion to which subjection to an ignorant and irrespon- 
 sible man reduces them. 
 
 "He who rulcth himself is greater than he that 
 taketh a city," said the divinely inspired writer ; but, 
 in the education and training of boys, the very oppo- 
 site to this rule is the course observed. The boy 
 must be allowed to do as he pleases, because he is a 
 boy ; he who is to control others must know no re- 
 strictions himself. He is amenable to no authority ; 
 he is a man, the lord of creation, and woman was 
 made for him, first in the character of mother, then 
 sister, then wife. 
 
 It is easy to see how natural pride and arrogance 
 are fed by such a system and such ideas as these. An 
 archangel fell before the contemplation of his own
 
 166 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 glory, and men born with the presumption of superi- 
 ority, inhaling it with every breath they draw, learn 
 to look upon everything as subservient to their will ; 
 and women being the only other creatures endowed 
 in like manner with themselves, the pleasure is pecu- 
 liar, and all the greater, in subjecting them to their 
 authority. 
 
 It is the business of mothers to teach their sons to 
 look upon women in a different light, to show them 
 that women need not privileges, but rights, not mere 
 politeness and gallantry, but justice and freedom to 
 act for themselves ; that though their natural sphere 
 of life and duty is different from that of men, it is not 
 inferior, and should be no more subjective than his 
 own ; that the happiness of married life springs not 
 from authority on one side and obedience on the 
 other, but from equality of conditions, the harmony 
 of taste, feeling, and sentiment, the willingness to 
 exercise forbearance when it is needed, and use judg- 
 ment rather than assert authority. 
 
 The behavior of young men to the young women 
 they wish to marry is now entirely false and decep- 
 tive. Educated and thoroughly imbued with ideas of 
 their own advantages of sex and position, they still 
 go through the form of absolute devotion to some 
 innocent girl, who wonders, and finally believes. A 
 reminder of the conditions made, the promises uttered, 
 the vows sworn under these circumstances, after mar- 
 riage, would only provoke a laugh ; it is a simple
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. 167 
 
 matter of custom and etiquette. No one is supposed 
 to be such a fool as to believe them. 
 
 Probably at the time the farce was enacting, the 
 young man was inwardly chafing at the supposed ne- 
 cessity for such a concession to established usages, 
 and satisfying himself with the reflection that his time 
 would come by and by. 
 
 It is the business of the mothers to make their sons 
 truthful, as well upon this as upon every other occa- 
 sion in their lives. Perhaps they will argue that 
 young women would be disappointed, that they could 
 not bear the truth. Try them. They have to stand 
 it after marriage, and you have no right to secure to 
 yourself the love of a young girl under false pretences. 
 Besides, if girls are as anxious to marry as they are 
 said to be, they will bear some plain speaking, espe- 
 cially if it saves them much after-disappointment. 
 
 It would astonish a young lady, undoubtedly, to 
 have a young man address her thus: "Miss B., I 
 wish to marry, and prefer you to any other young 
 lady of my acquaintance, for several reasons. One 
 of these is your gentleness and amiability. When I 
 am married, I expect to be master of my own house, 
 and shall not allow any one, not even my wife, to in- 
 terfere with my ideas of right or wrong, my interests 
 or my pleasures ; her business will be to carry out 
 my plans, and see that my will is obeyed. 
 
 " My second reason is, your fine appearance. I 
 think you will do credit to my taste ; but you must
 
 168 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 contrive to gratify my desire for elegance in dress 
 with as little cost as possible. 
 
 "Your social position, and that of your family, is 
 another inducement. At present I occupy a hall 
 bedroom or an attic in an up-town boarding- 
 house. I am tired of it. I wish for a house of my 
 own. I suppose I shall have to sacrifice something 
 playing billiards for instance dropping in, as ofteu 
 as I choose, to places of public amusement going 
 out frequently to oyster suppers ; but I have made up 
 my mind to that, and am willing to marry, provided 
 I can do the thing cheap." 
 
 Girls have been so long used to the hyperbolical 
 style of address, that I am not certain they would take 
 kindly, at first, to this plain truth-telling ; but, if it is 
 truth, it would be only right for them to hear it, and 
 if they choose to accept the situation, let them. They 
 would know exactly what they had to expect, and 
 have no one to reproach afterwards. 
 
 When young men look upon women from a differ- 
 ent stand-point, they will marry from higher motives, 
 and find less difficulty in stating their case truthfully. 
 
 The first thing a young girl has to do, now, after 
 marriage, is to get rid of her illusions. She thought 
 she had a lover who lived only in her smiles, and 
 who would be devoted to her every wish. She finds 
 she has a husband who takes her smiles as a natural 
 right, but considers it his own exclusive business to 
 frown ; who consults her wishes only when they
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. 169 
 
 chime with his own, and gratifies his own when he 
 likes, without any reference to hers. 
 
 If she keeps his house, attends to his wardrobe, 
 bears his children, takes care of them without giving 
 him any trouble, she is considered to have some right 
 to board and lodging, and a trifle for clothes ; but she 
 must not rebel, and she must never hint that this does 
 not satisfy all her longings, all her ambition, all her 
 desires, or she will be set down as unwifely and un- 
 womanly. 
 
 She finds some consolation in the fine conceptions 
 of some writers on maternal duty, and the maternal 
 function. But it is hard to bear these lofty ideas in 
 mind during the commonplace and constantly recur- 
 ring operations of washing dirty faces, picking up 
 dropped playthings, mending torn frocks and pants, 
 and supplying eternal pieces of bread and butter. 
 
 She wonders if she is wicked for wishing to get 
 away, sometimes, from the sight and sound of her 
 own children, and the cares and perplexities of her 
 own house. She wishes she could, just once, read 
 the morning paper in peace, get up from the break- 
 fast table and go down town like her husband, or out 
 into the fresh air and bright sunlight. She feels sure 
 of coming back refreshed and invigorated. 
 
 But she must not let a sign of this weariness 
 escape her ; the same traditions that made the boy 
 tyrannical and impatient of control make the man self- 
 ish and exacting. If he is irritable at home, well
 
 170 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 and good. It must be sot down to the anxieties of 
 business. He has no duties there. It is not his part 
 to assist in making it pleasant. He comes home ex- 
 pecting to find it all serene ; if he is ruffled, he must 
 be smoothed into good humor. He does not want to 
 be bothered with any housekeeping perplexities. Like 
 a tame bear, he is to be patted, and coaxed, and fed 
 with sugar, and quietly allowed to indulge in a growl 
 when he feels like it. 
 
 This is, in too many cases, the husband of the 
 present. The husband of the future will be a great 
 improvement upon him. 
 
 He will marry because he truly loves and respects 
 some woman, believes in her as in the best and 
 purest half of himself, and in marriage, not as a mere 
 question of dollars and cents, but as necessary to the 
 completion of a life. 
 
 The great fault of this age is, that everything is 
 made a mere question of money. How much will it 
 cost ? Will it pay ? This is the standard to which 
 principles and feelings are alike reduced. Yet the 
 money, so thriftily saved, is squandered in the most 
 senseless manner. It brings neither beauty nor de- 
 light to the heart of its possessor. 
 
 The husband of the future will not ask if it costs 
 more to keep two than one. He will consider the 
 wants of his own nature, its craving for companion- 
 ship, its love of beauty and order, its desire to form 
 those tics which, while they break down the walls of
 
 THE FUTURE HUSBAND. Y[\ 
 
 our selfishness, become the sources of oui highest 
 happiness. 
 
 He will not infringe upon the liberty that belongs 
 to his wife, any more than he would that of his neigh- 
 bor. As queen of the household, he will yield her 
 absolute supremacy in that department, subject only 
 to such suggestions from himself as he would receive 
 from her in relation to his own affairs. 
 
 To secure all the good of which the relation is 
 capable, he will be wise in the bestowal of his affec- 
 tion and his trust. He will learn to detect the evi- 
 dences of moral and spiritual loveliness, and place 
 less value upon the merely exterior attractions which 
 can be so well imitated by the chemist or the hair- 
 dresser. 
 
 Actuated by higher motives, he will no longer be 
 afraid of marrying a woman "smarter" than himself, 
 but will consider himself fortunate in having a wife 
 reasonable, intelligent, well informed, one capable of 
 exercising judgment and managing a household, and, 
 if need be, supporting it. 
 
 But, in the future, such women will not be had for 
 the asking ; men must deserve them, and admit their 
 right to a seat upon the matrimonial throne, not a 
 place at its footstool.
 
 172 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 OXE of the saddest aspects of the modern agitation 
 and social warfare which the question of " Woman's 
 Rights," so called, has brought to the surface, lies in 
 the inroads which it js making upon the unity and 
 perpetuity of the family. 
 
 Already the false and sophistical notion of social 
 liberty, of freedom in the relations between man and 
 woman, has gained ground, which threatens disaster, 
 if not destruction, to the social fabric. Women have 
 adopted and publicly proclaimed their belief in this 
 idea, whose lives and characters are beyond reproach, 
 whose motives should be beyond suspicion, whose 
 disinterested services for the material improvement 
 and advancement of their own sex, have heretofore se- 
 cured the gratitude and recognition of all those who 
 were capable of appreciating them. 
 
 It is useless, and unworthy of reflecting men and 
 women, to discuss the subject with a sneer, or lightly 
 attribute wrong motives to the performance of any 
 action. Such treatment docs not meet the exigencies
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. 173 
 
 of the case, or enable us to solve any of its problems. 
 The first essential to overcoming a difficulty is abilitj' 
 to form a fair estimate of it. 
 
 Men always judge women by themselves ; they 
 cannot realize, therefore, that this cry for freedom on 
 the part of women is freedom from men, not freedom 
 with men. 
 
 Women have been, and are, held in subjugation by 
 men, and it is the individual results of this condition 
 which have aggregated themselves into a powerful 
 force, and now demand freedom. The mistake of 
 this demand lies in its opposition to natural law, and 
 therefore its utter impracticability. 
 
 What they should have demanded is Equality 
 with men in all mutual relations. And what they 
 might properly have decreed is Absolute separation 
 from man until that equality was conceded. 
 
 Thousands of women would have flocked to this 
 standard who see only contamination in the other 
 not alone from the construction men put upon it, but 
 because it offers the dignity of a motive to the wicked- 
 ness of both men and women. 
 
 Kevolts are generally unwise, often dangerous, but 
 there is always a reason for them. The difficulty is, 
 that the reason is never acknowledged, or taken into 
 account by the opposing parties. Assertion is met 
 by assertion ; " I won't ! " by " You shall ! " and it 
 finishes up with, " I am the stronger, and I'll make 
 you."
 
 174 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 The power of love to conquer hate, of good to 
 overcome evil, has been preached for eighteen hun- 
 dred years ; but who can think of making a practical 
 application of it ? 
 
 Woman's Rights is a very simple thing, or was in 
 its first inception. It was only the experience of in- 
 dividual sense of injustice, of unused force, of de- 
 spised and neglected capacity, and so far was right- 
 eous and true. The political direction which the 
 question took was due to the controlling influence 
 of politics in this country, and the necessity which 
 seemed to exist for women to share the power, in order 
 to obtain justice and equality. 
 
 The effort will not be successful to the extent, or 
 in the way, that its advocates expect, because it is 
 opposed to the natural order of things, and because 
 the true genius and highest interests of women are 
 not in the exaltation and triumph of material, but of 
 the moral and spiritual forces. 
 
 It is perfectly useless for women to meet and fight 
 battles with men upon their own ground. It must 
 always be at a disadvantage and final loss. What 
 they have to do is, to bring men up to their ground, 
 to win them over by patient effort, and compel them 
 to admit that the co-operation of women is as neces- 
 sary as that of men to the best products of human 
 thought and intelligence. 
 
 This, however, cannot be done all at once ; it is a 
 work of time and growth. Women naturally follow
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. If 5 
 
 the load of men in asserting their claims and in mak- 
 ing their demands, and the most alarming feature of 
 it is, that being met, as it is, and will be, by jeers 
 and opposition, instead of kindness and conciliation, it 
 will provoke a spirit of reckless and desperate deter- 
 mination. Careless of consequences, and willing to 
 overthrow all laws, human and divine, that stand in the 
 way of its imperious will, this result is foreshadowed 
 in the upheavals and commotions which already stir 
 the very foundations of our social and domestic life, 
 in the growing selfishness and indifference to do- 
 mestic ties on the part of men, in the unwillingness 
 to accept the cares and burdens which civilization im- 
 poses on them, on the part of women, in the gradual 
 dying out of the old time courtesy which distinguished 
 men in their relations to women, in the development 
 of a spirit of opposition to and hatred of men among 
 women ; finally, in the tendon cy towards the separa- 
 tion, instead of the unity of individuality in married life. 
 All these evils, and tendencies to evils, men lay 
 upon the shoulders of women. It is your nonsense 
 about freedom and woman's rights, they say, which 
 has made men feel that their honor was no longer 
 safe in the keeping of a wife ; that courtesy and defer- 
 ence were unnecessary towards women who were 
 striving to take the place of men. But we never 
 heard that these same men gave any guarantee to 
 their wives that their honor was safe in their keeping, 
 or that, when they stopped yielding to women the
 
 176 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 kindness and courtesy accorded to their sex, they sub- 
 stituted for it the equal relations which exist between 
 man and man. 
 
 Men cannot so easily get rid of their share of the 
 responsibility. " Woman's Rights " was an effect 
 before it became a cause, and its cause lies away 
 back in man's wickedness and selfishness. The 
 steps taken to cure an evil are simply remedial. 
 They never represent the condition of good which 
 we hope to attain. It is getting to be a question 
 certainly whether remedies are not worse, or do not 
 provoke a condition worse, than the disease itself. 
 But this is not settled as yet, and in the mean time 
 the world is full of doctors and remedies for every 
 disease, mental, moral, and physical, that imperfect 
 flesh is heir to ; and in our modern hurry to set every- 
 thing straight, we not only avoid giving nature any 
 opportunity to effect her own cure, but we seize the 
 sharpest instruments, and to get rid of a sore, cut off 
 a limb and maim the whole body without the smallest 
 compunction ; possibly spend the rest of our lives in 
 defending the act, and urging others to do the same, 
 under like circumstances. 
 
 Individuality and Woman's Rights are instruments 
 and remedies which women have used to bring about 
 results as various as the mental constitution of the 
 persons who employ them ; and the immediate results 
 promise to be as disastrous as the use of violent 
 agencies, by inexperienced practitioners, must be.
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. Iff 
 
 In the absence of willingness to do right, extreme 
 measures sometimes become necessary, however, and 
 the very circumstances which seem most deplora- 
 ble may be the agencies for working out the final 
 good. The necessity of the family is co-operatiou 
 and unity of interests. The tendency of the age is 
 to self-assertion and individuality, and this leads to 
 disruption and anarchy. Where the man is the mo- 
 nopolizer, and representative of the united individ- 
 uality, the household "becomes a despotism, and, al- 
 though it may continue to exist, does so at the ex- 
 pense of the life, the strength, the heart of the wife 
 and mother. 
 
 Capacities of all kinds must be exercised, in or out 
 of marriage, or they die, and their influence is lost to 
 the family and the world. Such waste could never 
 be countenanced by the Almighty ; he is too good 
 an economist for that. 
 
 But if, on the contrary, you put two dominating 
 wills together, each possessed with the idea that their 
 individual feelings, wishes, desires, should be consid- 
 ered paramount to every other interest, and bound to 
 make whatever they have power to control subordi- 
 nate to themselves, the natural result will be the war- 
 fare and the final annihilation of the home and the 
 family, which should have been the object of their 
 coming together. 
 
 In all this I have said no word on the subject of 
 this chapter of the family of the future, which is to 
 12
 
 178 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 spring out, phoenix-like, from the smoke of the present, 
 the ashes of the past. 
 
 How can I speak of that which presupposes the 
 absence of selfishness in an age of selfishness ? 
 which demands sacrifice in an age of appropriation ? 
 which requires unity in an age of individual sov- 
 ereignty ? 
 
 It is not to women, it is to men, that these words 
 ought to be addressed ; for it is in them lies the pow- 
 er to realize this idea, and by doing justly, make the 
 family of the future the family of the present. 
 
 The first essential to growth and happiness in the 
 family is equality in the relations between husband 
 and wife. The family is a composite musical instru- 
 ment ; it has a set of keys upon the outside, and a 
 set of keys upon the inside, both of which require to 
 be played in time and in tune, to produce harmony, 
 and one is as essential as the other. 
 
 This being the case, why should not one be ac- 
 knowledged in the only way in which men recognize 
 value, as well as the other ? That is to say, why 
 does the husband appropriate all the funds of the 
 family, save, invest, speculate, lose or hold, while the 
 wife, performing her full share of the work of the 
 small community, is spoken of as " supported," and 
 lives dependent upon the husband's bounty ? 
 
 When children have grown up, the sous are taken 
 into business by the father, and at once assigned an 
 income of their own, which renders them compara-
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. 179 
 
 tively independent ; the daughters ought naturally to 
 find occupation by assisting their mother in the house- 
 hold, performing in this way with ease and pleasure 
 almost the entire labor, and making the home, whether 
 large or small, truly a home to father and brothers. 
 
 Imagine a family governed by this principle, where 
 each worked for the benefit of all ; where the husband 
 and father, instead of selfishly appropriating every 
 dollar of the income as his by right, leaving his fami- 
 ly to find their sole interest in his death, acknowledges 
 the equal importance of the function of wife and 
 mother, commits to her the care, direction, and guar- 
 dianship of the household, assigns to her the means 
 for its support, and recognizes her right to such a 
 share in the surplus as will place the duty of wife, 
 faithfully performed, on a par with that of the hus- 
 band. 
 
 When the girls are old enough to have some regu- 
 lar share of the household work assigned them, the 
 mother should be able to make them such an allow- 
 ance as would enable them to provide themselves with 
 whatever they need, and this not as a favor or a gra- 
 tuity, but as their right, as remuneration for their 
 labor, as acknowledgment by father and mother of 
 valuable service rendered in the general interest of 
 the family. 
 
 Would not the work of our household be ennobled 
 in this way ? Would it not be savingly, graciously, 
 and healthfully performed ? Would it not redeem our
 
 180 FDR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 girls from the curse of idleness, frivolity, and useless- 
 ness ? Would it not prepare them for the work of 
 building up homes in the future ? Would it not save 
 families from the disintegration and decay which 
 follow our system of foreign service ? Would it not 
 stimulate women to right effort ? Would it not save 
 men from the curse of selfishness and domination ? 
 
 It may be said that money is needed for great en- 
 terprises, and that men must control it in order to be 
 able to undertake these and carry them through suc- 
 cessfully. 
 
 How many enterprises arc "great" out of the 
 millions in which men engage ? How many are worth 
 the sacrifice of their own truth and honor, of the 
 words they have pledged, of the wife they loved, of 
 the children they are responsible for, of their own con- 
 science and convictions of duty? 
 
 But there is no necessity to sacrifice great interests 
 to anything excepting a greater duty. Men rarely 
 live in the railroads of which they arc directors, or in 
 piles of buildings which may be burned down, but 
 they live forever in their children while every act 
 of their lives, every influence which they exert, are 
 so many stones out of which their own monuments 
 are constructed. 
 
 The best men realize that it is not right or good 
 for them to be monopolizers. Some have come to 
 the view of the case which I have endeavored to 
 present, of their own free will. And many others
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. 181 
 
 know it, but the selfish habit of authority and appro- 
 priation is too strong for them ; they cannot give it 
 up, and they content themselves with thinking that 
 they only do as other men do. 
 
 In a pecuniary point of view, men are not aware 
 how much they lose by not yielding to woman her 
 proper position of manager and disburser. Women 
 are natural economists, and always safe business 
 agents they do not take the risks of men, but they 
 rarely lose in a business transaction. Their capacity 
 seems to be especially adapted to taking care of and 
 keeping together that which is provided by the 
 strength and labor of men. I do not believe in hard 
 labor, or double labor, or men's labor, for women. 
 They are not adapted to it ; it destroys them for wo- 
 men, without enabling them to properly represent men. 
 It is bad economy for women to do work which men 
 can accomplish with half the expenditure of time and 
 strength. 
 
 We are probably approaching a curious, and, to 
 many, a dark page in human history ; but out of the 
 darkness light has always arisen, and through expe- 
 rience men and women will grow wise, and learn that 
 first lesson of their childhood, which the oldest man 
 rarely fully knows, that better is he that can sub- 
 due his own selfishness, than he that has strength to 
 take what belongs to others. 
 
 Then, instead of the family resembling a porcupine, 
 with 1's like sharp quills, standing out in every dircc-
 
 182 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 tion, it will correspond to a green and stately tree, 
 whose every branch, and leaf, and twig are fed by the 
 sap which flows in the trunk, and, in return, surrounds 
 and infolds it, giving back beauty, solace, companion- 
 ship, and all that makes life worth the living, for the 
 sustenance received. 
 
 But suppose the trunk should keep the sap in 
 its own possession, giving it out by drops here and 
 there, or keeping it back according to its caprice and 
 inclination ; what kind of tree would be the result ? 
 Only a withered, shapeless, irregular, gnarled, and 
 knotted abortion, fit emblem of the results of human 
 passion, pride, and egotism. 
 
 The kingdom of God is within us. Do we any of 
 us realize the full meaning of these words ? Do we 
 not always feel that we must wait till some time in 
 the future, before we commence doing a good thing ? 
 But why wait a day to realize the dream of the family 
 of the future. 
 
 Let us each who live in the family commence now, 
 by doing our own whole duty, by putting aside self, 
 by influencing others, as far as possible, to do theirs. 
 
 Let the mistress of the house take the reins, and 
 make herself responsible for the comfort and happi- 
 ness of all under the roof. Let the homo be a place 
 of rest from strife and turmoil. 
 
 Let the daughters be educated to be the mother's 
 assistants, as the sons the father's, unless power and 
 inclination urge them to occupy some other field of
 
 THE FAMILY OF THE FUTURE. 183 
 
 usefulness, in which case, fit them for it, as sons are 
 fitted, and do not leave them dependent upon an en- 
 forced marriage for a livelihood. 
 
 Let the family of the future represent in very truth 
 the beginning of the kingdom of God upon earth, 
 where each works for the interest and happiness of 
 all, where love for others, instead of devotion to self, 
 is the motive and inspiration to exertion, and that 
 happiness most prized which grows out of the per- 
 formance of duty.
 
 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MARRIED FOREVER. 
 
 IT is strange how private experience repeats itself 
 in the history of individuals, and how perpetually 
 new it seems, notwithstanding that it is a tale that 
 has been told o'er and o'er again. It is a very large 
 and exceptional nature which can realize another ex- 
 perience than its own, and come into rapport with 
 the causes of things, without having felt or known 
 the effects. 
 
 The relations of the sexes have always been a fruit- 
 ful source of speculation and theory. Apparently 
 productive of much that is evil, necessarily so, so 
 long as human nature is imperfect, the effort has 
 always been to reconcile impossibilities, to harmonize 
 conditions dependent upon human weakness, human 
 frailty, human ideas of responsibility, and adjust the 
 supremacy of the individual to a unitary system (mar- 
 riage), which demands, as its first requisite, the sub- 
 ordination of individual tastes, desires, feelings, and 
 wishes, to the interests and well-being of the family. 
 
 The real difficulty seems to be that the institution 
 of the family is, as yet, altogether beyond our ordi-
 
 MARRIED FOREVER. 185 
 
 nary methods of reasoning and comprehension. It is 
 based on the platform of duty and self-renunciation. 
 Men still cling to self-assertion as their inalienable 
 right, and women have learned the lesson, and are 1 
 clamoring too for separate recognition, and acknowl- 
 edgment for their right to individual life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness. 
 
 I am not certain but that it is these premises that 
 bring our whole social superstructure to the ground. 
 
 I doubt whether men or women have any right to 
 life, or liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, or, in fact, 
 any rights at all. 
 
 I doubt whether liberty is possible, or happiness 
 possible, to the man or woman who pursues it. 
 
 I cannot assert my right to a life which was given 
 me in ignorance of circumstances, without knowledge 
 or consent, and will be taken away again equally 
 without my permission, or designation of time or 
 place. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe was the freest man ever created. 
 
 " He was monarch of all he surveyed : 
 His right there was none to dispute." 
 
 Yet I doubt if a man in his described position would 
 not gladly exchange his liberty for slavery and com- 
 panionship with his fellows. 
 
 The truth at which I am endeavoring to arrive is 
 simply this : that duty is about all that we have to 
 do with in this world, and that if this were done, 
 rights would very readily take care of themselves.
 
 186 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 But when some people do not perform their duty, 
 what is to be done then ? Why, we can at least go 
 on and perform ours. 
 
 Two wrong-s never made a right, and their short 
 comings cannot excuse wrong-doing on our part. 
 
 The moral conflict is occasioned by the substitution 
 of individual rights for individual duties. The asser- 
 tion of rights arras individuals against each other, 
 while the recognition of duties draws them nearer 
 together. 
 
 The individual sovereignty and human rights 
 theory is responsible for all the sophistries of the 
 modern free divorce and anti-marriage speculations, 
 and not only for the misery which these ideas have 
 introduced in our homes, but for the disruption 
 which is threatened to the entire family relation 
 that one divine institution which is stamped with the 
 sign-manual of God himself which no neglect or 
 disregard of its sacred obligations can utterly pervert 
 or destroy which lives consecrated in the hearts of 
 all good men and women, as the highest form of social 
 life which humanity has yet known. 
 
 The breaking up of a single household is always 
 followed by unspeakable misery ; imagine the confu- 
 sion and anarchy consequent upon the general adop- 
 tion of the free platform of the doctrine of individual 
 rights followed out to its legitimate conclusions ! 
 
 The union of the sexes upon some basis or other is 
 natural and inevitable. Marriage is the only one
 
 MARRIED FOREVER. 187 
 
 which wo know of that meets the exigencies of the 
 case, and its honor, its safety, and its happiness are 
 all founded in its permanence, and in the sense of 
 obligation and responsibility which attaches to it. 
 
 Its best test is found in the fact that, if we enter 
 it from selfish and interested motives, with the pur- 
 pose and intention of employing it for the gratifica- 
 tion of our individual plans, whims, caprices, and 
 ambitions, it proves gall and wormwood, defeating its 
 primary object, and working out a retribution on the 
 heads of its desecrators. 
 
 The central idea in marriage is reciprocity, commu- 
 nity of interests, community of labors, community of 
 results. Selfishness, monopoly, and tyranny, on one 
 side or the other, destroy the equilibrium, produce 
 discord in place of harmony, and weaken, if they do 
 not kill, the affection which should bring individuals 
 together, which lifts the relation above those of mere 
 business and social necessity. 
 
 The possibilities of marriage, its perfection where 
 the conditions are in harmony with each other, have 
 never yet been fully realized, and the still greater 
 mistake has been made of supposing that mere change 
 would cure those evils which result from the radical de- 
 fects in individual organization. 
 
 There are, undoubtedly, persons whose influence 
 and atmosphere aggravate and stimulate our natural 
 tendencies to evil, and it is doubly unfortunate if we 
 find ourselves allied to such persons by marriage ; but
 
 188 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 in nineteen cases out of twenty where this occurs, it 
 is our own fault it is because marriage has become 
 with women a profession, a business by which a live- 
 lihood was to be obtained, that any chance is seized 
 which offers itself; and thus great mistakes are made, 
 the consequences of which must be borne. 
 
 But asks the questioner, " Are the consequences 
 of such a mistake to be borne forever ? " 
 
 There is no help for it ; the consequences of a mis- 
 take must be borne, as long as they last, by some one 
 or other ; and it is sufficient evidence of the falsity of 
 the individual rights doctrine, that we are so depend- 
 ent upon each other, our interests are so closely inter- 
 woven with those of others, that the consequences of 
 our mistakes cannot be confined to ourselves, but 
 must be borne by others, and that this enlargement of 
 their responsibility is generally in proportion to the 
 strength of their sympathy and the greatness of their 
 humanity. 
 
 If the sole object of marriage was increase of per- 
 sonal pleasure and enjoyment, and if this could be 
 best secured by personal indulgence and disregard of 
 the wants and wishes of others, then there would bo 
 some excuse for the instaut separation of married per- 
 sons, when living together seemed no longer condu- 
 cive to mutual happiness. 
 
 But marriage was not instituted for the benefit of 
 individuals alone. Its great object was to found the 
 family, and the moment its obligations arc assumed
 
 MARRIED FOREVER. 189 
 
 its duties commence, and thereafter ought to control 
 or influence every important act of our lives. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of realizing a greater sense of 
 personal freedom, we find ourselves environed by im- 
 perative circumstances. We have set sail on an un- 
 tried sea, where we must remain, because we cannot 
 return as we went away : the places that knew us 
 would know us no more, and whatever the position, 
 the best must be made of it. 
 
 Ordinarily, the difficulties are such as are easily 
 surmounted ; and, in most cases, the hap'piness that 
 springs from society and companionship, united to 
 wedded love, more than compensates for the restric- 
 tions and responsibilities which new relations impose. 
 
 Very rarely is the difficulty of living together so 
 great as the evils and wrong of separation ; but if 
 this should be if the burden became intolerable, 
 and too heavy to be borne, and separation the great- 
 est good to the greatest number it should take 
 place quietly and with dignity, so that self-respect 
 may be at least preserved, and the evil effects re- 
 stricted to as small a circle as possible. 
 
 The fault of the free divorce system is this : that 
 it would involve thousands and tens of thousands in 
 all the evils of separation, without adequate cause. 
 
 There are times in the lives of nearly all married 
 people, when, from one cause or other, they feel that 
 marriage has been a mistake for them, and that it 
 would be better to live apart. This state of feeling
 
 190 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 is not always produced by a great and irretrievable 
 error ou the part of either, but by a number of small 
 causes, something like the accumulation of rubbish 
 after years of housekeeping. Breaches of this de- 
 scription, heightened and widened by injudicious 
 friends, or even by very kind and sympathizing 
 friends, often lead to the disruption and breaking up 
 of families, where time and a sober second thought 
 would have healed the wound and reconciled the dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 Few people can live together for any length of time 
 without disagreements arising between them ; often 
 they are small, and proceed from trivial causes the 
 natural results of difference in habit, education, modes 
 of thinking, mental or physical constitution, and the 
 like ; but for the time being they seem terrible ; the 
 death-blow has apparently been struck at all hopes of 
 earthly happiness, and the wife or husband, perhaps 
 both, think with dread of the future, and ask them- 
 selves, Is this to go on forever ? 
 
 I have frequently wondered that more separations 
 did not take place during the early years of married 
 life that unripe period when the sky seems falling 
 every time the wind blows and I think it says a 
 good deal for the common sense of both men and wo- 
 men that they generally manage to live over that try- 
 ing time, and emerge from it with truer aflectiou for 
 and stronger faith in each other. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of a quiet and peaceful
 
 MARRIED FOREVER. 191 
 
 (which does not always mean happy or prosperous) 
 married life have been greatly enhanced by the re- 
 cent " Woman's Movement." Women formerly ac- 
 cepted the situation as something foreordained, and 
 which could not be helped or remedied ; but the mod- 
 ern theory of individual rights demands that a woman 
 shall be free to live her life as well as a man his, and 
 that their separate individualities are superior to, in- 
 stead of subordinated by, the duties and claims of the 
 family. 
 
 The " Woman's Movements " are good as weapons, 
 but they belong to a state of warfare. They are the 
 outgrowth of the appropriative, masterful, and tyranni- 
 cal spirit of men, and they will continue until justice, 
 or at least partial justice, has been done. 
 
 I have little faith in the moral power of women ef- 
 fecting any beneficent change through the suffrage, 
 when they obtain a vote ; because, in the exercise of 
 the ballot, intelligence counts for nothing. It is an 
 instrument more powerful in the hands of the ignorant 
 and prejudiced mass than in the hands of the edu- 
 cated, thoughtful, and tolerant few. 
 
 But the effort to obtain it, to lift themselves to 
 a higher place, to take a part in the public inter- 
 ests and activities of life, will educate and ennoble 
 women ; while experience will show them, as it has 
 already demonstrated to thoughtful men, that public 
 opinion is more powerful than the ballot, and that the 
 evidence of power shown in the demand for it and for
 
 192 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 larger opportunities aud fields of usefulness will do 
 for them what could never be achieved by the exten- 
 sion of suffrage to every woman as well as every man. 
 
 Marriage in the future may be less universal, but it 
 will be more perfect than it is now, because it will be 
 entered into by both parties from the highest motives 
 of duty and affection. 
 
 Men and women who wish to " live their own 
 lives/' as the phrase is, will not marry, or will con- 
 sent to that partial union which admits of individual 
 freedom. 
 
 The doctrine of indissolubility in marriage would 
 be better than the doctrine of free divorce, for it would 
 put the idea of duty and obligation in place of selfish- 
 ness and the indulgence of caprice and inclination. 
 Duty is the noblest kind of inspiration. It is that 
 consent of our reason and judgment to our acts which 
 separates us from animal life, governed only by its 
 lawless instincts.
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 
 
 THERE is an odor of respectability, which is almost 
 sanctity, about the simplest custom which has long- 
 continued practice to aid in backing up its other pre- 
 tensions. Women, especially, are impressed with 
 reverence for that which bears the mark of antiquity, 
 or can bring an array of accepted authorities to en- 
 force its claims to their respect and consideration. 
 
 Their teaching, from the cradle, encourages this 
 blind submission to authority. Men claim the right 
 of independent thought and free action for them- 
 selves, but consider it necessary to lay down strict 
 rules for the guidance of women ; and, as the in-door 
 life of women is dependent on the out-door life of 
 men holds, in fact, the subjective relation to his 
 objective position men have been able to have it 
 pretty much all their own way. 
 
 Moreover, there is a strong element of the poeti- 
 cal, the graceful, and the picturesque in the tradi- 
 tional, which appeals at once to the sentiment of a 
 woman's nature, which may have had small other 
 means of gratification. The love, the tenderness, 
 13
 
 194 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 which we cherish for old habits and old customs con- 
 stitute the ivy and the moss which grow and cling 
 around the remembrances of the past ; and when to 
 this is added the fact that these ancient landmarks 
 give much of the color to existence, otherwise con- 
 demned to weariness and monotony, it is no wonder 
 that they are highly and somewhat unduly valued. 
 
 What a perpetual fragrance, for example, hangs 
 about the word Home! American men and women 
 are never tired of talking and writing about it ; yet there 
 never was a people, except the French, who cared so 
 little for the seclusion and privacy of home, or so nat- 
 urally herd together in big hotels or boardingThouses. 
 The one thought of the occupants of " cosy nooks," 
 and " country cottages/' and " comfortable " farm- 
 houses, from Maine to Georgia, is, how to get away 
 from them. There may be exceptions ; but if there 
 are, they are to be found principally among those who 
 have exhausted activity, and arrived at that point 
 where nothing seems so good as rest. 
 
 Everybody loves and cherishes the thought of home ; 
 but it is as an ideal conception, rather than a real pos- 
 session. They theorize upon it, expend money upon 
 it ; but, after aft, they do not get out of it what they 
 expected, and they generally end by getting. away 
 from it as far as possible. 
 
 The glowing articles about the delights of home 
 and of one's own fireside which appear in newspapers, 
 are generally written by Bohemian men and wandering
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 195 
 
 women, who occupy very small and dismal rooms in 
 boarding-houses, and who, while they sometimes ex- 
 perience a longing- for the homes they describe, really 
 enjoy their nomadic life, and would not exchange it 
 for the routine of family existence for any considera- 
 tion whatever. 
 
 Men have a general idea that a " home " is a good 
 thing to have, a safe place for women and children, a 
 respectable place to eat and sleep in, a handy place 
 to take a friend to dine, and the best evidence of so- 
 lidity of position ; but as to living there that is 
 quite another question. Men living in the country 
 sometimes, I suppose, stay home in the evening, when 
 an insuperable obstacle presents itself between them 
 and their point of attraction ; but 110 storm ever 
 raged that could prevent a resident of a city from 
 taking his hat and his night-key as soon as the des- 
 sert left the dinner-table, and the baby exhibited the 
 usual signs of fatigue and weariness. 
 
 There are reasons, however, why homes, even such 
 as we have, should be more attractive to men than to 
 women. In them men exercise the authority which, 
 outside, is disputed at every step by some other man. 
 Moreover, they afford the change and relaxation 
 which women only get when they leave their homes 
 and go elsewhere. 
 
 Men are received at home as guests. The hearth 
 is swept for them, the fire brightened, the table set, 
 discords and difficulties that have jarred and marred
 
 196 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 the day arc put out of sight, or only recalled as sub- 
 jects for jest, and the entire social atmosphere is at- 
 tuned to pleasure and enjoyment. This is not the 
 case with women. Home is the scene of their daily 
 routine of care and duty. They are wearied out with 
 the incessant demands of Jenny, and Johnny, and 
 Lucy, and Tommy, with the baby to bring up the 
 rear. They cannot realize the aesthetic charm of a 
 home whose details of washing, ironing, sweeping, 
 scrubbing, cooking, mending, and a thousand more, 
 absorb their whole time and strength, and return day 
 by day in an incessant, treadmill round, which rasps 
 the nerves of an excitable, active, imaginative wo- 
 man, and sets her almost crazy. 
 
 It is of no use to assert that such a state of mind 
 is wicked, and these duties the special business of 
 women. The fact is, simply, that it exists. There 
 are women, good women, faithful wives and conscien- 
 tious mothers, who, at times, are wrought up to a 
 pitch almost of insanity by the wearing and eternal 
 recurrence of petty cares and duties ; and this condi- 
 tion not only prevents them from realizing the ab- 
 stract ideal of home, as it exists in pen and pencil 
 pictures, but it destroys much of their own power of 
 creating such a home. 
 
 Undoubtedly there are women, spite of tradition to 
 the contrary, who never should do it women who 
 should never have been forced to accept a life en- 
 tirely repulsive to them, wh"cn thoir whole natures de- 
 manded a different field for development and action.
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 197 
 
 I have known a woman fitted to lead in society, 
 brilliant, impassioned, original, who, condemned to a 
 hard and narrow life as the wife of a small, uneducat- 
 ed farmer, lived ten years, and finally died in an in- 
 sane asylum. 
 
 I have known another, a teacher of refinement and 
 culture, who, after having been sought for years by a 
 man of small capacity and limited education, finally 
 married him. A few years of most unhappy married 
 life, which changed her from a bright, intelligent girl 
 into a dark, sad, silent woman, terminated in the de- 
 parture of her husband to the seat of the late war. 
 He returned at its close, but died shortly after from 
 the effects of his excesses. Fortunately she was still 
 young enough to partly retrieve herself. She went 
 back to her old occupation, and is now the head of a 
 thriving educational institution. 
 
 I have heard a woman, the mother of several chil- 
 dren, say, " I cannot help it it has always been 
 the hardest and most trying work of my life to do 
 housework and take care of children. I am a natural 
 vagabond. I hate living in a house to which one is 
 tied by the necessity of keeping it and taking care of 
 it. Wherever I go I carry my house and my children 
 on my shoulders. I never was so happy as when I 
 was first married, and we lived, Bohemian fashion, in 
 two rooms, and took our dinners at a restaurant." 
 
 In the country, people cling with much greater 
 tenacity to customs and traditions than in large cities.
 
 198 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 In cities, people become more cosmopolitan, act with 
 greater freedom, and follow out their own ideas of 
 work and living with less regard to the strictures of 
 Mrs. Grundy. 
 
 This is one of the charms and one of the advantages 
 of city life. 
 
 Somebody says, " 0, the misery of waking in the 
 morning, and knowing that you have entered upon a 
 day which, in all probability, will be exactly like its 
 predecessor, and equally like its successor ! " 
 
 It is this fearful sameness which renders the home 
 life of women so dreadfully stagnating ; it is the habit 
 of treading in a rut until it seems a crime to leave it, 
 though to stay in it were to die in it. 
 
 Women are martyred to traditions of all kinds. 
 Some are obliged to make mince pies or plum pud- 
 dings just so many times in the year, because their 
 husbands' mothers did the same. Some may never 
 indulge their taste in the arrangement of their own 
 window curtains, because it is opposed to popular, or 
 family custom. 
 
 In no other respects are women, especially women 
 living in the country, more slaves to habit and tra- 
 dition than in regard to eating and sleeping. If there 
 is little or nothing to do as is very often the case 
 in winter, among farmers, for example the whole 
 family must rise in the darkness and misery of bitter 
 cold mornings, eat their breakfast by lamplight, and 
 be ready for the hearty family dinner at twelve
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 199 
 
 o'clock. Throughout the day there is little work for 
 any member of the family except the mother. Her 
 work goes on because there is as much eating done as 
 ever, and, worn out, partly with labor, partly with 
 tke want of it, they all retire to rest at nine o'clock, 
 just as the house begins to feel warm and comfortable, 
 and the opportunity for social intercourse should put 
 them in the mood for enjoyment. 
 
 The only way to make living tolerable in our 
 northern climate in winter is, to make our days short 
 and our evenings long. It is always early enough to 
 rise with the sun ; it is always better to allow a short 
 iime to intervene before taking a hearty breakfast ; 
 two meals, instead of three, are sufficient in the short 
 days, and not only save a vast amount of labor, but 
 afford a break to that inflexibility of routine, which, 
 persevered in against all material and immaterial ob- 
 stacles, in time crushes the life out of soul and body. 
 
 The traditions that bind the women of to-day to so 
 many of the customs of the past also make the home 
 dependent on the man, and, therefore, an autocrat in 
 it. This is wrong. The home should be created by 
 the woman, out of means provided by the" man. It is 
 her world, her domain. She has to bear and rear the 
 children who are born in it. She has, in fact, to do 
 the work of it ; and her machinery, her implements, 
 and her materials of every description should be, as 
 far as possible, of her own choosing. 
 
 What would a man think of a woman who should
 
 200 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 insist upon building his shop, selecting and limiting 
 the number of his tools, declaring whether or not he 
 should have any workmen, and then reproach him 
 with the poverty of his achievements ? 
 
 Here is a proper and legitimate field for women, 
 which, as yet, has never been worked by them to any 
 profitable results. Women ought to be the architects 
 and designers of all dwelling-houses, as they alone 
 know exactly what is necessary for the comfort and 
 convenience of a family. Men never can realize the 
 necessity for closets, or the immense advantage of 
 having the repositories of household materials and 
 agents, required every minute during the day, so 
 conveniently located as to save time and steps. 
 
 All women have realized the want of practical 
 knowledge displayed by architects . and builders of 
 dwelling-houses of the needs and necessities of family 
 life. Sometimes it is the want of doors or windows 
 in the right place for convenience and ventilation ; 
 sometimes it is small, badly placed chimneys ; some- 
 times a room rendered poor and common by two nar- 
 row, contracted windows, placed close together, like 
 some people's eyes, which only required one wide, 
 handsome one, or a small " bay," to have achieved 
 beauty and a certain distinction. 
 
 But it is, pre-eminently, convenient and ample closet- 
 room in which all but the very costliest of modern 
 houses fail. Men ordinary men never can see 
 why everything and everybody cannot be hung up on
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 201 
 
 three pegs in the hall, and the entire kitchen depart- 
 ment carried on with the help of a gridiron. 
 
 Women ought .also to be the real estate agents, 
 especially so far as the letting of houses is concerned. 
 Men notice the generally fine or otherwise ap- 
 pearance of the exterior and interior of a dwelling ; 
 but it is quite impossible for them to judge properly 
 of the details, which have reference to housekeeping 
 and the conveniences for doing work. 
 
 All the traditions are alike in compelling women to 
 accept the situation, whatever it may be, and then 
 fastening upon them the blame of not being able to 
 meet its exigencies or requirements. % 
 
 One of the traditions of the home with men is, that 
 it is not an arena of action, but a place of rest. To 
 them it is so ; and, therefore, they do not realize, and 
 place no money value upon, the work performed there. 
 
 Said a gentleman, once, as he watched the oper- 
 ation of clearing a tea table, " I never realized before 
 the number of steps that must be taken and the amount 
 of work required for so simple an act of household 
 necessity." And then to think that, for this simple 
 "tea," the table had to be set as well as cleared, 
 butter made, bread baked, fruit picked and preserved, 
 cake made, a table-cloth and napkins hemmed, silver 
 polished, rooms swept and garnished, and the same 
 repeated in a never-ending circle in every house, in 
 every family, all over the world modified by the 
 different degrees of civilization for every meal, for 
 every day in every year;
 
 202 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 I think if all the tending of children, washing of 
 clothing, and making of clothing could be taken into 
 account, it would be found that women performed 
 twice the amount of physical labor performed by 
 men. 
 
 How do men amass money ? In nine cases out of 
 ten, by the labor of women. There are hundreds of 
 little fancy stores in New York city kept by German 
 Jews. Said one of them the other day, in answer to 
 a question, " 0, yes ; I get on very well now. I 
 get married, and then I begin to make money." 
 
 The way he did it was by employing his wife as an 
 assistant as well as maid of all work. In one person, 
 therefore, he had three invaluable coadjutors ; an honest 
 clerk, a trusty housekeeper, a never-tiring servant 
 three in one, bound for life, for the trifle of ribbon 
 and pin-money he was minded to bestow. 
 
 But it is not mere physical labor alone that has a 
 money value. If husbands require establishments to 
 be kept up, and their wives to sustain a certain social 
 position, this also should be recognized as work ; cer- 
 tainly it is quite as much so as filling public offices, 
 and often requires an immense sacrifice of inclination 
 and personal feeling. 
 
 The traditional idea, that one is rich because one is 
 in possession of money, is quickly exploded when one 
 is able to test it especially if the money is held in 
 trust for definite purposes, and is felt to belong to 
 some one else.
 
 HOUSEHOLD TRADITIONS. 203 
 
 Everybody has heard of the country cousin who 
 came to New York to see a rich relative, and went 
 back disgusted, with the news that "Tom" was 
 " keeping a nigger boarding-house in Fifth Avenue." 
 
 That is pretty much what very rich people do 
 keep boarding-houses for the poor, under the name of 
 servants ; and a very unpleasant task it is. 
 
 In this way, as we grow older, our illusions disap- 
 pear, and our cherished traditions are found to be the 
 facts of the past, seen through the mirage of enchant- 
 ment which distance lends to them. Let us be our- 
 selves, and act from within ourselves, and enslave 
 ourselves neither to the traditions of the past nor the 
 speculations concerning the future ; but, in our own 
 homS, wherever our influence can be felt, bear our 
 testimony in favor of what is best and truest for men 
 and women, in the family, in the church, in the private 
 or public arena, without fear and without distrust.
 
 204 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 
 
 A WEDDING took place the other evening not the 
 only one on that particular evening, by any means, 
 and not especially differing from half a dozen others, 
 except that possibly more guests were invited, and 
 the auspices under which the young couple started in 
 life were unusually bright and promising. 
 
 The wedding was, as prosperous city weddings are, 
 very gay. Seamstresses and dress-makers had been 
 busy for weeks beforehand. What the bride would 
 have, and what the bride would wear, had been the 
 subject of discussion during morning calls, and the 
 social evening chit-chat of fifty different parlors and 
 sitting-rooms. 
 
 And now the great day had arrived. The six 
 bridesmaids were all ready ; the lockets, inscribed with 
 the monogram of the bride and the bridegroom, had 
 been duly presented ; the bridal dress, of white satin 
 and lace, was spread out ; bouquets from the bride- 
 groom stood in crystal vases ; some of the waiters,
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 205 
 
 who were to make the preliminary arrangements for 
 the grand supper from a fashionable restaurateur's, 
 had commenced operations ; everything was in readi- 
 ness for an entertainment, which would properly sig- 
 nalize the joyous event. 
 
 But where was the bride the girl about to leave 
 her father's roof, her mother's side, for the first time, 
 and the object of all this care, solicitude, and prepa- 
 ration ? 
 
 Why, she was on her knees not praying, but 
 superintending the packing of two enormous trunks, 
 crying and laughing between times, and begging "ma" 
 to see that her travelling dress was laid ready, and 
 that her hat was laid with her dress, and her gloves 
 with her hat, and that nothing was forgotten. 
 
 And " ma," the tears blinding her eyes for even 
 city life does not destroy all natural feeling hurried 
 from one thing to another, putting the wrong articles 
 in the trunks, mislaying others, wondering if the new 
 guardian of her child's happiness would be always 
 tender and good to her, and wishing, 0, so earnestly ! 
 that she could have her just a little while longer, and 
 see her safely tided over the first few weeks of her 
 new and strange existence. 
 
 But it cannot be, and no one realizes this more 
 strongly than the poor mother herself. She would be 
 shocked at the idea of her daughter not complying 
 with established usages, doing anything out of the 
 common way, and the proper " thing," as everybody
 
 206 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 knows, is for a newly-married couple to leave their 
 friends immediately after the ceremony, and hurry on 
 board a steamboat or railroad car, and there enjoy the 
 pleasure of publicity, and the delight of being pointed 
 out as the " newly-married couple," or the " bride 
 and bridegroom." 
 
 Of course, on the occasion referred to, the fashion- 
 able order of things was not departed from. The 
 wedding ceremony took place at seven o'clock in the 
 evening, and at half past ten, after a hurried change 
 of dress, the bride left her mother, her comfortable 
 home, her troops of friends, for a dingy railroad car ; 
 there to suffer all the inevitable annoyances of a rail- 
 road trip, under the most trying and embarrassing 
 circumstances. 
 
 What greater absurdity could fashion or custom en- 
 join upon us than this ? What greater indecency 
 than to remove a young girl from the seclusion of her 
 home, the guardianship of her parents, at the very 
 time that she needs both most, and make her, in pub- 
 lic places, the object of vulgar curiosity and ribald jest ? 
 
 The first experiences of married life are not apt, by 
 any means, to be so blissful as many people, and es- 
 pecially young people, imagine. To the young wife, 
 especially, it is all new, and strange, and untried. Her 
 husband, heretofore, has been only the most devoted 
 lover, but secretly, perhaps, he has determined "that 
 this sort of thing " cannot last forever ; and though 
 he may be willing, in his own phraseology, to " lut
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 207 
 
 her down easy," he still exhibits enough of conscious- 
 ness of change in their relative positions to strike her 
 with surprise and amazement, and questions if this is 
 the man who had professed himself willing to. die for 
 her, and for whom she had given up home, friends, 
 youthful pleasures, and the admiration of others, 
 possibly, as worthy of regard as himself. 
 
 This awakening does not come all at once, but by 
 degrees, and the wise mother, having- her daughter 
 with her for the first few weeks after her marriage, 
 would prepare her mind for it. 
 
 Using her utmost endeavors to make the entrance 
 to married life as pleasant and cloudless as possible, 
 she would at the same time prepare her for the 
 chances and changes sure to come. 
 
 She would show that wedded life,, for a woman, 
 is necessarily a state of subjection ; that after the fete 
 is once over there is little of holiday to be expected, 
 and that if she would enjoy the state the happiness 
 of a conjugal union she must be prepared to accept 
 its burden and responsibilities. 
 
 Driven off with precipitate haste from the parental 
 roof, arid thrown at once into the midst of new and 
 exciting circumstances, the young girl has no oppor- 
 tunity to analyze her own feelings, or judge calmly 
 of the new duties which await her. 
 
 For a time she has been the centre of attraction, 
 and the gratification of her vanity has counterbal- 
 anced, to some extent, the shock to her feelings and
 
 208 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 modesty. She is now to settle down to the position 
 of a wife, and, pleasant though that may be, it is difl'er- 
 eiit from that of an admired bride ; and the publicity, 
 constant attendance, and adulation she has received 
 have not been the best preparation for it. 
 
 Moreover, she has still to learn that men are not 
 all alike, some of them not at all alike, and that her 
 husband may be the farthest removed, by habit or 
 early training, or want of training, from the father or 
 brother upon whom she has been accustomed to pin 
 her faith, and who represent all her domestic ideas of 
 perfection. 
 
 And this knowledge, first reaching her, comes with 
 a sort of shock ; she sees it in the breaking up of her 
 illusions, for she has not yet learned that human 
 nature is made up of man}' different qualities, and 
 that, while few possess all the good, none possess all 
 the bad ; and that some men come out strong in one 
 direction and some in another. 
 
 " My dear," said a wise woman, one day, to a 
 young wife, " take your husband for what he is, and 
 make the best of him, and don't expect him to be 
 either your father, your brother, or your cousin. Per- 
 haps, if the wives of these gentlemen were to relate 
 some things from their stand-point, you might not 
 consider them much more enviable than yourself, after 
 all. If one man is not so demonstrative, he may be 
 more patient than another, and if more irascible, more 
 generous and willing to forgive."
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 09 
 
 Such thoughts and ideas, as influencing a young 
 wife's happiness, may be supposed to be mere fancies ; 
 but it is not so. With the mass of women, with the 
 life of girlhood, the life of excitement and holiday ac- 
 tivity ceases, and a new interior and emotional life 
 commences. 
 
 American men, as a general rule, are immersed in 
 business ; and American wives are often solitary, and 
 spend much of their time alone. 
 
 It is true that they make an effort, at first, to keep 
 up their old acquaintances, and call, and visit, and 
 dress as usual. But, somehow, it is not the same 
 thing. Their young friends begin by looking a little 
 askance at them, and finally leave them out of their 
 calculations and invitations altogether. 
 
 Then, although husband and wife are nominally one, 
 they make two on cards for a party, and feel that 
 they can only accept such social obligations as they 
 can in some measure reciprocate a difficult task 
 when the income is limited, and friends numerous and 
 " well to do." 
 
 And so it happens that .thousands of gay girls, 
 belles in their own small circle, and the central figures 
 of brilliant modern bridals, drop, after a year or two, 
 out of society ; and if we could follow them to their 
 homes, we should find three fourths of them lonely 
 women, settling down, more or less submissively, to 
 a life within four walls, and dwelling morbidly on 
 looks and words, and tones and gestures, to which 
 14
 
 210 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 their active, out-door husbands attach no meaning, and 
 in the suffering from which they cannot sympathize. 
 
 Girls enter matrimony blindfolded. They imagine 
 that it is to give them freedom, state, protection, sup- 
 port, and the eclat of established social position. 
 
 In the bridal ceremony they see only the white 
 satin, the jewels, the congratulations, the triumph 
 over girlish friends, the pleasures of a bridal trip, and 
 unlimited supplies of flowers and confectionery for an 
 endless future. 
 
 How quickly the spirit of their illusive dreams 
 would change if they could catch" a glimpse of the 
 grinning skeleton which not unfrequently presides 
 over the marriage feast. If they could look into that 
 future, which now seems so bright, and see the soli- 
 tary woman, the unloved woman, the neglected 
 woman, the woman absorbed by cares, and out of 
 whose life has dropped, little by little, all of the 
 beauty and sunshine of which it once seemed to be 
 BO full ! 
 
 It is undoubtedly difficult for a bride to realize 
 such a fate as in store for her. Whatever happens to 
 the rest of man and woman kind, he and she arc bound 
 to prove exceptions. 
 
 Still a course of preliminary tutelage could hardly 
 fail to impress her mind with certain possibilities, and 
 if she could once see in marriage only one form of 
 work, duty, responsibility, a state whose privileges, 
 such as they are, are certainly counterbalanced by HH
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 211 
 
 distinctive disabilities, nine out of ten would hesitate 
 and reflect whether it might not be as well to retain 
 the home and friends by whom they were already 
 surrounded ; whether, by their own exertions in some 
 other way, position might not be achieved, and inde- 
 pendence at the same time maintained. 
 
 I knew two women, one now the principal of a 
 thriving young ladies' seminary, the other a physician 
 in successful practice, who both deliberately declined 
 several offers which most young ladies would have 
 jumped at as " splendid," because they preferred to 
 work their own way and enjoy the results of their 
 own achievements untrammelled. 
 
 I know another woman, luxuriously brought up, 
 ardent, ambitious, who followed the natural course of 
 events, and married. It was a love-match, and her 
 life was to be very exceptionable. Her husband was 
 a man of great refinement. Both possessed artistic 
 tastes, and both were to be free to follow them, .with- 
 out any reference to the grosser domestic necessities. 
 
 But, alas ! though no violent transitions occurred, 
 matrimonial destiny proved too much for the wisest 
 calculation. Men are not obliged to stay at home to 
 look after the housekeeping, to see that the children 
 are cared for, to cook the dinner if Bridget goes off in 
 a huff, to mend the stockings, to cut out, and possibly 
 make, juvenile aprons and night-gowns ; but some- 
 body must do it, and generally it is the wife. 
 
 It was so in this instance. Conscientiousness and
 
 212 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 a sense of duty triumphed over disinclination ; but it 
 changed the brilliant girl into the sad, reserved 
 woman, whose life, uriassailcd by want or any of the 
 more obvious forms of suffering, was swallowed up in 
 a round of petty cares, which were inconceivably try- 
 ing to her high, refined spirit. 
 
 Her husband was too sensitive, and a man of too 
 much culture, to be a mere money-getter ; so their 
 income did not increase with the enlargement of the 
 family and the necessities of the times ; and from their 
 city home they were obliged to betake themselves to 
 the suburbs, where all the interests of life arc swal- 
 lowed up in a great, utter loneliness, or become cen- 
 tred in the hundred small aggravations, discomforts, 
 and annoyances of suburban existence. 
 
 Only those who have had the experience will ever 
 know how much women of active habits and brains 
 suffer in the effort to be conscientious wives and 
 mothers ; and the worst of it is, that they must 
 neither expect credit nor sympathy. A woman pos- 
 sessed of a husband who does not beat her, and four, 
 five, or six, more or less, healthy children, is con- 
 sidered to be, and it is thought ought to consider 
 herself, a very happy and enviable person. 
 
 And so she may be ; but she must have brought 
 courage, and patience, and willingness, and faithful- 
 ness, and self-denial, and long-suffering to the task 
 before she became so ; and girls ought to know, by 
 plain, serious, truthful teaching, what, as women, 
 they have to expect.
 
 MODERN BRIDALS. 213 
 
 The bridal, upon which so much of happiness or 
 misery depends, should be a religious ceremony and 
 consecration, not a mere fete. It should be the solemn 
 taking upon themselves the burdens, the pains, the 
 trials, as well as the joys of womanhood. It should 
 be for women, at least, an act of self-renunciation, 
 and a cause for humiliation, rather than triumph. 
 
 The hour of her triumph may come, but it will be 
 that of her death, not of her bridal ; it will be when, 
 having conquered whatever is unworthy, sunk the 
 belle, the pet, the beauty, the ambitious dreamer, in 
 the exemplary wife and mother, she finds herself 
 lifted into the beatitudes, and the reward of good and 
 faithful service conferred upon her. 
 
 These facts should be at least dimly shadowed forth 
 in bridal ceremonies and observances ; tears should 
 have a place as well as smiles, and the young wife 
 should be launched out upon the troubled sea of life 
 from her father's roof, with her mother's prayers and 
 the blessings of friends to shield her, rather than made 
 the subject of vulgar display, and the public buffoon- 
 ery of steamboats and railroad cars.
 
 214 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. 
 
 GIRLS are said to be very "knowing" nowadays, 
 and, in a certain sense, they are so, exhibiting espe- 
 cially the citj r -educated ones a preternatural acute- 
 ness and worldly wisdom far beyond their years, or 
 the ordinary results of their experience. They are 
 perfectly acquainted with the exigencies and necessi- 
 ties of modern life, know the exact length of a fash- 
 ionable trail, all the mysteries and intricacies of a 
 "lovely" complexion and "stylish" get up, and 
 are too practical for either sentiment or affection, 
 which would be likely to interfere with their settled 
 purpose, to avoid " drudgery " and cultivate the lux- 
 ury of selfishness. 
 
 This sort of knowledge is quite compatible with the 
 grossest ignorance of themselves ; in fact, it is a ne- 
 cessary corollary of it. A girl well taught would 
 understand the consequences of her acts too well to 
 allow her indolence to become the measure of her ca- 
 pacity. She would have learned that the quality and 
 action of the blood arc more important to the complex-
 
 THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. 215 
 
 ion than powder ; that the dress is of less consequence 
 than the body that it covers ; that use perfects 
 beauty ; and that, in fine, we cannot lay the burden 
 of our being, and the responsibility of our doing, on 
 any other person, without suffering the penalty. 
 
 That ignorance is punished as a fault is no new law 
 in science or ethics ; and whose the fault of this great 
 sin of ignorance can hardly be determined. Plainly, 
 in this case, it is the fault of mothers, say some ; but 
 how can the mother teach that which she does not 
 know which neither the education of the home nor 
 the schools ever taught her ? 
 
 A certain kind of knowledge has come to her with 
 experience, but it is fragmentary and uncertain, and 
 she doubts the wisdom of imparting it. The world is 
 apparently full of worldly maxims and exhibitions of 
 individual selfishness ; and isolated from the underly- 
 ing currents of broader thought, shut up within her 
 circle, she begins to doubt the very existence of truth, 
 or the possibility of a simpler, purer, nobler life. 
 
 Existence, so far as she sees it, is a mere struggle 
 for supremacy, a conflict of opposing forces. How 
 can she set the little strength left after daily battle 
 against the habits, influences, and prejudices of those 
 who surround her ? 
 
 Suppose she wishes her daughters to be simple, 
 honest, truthful women, how are they to compete in 
 personal appearance with girls who wear sixty dol- 
 lars' worth of false hair, who use the " Bloom of
 
 216 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Youth" and " Oriental Cream " to disguise their sal- 
 lowness, who fill out their thin, undeveloped bodies 
 with padding, and create false standards of beauty 
 and grace, which men accept and believe in as the 
 genuine article ? 
 
 She feels instinctively that the higher aim is the 
 better aim ; but is it not beyond the world she lives ? 
 "Would it not be isolating her children from the sweet 
 possibilities of human affections and human interests 
 to give them a higher purpose, a different object in 
 life, than their friends and associates ? 
 
 How the sense of duty struggles in some poor 
 mothers with their doubts and keen desire for their 
 daughters' happiness God alone can understand ; 
 and rarely is there any human agency through which 
 they can find help in the solution of their difficulties. 
 The church has its dogmas to sustain, the mission and 
 sewing societies prayer-books and pocket-handker- 
 chiefs to provide for the heathen ; but the anxious 
 heart and soul of the mother must fight its battles 
 with the strong forces of the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil unheeded, and it is not surprising when the 
 courage is wanting to either court or sustain the 
 conflict. 
 
 The consequence is, that the girl is allowed to drift 
 into all the falsities of common life, and to remain ig- 
 norant of the most vital truths connected with her 
 future existence. She knows no more of her own 
 body, of the nature of its machinery, of its capacity,
 
 THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. 217 
 
 of its purpose, of its needs, of its dangers, or of the 
 possible results of her follies, than a child five years 
 old. If she has beauty, she tries to heighten it by 
 artificial means, careless of consequences, and of the 
 fact that wrinkled old age grows out of the fair falsity 
 of youth. 
 
 She has no fixed habits, and no sense of responsi- 
 bility, and is as unjust to herself in her ignorance as 
 to others in her selfishness. Her life is purposeless, 
 with the single exception of a fixed idea that she 
 must marry if she gets a chance ; and this would not 
 be so very bad, if it induced her to organize her life 
 and mould her habits so as best to prepare herself for 
 such a future. 
 
 The few years which intervene between school life 
 and married life are among the most important in the 
 existence of a young girl, and should be most care- 
 fully employed by the mother in imparting house- 
 hold knowledge, in teaching her how to unite her so- 
 cial with domestic duties, in developing and strength- 
 ening her physique, and impressing upon her the im- 
 portance of her own physical well-being to her future 
 happiness and the fulfilment of present and future 
 obligations. Her life should be regular, her habits 
 cleanly and temperate, her clothing adapted to the 
 season and the occasion, and occupation constant, 
 though not too laborious or exhausting. 
 
 A certain portion of the household duties, involv- 
 ing daily care and attention, should be committed to
 
 218 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 her hands, and the habit of apportioning her time, 
 which she has probably acquired at school, kept up. 
 
 There is nothing which drifts away time, and 
 strength, and energy, like an aimless life. People 
 who have nothing which they must do, end by not 
 being able to do anything ; and this is markedly the 
 case with girls. Mothers foolishly say, " 0, let 
 them have an easy time while they can ; trouble and 
 hard work will come soon enough." They forget, 
 or fail to realize, that they are taking the very 
 method to render the future as hard as possible, by 
 sending them into it wholly unprepared for its chances 
 or mischances, wholly ignorant of the consequences 
 to themselves and others of not conscientiously fill- 
 ing their place and performing their allotted line of 
 duty. 
 
 When a girl marries, she does so, in nine cases out 
 of ten, in entire ignorance of the physical facts con- 
 nected with her own existence. She does not know 
 that the new demands upon her time, strength, en- 
 ergy, and sympathies excite her nerves to an activity 
 which produces apparent irritability, and then unwar- 
 ranted depression. She requires to have patience 
 with herself, and tenderness and consideration from 
 others, until the delicate and complex organization of 
 the young wife, the future mother, has adapted itself 
 to its fresh circumstances, its strange and unaccus- 
 tomed surroundings. 
 
 A wise husband would understand and guard against
 
 THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. 19 
 
 those changes and mutations of feeling, which are 
 purely physical and nervous ; but the majority of 
 newly-married husbands are quite as ignorant as their 
 wives in regard to what it is most important they 
 should know, and a great deal more selfish, and they 
 look upon those physico-merital phenomena as ebulli- 
 tions and indications of a disposition which must be 
 checked in the bud by a proper assertion of mascu- 
 line pride, strength, and authority. Thus the poor 
 young wife has not only to endure the inevitable 
 shocks and sufferings occasioned by new relations and 
 conditions, but she is tortured by distrust of the ideal 
 man she worshipped, and suspicion of the reality of 
 his love for herself. 
 
 Instead of the early part of married life being the 
 sweetest, it is not unfrequently the bitterest, at least 
 in the woman's experience. All the habits and cus- 
 toms of modern life add their quota to the sum total 
 of the draft made upon her strength and nervous en- 
 ergy. Instead of quietude and repose, the protection 
 and love of friends, during the first few difficult weeks 
 or months of wedded life, the bride rushes from one 
 scene of excitement to another, is kept up late at 
 night, and paraded everywhere as an object of legiti- 
 mate curiosity, until, partly elated, partly annoyed, 
 but wholly wrought up to a state of intense and most 
 injurious excitement by the attention she obtains, the 
 admiration she receives, she is rendered quite unfit to 
 take any serious view of the duties and responsibili-
 
 220 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 ties she has assumed, and only desires that her pres- 
 ent condition of freedom and exultation may con- 
 tinue. 
 
 The almost universal fact, therefore, of the loss of 
 the first child by miscarriage, consequent upon tho 
 undue strain put upon strength and nerves, is gener- 
 ally considered by the wife as a matter for congratu- 
 lation, not at all as a subject for sorrow, much less re- 
 morse. The husband's regrets are balanced by con- 
 siderations of present saving of money and trouble, 
 and no thought is given to the treasure of human life 
 and love enfolded in that brief epitome of human ex- 
 perience, or the possibly childless future, in which the 
 unheeded fragment will find a vengeance more deadly 
 than the imagination would dare to depict. 
 
 But although it is only in exceptional instances that 
 this last and worst result follows the first violations 
 of the laws which govern human and social relations, 
 yet they are always the beginning of evils which ac- 
 cumulate and grow serious as time goes on. The wife 
 forfeits her strongest claim to her husband's affection 
 and respect, the husband loses the inspiration of tho 
 best incentive that can exist for him to effort and 
 self-restraint. Both meet the obligations which come 
 after with less of enthusiasm and more of dissatisfac- 
 tion, and while one grows prematurely old, and un- 
 naturally irritable, the other becomes imperious, ex- 
 acting, yet indifferent. 
 
 Nearly all the evils of life come from looking at
 
 THE SIN OF IGNORANCE. 221 
 
 our acts and ourselves from a purely personal point 
 of view ; we take it for granted that we belong to 
 ourselves, and have a right to use or abuse ourselves 
 as we please. It is the most common thing in the 
 world to hear people speak of a man as being " no 
 one's enemy but his own." This is not a possible 
 condition of human existence. As parts of one great 
 body, we are all dependent upon and owe duties to 
 each other, and the sooner this is made the start- 
 ing-point in our education, the quicker we shall get 
 rid of the evils which have grown out of our selfish- 
 ness and individualism. 
 
 Love of self has been considered the strongest ac- 
 tuating principle ; but this is taking a very low view 
 of human nature and its possibilities. There is a 
 principle which quite subordinates self to the desire 
 to realize a divine or even human ideal, and if it is 
 not stronger than selfishness, why, effort is vain, and 
 we must cease to believe in the saving power of the 
 moral or spiritual forces It is this ideal of a true 
 manhood, a noble womanhood, which the mother must 
 present to her sons and her daughters, if she would 
 have them realize it in their own persons ; but first 
 she must show them a living example of it in the 
 persons of their parents. A golden family rule is to 
 respect self in others, to sacrifice it in ourselves, and 
 that not half way, with reservations and complain- 
 ings, but wholly, freely, as God gives to us. 
 
 When young men and young women are once
 
 222 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 taught that they arc not their own, that their bodies 
 are given to them for a purpose, as well as their in- 
 tellects, their souls, they will no longer feel at lib- 
 erty to abuse them. They will neither poison them 
 with ardent spirits and tobacco, nor cramp, restrain, 
 despoil them by the adoption of injurious fashions. 
 They will respect the body as the vehicle of thought, 
 feeling, desire, and aspiration, and try to make it and 
 keep it beautiful, in the best and truest sense of the 
 term. 
 
 These duties are as incumbent upon men as wo- 
 men, and many husbands would be influenced and re- 
 strained by new and powerful motives if they could 
 realize that the health and happiness of their wives, 
 the interests of their children, and the united future 
 as a family, depended upon their forbearance, wisdom, 
 and willingness to subordinate self to the higher facts 
 of family and humanity.
 
 DIVORCE. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 DIVORCE. 
 
 Tms little volume has wholly failed of its purpose, 
 if it has not shown that marriage should be practi- 
 cally indissoluble ; if it is not, it is not marriage, and 
 has no force, no sacredness, no value. Instead of 
 creating the family, which is the foundation of society 
 and good government, it creates tribes of wandering, 
 nomadic existences, bound together by no law of 
 duty, acknowledging no obligation, held by no tender 
 cords of association, sympathy, or companionship. To 
 reorganize society on such a basis would be to return 
 to the Fetichistic condition of the race, to voluntarily 
 relinquish all that has been gained of general moral and 
 social elevation. Goethe says, " Marriage is the be- 
 ginning and end of all culture, and must be indisso- 
 luble, because it brings so much happiness, that what 
 small exceptional unhappiness it may bring counts 
 for nothing in the balance. And what do men mean 
 by talking of unhappiness ? Impatience it is, which, 
 from time to time, comes over them, and then they 
 fancy themselves unhappy. Let them wait till the
 
 224 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 moment has gone by, and then they will bless their 
 good fortune that what has stood so long continues 
 standing. There never can be any adequate ground 
 for separation." 
 
 This last expression, which, with the rest, Goethe 
 has put in the mouth of a good man, is perhaps too 
 strong ; the law which binds should have power to 
 unloose, or at least protect from consequences dan- 
 gerous to the individual, disastrous to society. 
 
 " Free divorce " would dcstroj 7 marriage ; but com- 
 pulsory divorce in other words, divorce insisted upon 
 and maintained by law when habitual drunkenness or 
 other criminal habits render man or woman brutal, dan- 
 gerous, and unfit to undertake the parentage of chil- 
 dren would be one of the best safeguards of mar- 
 riage. The flippancy which sneers at or ridicules the 
 holiest tics may profess to see in this an inducement 
 to drunkenness, in order to become released from the 
 marriage bond. But the lips that could utter such a 
 sentiment would know that it was not true. There 
 are none to whom it is more important, none who feel 
 that it is so, more than the very poor, to whom it is 
 the link that unites them with their kind, that makes 
 them sharers in the common humanity. If the very poor 
 were not husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, 
 they would be brutes, with hardly a thought, a feel- 
 ing, or habit, in common with the rest of the world. 
 
 The knowledge that the law took cognizance of the 
 loss of individual character, and self-respect, and in-
 
 DIVORCE. 225 
 
 tcrfcrcd summarily to protect individuals and society 
 from dangers and additional burdens, would exercise 
 an incalculable influence in deterring men and women 
 from the excessive indulgence of their appetites and 
 passions. 
 
 The one cause for which divorces are principally 
 granted is a matter which is even now settled mainly 
 by the parties themselves, the action for damages re- 
 cently entered by a contestant in a celebrated case, 
 being almost the first in which such an appeal has 
 been made to the laws in this country. 
 
 Under a system which gives a wife no right in 
 the income or accumulated property until after her 
 husband's death, a woman cannot apply for a di- 
 vorce, because she has no money because marriage 
 has deprived her of her means of maintenance, and 
 given her children, whom she is bound to take care 
 of. Its protection, therefore, and championship of 
 her rights is the merest pretence, as is proved by the 
 fact that to one who appeals to the law, ten patiently 
 sit down and endure their woes. 
 
 It is here, however, in America, where human 
 rights are professedly held sacred, where social con- 
 ditions are more favorable than elsewhere to the 
 highest form of social morality, that marriage should 
 be placed upon an authoritative and universally ac- 
 knowledged basis. It is the extreme of childish- 
 ness and folly to make a law for one state, touching 
 so important a matter as this, which underlies all so- 
 15
 
 226 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 cial and governmental life, to be set aside by simply 
 stepping over the boundaries into another state. This 
 purely human interest is above sect or party, and 
 should be treated from the broad stand-point of a 
 universal humanity.
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 
 
 IT is a curious fact, and one that serves to show 
 how much broader humanity is than any one of its 
 outgrowths, that, in this nation of politics and poli- 
 ticians, the question of the day is not political, but 
 social ; not primarily of public, but of private and do- 
 mestic interest, and now of an acknowledged impor- 
 tance by virtue of the inherent influence which house- 
 hold relations exercise upon public life and character. 
 
 When our fathers declared that all men were born 
 " free and equal," they declared an impossible prop- 
 osition. Men are not born free and equal, either 
 mentally, morally, physically, or politically. Nor are 
 women. Some are born to command, others to obey ; 
 and they fulfil the destiny which fate, in the shape of. 
 temperament, disposition, and strength of intellect, 
 has marked out for them, whether their lot has been 
 cast in the hut or the palace. 
 
 The idea is a very agreeable one, however, to the 
 majority of mankind, who' like to believe that there is 
 only the difference of luck and opportunity between
 
 228 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 one man and another, and was, and is, especially wel- 
 comed by those who wish to throw the blame of their 
 inferiority upon the institutions under which they 
 live, quite forgetting that the unequal genius, the ex- 
 ceptional honor and integrity, they deride, conquer all 
 obstacles, and have won in all ages a place as far 
 above those conferred by hereditary right, or bought 
 with money, as the hejavens are above the earth, in 
 our conception of it. 
 
 This equality of rights, which he does not under- 
 stand, enables, however, the half barbarian who lands 
 upon our shores to shake his fist, figuratively, in the 
 face of the entire world, and say to every man, " I am 
 as good as you." 
 
 Tie is a little surprised, after a time, that this is all 
 there is of it. His assertion of equality does not en- 
 able him to paint pictures, write books, or build 
 houses, without the natural ability and the acquisi. 
 tion of knowledge to enable him to use it. It does 
 not even provide him with food, or clothing, or a 
 house to live in. These must be earned, and he finds 
 no road easier to their attainment than the old one of 
 daily labor. 
 
 Bridget has no vote, but neither has the native- 
 born American woman ; this fact therefore establishes 
 their equality. She sets her foot upon American soil 
 with one fixed idea in her mind, that the privilege of 
 doing so makes her as " good as a lady," any day. 
 Being as good as a lady in her untutored mind, mean-
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 229 
 
 ing that she has a perfect right to set herself in op- 
 position to a lady, to be rude, aggressive, self-asser- 
 tive, arid, as it is termed, " independent," though her 
 system of getting all she can, and giving as little as 
 possible, in return, of loyalty, truth, or duty, pos- 
 sesses very little of the spirit of genuine indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 Thus the " girl " has become the Ishmaelite of the 
 nineteenth century. She avenges herself on her ser- 
 vitude by being the terror of our social life, the 
 dreaded yet necessary pest of every household, the 
 destroyer of peace and comfort, the breaker-up of 
 families, the insidious ally of boarding-houses, the 
 possessor of a single idea her rights ; and these, 
 whether they consist in being allowed to exercise her 
 own judgment in regard to the amount of dirt each 
 individual shall be expected to consume, the extent to 
 which good food shall be turned into poison, or how 
 many evenings in a week she shall be permitted to 
 entertain her friends and relatives, she is ready at a 
 moment's notice to maintain, at any loss or incon- 
 venience to others (her newly-acquired sovereignty 
 will not admit that her conduct will be likely to un- 
 favorably affect herself}. Is she not as good as any- 
 body ? Has she not a right to do as she pleases ? And 
 are there not twenty doors open to receive her with 
 or without a " character " ? 
 
 So, as her presence is generally sufficiently disa- 
 greeable to make her absence small matter for regret,
 
 230 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 mistresses of households learn to look upon frequent 
 change of servants as a matter of course, and kitchen 
 domination an evil which has no remedy. 
 
 But does this dismissal of the subject do either 
 party entire justice ? Ought the responsibility of 
 home life to be thrown so entirely on the servant-girl's 
 shoulders ? Is not domestic service so nearly a form 
 of domestic slavery that we should shrink from seeing 
 our own daughters subjected to it ? 
 
 Yet why should service, the waiting upon others, 
 be degrading ? Do we not all serve some one, and 
 does not God serve us all ? 
 
 Looked at from the point of view of a common hu- 
 maoity, service is ennobling, and should be glorified 
 by being committed to worthy hands. 
 
 The "servant-girl," as we know her, is a pariah ; she 
 is in families, but not of them ; she does their grub- 
 bing in the dust and ashes ; she has her home in the 
 corner of the attic ; she sees life only through the 
 kitchen bars ; she is denied participation in social 
 life, and the exercise of feelings common to man and 
 woman kind. She is known to be ignorant and un- 
 trained, yet she is expected to have a higher and 
 stricter sense of duty than is often found among the 
 most cultivated, and a strength of devotion worthy 
 of saints and martyrs. 
 
 Is not our conception of the true character of ser- 
 vice a complete acknowledgment of the false position 
 in which we put the one who serves ? And is not
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 231 
 
 the spectacle of servant-girls " striking," or even 
 asking, for the hours necessary for rest, or brief sea- 
 sons of relaxation, a shocking criticism upon our civ- 
 ilization and our humanity ? 
 
 The most promising indication for the future of the 
 servant-girl system of the present, is the rapid ad- 
 vance in wages, and the rates which skilled domestic 
 labor now commands. 
 
 It is true that we suffer in consequence of the dis- 
 proportion which often exists between the amount of 
 remuneration asked and the quality of the service of- 
 fered. But fair compensation will do its work in time, 
 and bring into the field of household service a supe- 
 rior class of women to those who have of late years 
 ruled our kitchens, and not the kitchens only, but the 
 whole house. 
 
 To completely effect this salutary change, however, 
 a reform must take place in the treatment of servants, 
 and in the estimate placed upon their efforts. Do- 
 mestic service is different from the labor of the me- 
 chanic. The latter commences and closes his work 
 at a certain hour, and there his responsibility ceases. 
 The household servant, on the contrary, is subject to 
 family contingencies ; she must be up with or before 
 the sun, and her work, like that of the proverbial 
 woman, is never done. 
 
 Moreover, upon the disposition with which she per- 
 forms her duties, as well as upon her knowledge of 
 the how and the wherefore, depends to a great ex- 
 tent the comfort of the family.
 
 232 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 Perhaps the most common complaint among wo- 
 men is, that servants " take no interest/' as the phrase 
 goes, in their work, or in those they work for. This 
 is undoubtedly true, but there are reasons why they 
 do not, and instead of complaining, we should do bet- 
 ter to inquire what these are, and to remedy the diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the reason 
 of their want of interest in their work will be found 
 to be their ignorance of how to do it in the best way, 
 and the general dissatisfaction with the results. In 
 the second place, no motive is furnished them. To 
 stimulate any one to active and voluntary service, we 
 must excite their affection towards us. We must 
 treat them as if they were human, like ourselves, ac- 
 tuated by the same feelings, governed by the same 
 motives, liable to the same sufferings, requiring the 
 same forbearance. Women know better than men 
 how impossible it is to get for pay the service per- 
 formed by love, and the knowledge should teach 
 them to educate a class of domestic assistants, of com- 
 prehending a broader purpose in living than to merely 
 indulge the animal instincts, and satisfy animal wants. 
 
 Household life and household labor are very differ- 
 ent, with most of us, from what they were a half a 
 century ago. Modern skill and genius, the progress 
 in physical science, arts, and industries, have relieved 
 domestic work of half its drudgery, have removed 
 many of its tasks to the manufactory, and the work-
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 233 
 
 shop, but have added enormously to the amount of 
 capital necessary for the rearing of a family in the 
 enjoyments of the products of skill and industry. 
 
 The average man cannot earn enough to support a 
 wife and children in modern style, to buy clothing 
 ready made, to rent a house at the cost of a fair in- 
 come, to buy food to be wasted as well as eaten, and 
 pay servants for wasting it. The average man, there- 
 fore, has about made up his mind not to marry, un- 
 less he can find some one who will help support a 
 family, if she cannot serve it in any other way. 
 
 They argue, with apparent correctness, that since 
 so much of the work by which women formerly con- 
 tributed to the comfort and support of the family 
 (spinning, knitting, weaving, sewing, baking, pre- 
 serving, and the like), has been largely taken out of 
 their hands, they should profitably occupy themselves 
 in some other way : they only forget that women have 
 not yet been trained to other occupations ; that there 
 is an active prejudice against their engaging in 
 business avocations, with which they have to con- 
 tend ; and also that living is infinitely more compli- 
 cated, and the social demands much greater than 
 formerly. 
 
 The fact remains, however, that labor-saving appli- 
 ances have deprived housekeeping of the terrors which 
 it possessed, for our grandmothers. There is no lift- 
 ing of heavy weights, in the shape of tubs and iron 
 pots ; in cities at least, there is no carrying of water,
 
 234 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 or coal, or wood, excepting in rare cases, to the dif- 
 ferent rooms ; there is no time spent in the prepara- 
 tion or use of artificial light. Our great necessities 
 are provided for us with the utmost nicety, and with 
 the least expenditure of time and trouble. 
 
 There is no reason, therefore, why the cultivated 
 woman should not be able to perform any household 
 work (not any amount of it) with ease to herself and 
 comfort to others. Ladies living in the country, and 
 in suburban localities, are often compelled to solve 
 this problem for themselves, and do it most satisfac- 
 torily. The new methods, the beautiful mechanical 
 appliances, are intended for, and particularly adapted 
 to, intelligent, skilful, and interested use. They ab- 
 solutely require cleanliness and a sufficient compre- 
 hension of natural philosophy to enable those who 
 work with them to know the how and the why of the 
 different parts, and the condition of their efficient em- 
 ployment. 
 
 What are sinks, and drains, and water-pipes, but 
 obstacles and nests of infectious disease, if they are 
 not kept clear, and clean, and free from obstructions ? 
 What are kitchen ranges but enormous consumers of 
 fuel, and impassable barriers to success in cooking, if 
 they are imperfectly understood, and carelessly and 
 wastefully treated ? What is our apparatus for pro- 
 ducing artificial light, without trouble, but a powder 
 magazine in inexperienced or unthinking hands ? 
 
 All these inventions, so admirable for use by the
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 235 
 
 intelligent, are a positive injury when they are in- 
 trusted to those who are indifferent to the conse- 
 quences of misuse, and ignorant of their possibilities 
 as aids to more thorough cleanliness, greater order, 
 more regular system, larger culture, and altogether 
 more refined and perfect social life. 
 
 Thus our modern progress has availed us little, 
 as yet, in bringing order out of our domestic chaos. 
 Work is not better done, we are not less burdened, 
 and instead of thankfulness that our lives have fallen 
 in pleasant places, we have bitterness and heartburn- 
 ings. 
 
 The reason of this is not to be found exclusively in 
 the shortcomings of servant-girls, or the hardness of 
 the service ; the fault is mainly our own : it is be- 
 cause we are not willing to do our part ; we are not 
 willing to serve or put ourselves to real use. 
 
 We force upon men, in addition to the acquisition 
 of modern domestic improvements, the employment 
 of a staff of servants, who simply enter in and take 
 possession ; who are amenable to no law, because the 
 mistress of the household is not competent either to 
 make laws or enforce them ; and who have only one 
 idea their own " rights." 
 
 The result is not beauty, or order, or comfort, or 
 repose, or enjoyment, but anarchy and confusion, 
 with a reckless expenditure, which no mere earnings 
 can sustain. Women complain, and men are discour- 
 aged, homes are broken up in disorder, families take
 
 236 FOR BETTER OR WORSE. 
 
 refuge in the discomfort of boarding-houses, and sin- 
 gle men resolve to live for themselves, and not add the 
 doubtful happiness and certain burden of wife and 
 children. 
 
 This aspect of the case is a serious one ; it threat- 
 ens not only our system of morals, but our entire civ- 
 ilization. Women, in the very nature of the case, are 
 more or less at the mercy of men, and the sacredness 
 of family ties is their best protection and safeguard. 
 The family is a social unit, and each one should form, 
 in its own way, a social centre ; but it cannot do this 
 unless the members understand their duties and per- 
 form them. 
 
 Service is the natural expression of our love, and 
 intelligence should enable us to render our service in 
 the best and most efficient way. We must do this 
 by either putting something into the common stock, 
 or adding to the value of what is already gained by 
 another's labor. 
 
 If you buy food, you must pay for the cooking ; 
 you buj 7 material for clothing, you must pay for the 
 making ; you hire a room, you must serve yourself, 
 or pay for others to serve you. In this way labor 
 adds to the value of the original production, and men 
 have got to learn that this labor is more valuable 
 from a wife or daughter than from one who has no 
 unity of interests, or bond of affection to furnish a 
 motive to the faithful performance of duty. 
 
 To raise the character of service, then, we must all
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE. 23 f 
 
 recognize the fact that we serve each other, and that 
 it makes very little difference what is the nature of our 
 service, provided we do it, aud do it well. 
 
 Let us stop complaining of "girls," and set our- 
 selves and our daughters to real work. Let us reduce 
 the amount of room we are obliged to occupy in or- 
 der to accommodate our domestic hinderances, and 
 save the vast amount of expenditure in rent and liv- 
 ing. Let us offer to our daughters the inducements 
 to cook, and sweep, and dust, and make home happy, 
 that our husbands do to our sons in the shop, the 
 store, and the counting-house. 
 
 Let us, above all, see to it that we are wise dis- 
 pensers and care-takers, and, if we accept ignorance to 
 relieve us from drudgery, endeavor to enlighten and 
 instruct it ; remembering that the best that can be 
 said of us, and to us, at last, is, " Well done, good 
 and faithful servant."
 
 00879 3745_ 
 
 from which it was borrowed 
 
 0LOCTA 
 
 OCT16 
 
 QQ; t VCD