Marriage

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Title:     Marriage
Author: Samuel Osgood [More Titles by Osgood]

It is a remarkable fact, that He who came to be the Saviour from sin, whose name is coupled with the sorrow that he would alleviate, began his public ministry at a marriage, and gave the first proof of his powers amidst its festivities. Yet why wonder at it--for where should the Gospel begin its work if not with the union that founds the family and should secure every social and moral good? How, moreover, could the genius of Christianity better show itself than by such a practical rebuke of the asceticism that scorned the social affections, and would make of life a ghostly austerity, just as if man were heavenly by being unearthly? It needs no great ingenuity to imagine our Lord's feelings, as with his kindly and majestic thought he looked upon that scene, and gave his blessing to the youth and maiden who were probably of his own kin. He saw all the serious and trying aspects of human life even in its best estate, yet none the less gave them joy upon their union.

It is well that he was at that feast. The ages since have remembered his presence, and his sacred name, heard still at the marriage, deepens its memory, and consecrates its joy. The two ideas thus connected in fact are connected in principle, and the moralist need not in any enlightened community fear to speak of the Christian view of marriage, or care at all either for the giggling levity that sees nothing solemn in the subject, or for the sanctimonious gravity, that considers religion profaned by being made practical. There are some difficulties in the way of a frank treatment of the subject; I know our customs do not favor the homely simplicity of the language of the Bible in the discussion of marriage, and he must be very adventurous who undertakes to use the plain speech of the old divines, whether in the quaint aphorisms of Thomas Fuller or the jewelled periods of Jeremy Taylor. Yet it is not well to be very fastidious or mystify any subject by ingenious circumlocution, and we propose to say some plain words on the relation of husbands and wives in continuation of these thoughts upon home duties.

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Not much need be said upon the foundation of this relation. It rests clearly upon the will of God, the best good of the parties, and the welfare of society.

As the Creator and Preserver of mankind, as the Lord of Nature and the Father of Spirits, God has made us social beings, and decreed that the most important association should be a lasting one. The natural law, which in lower creatures establishes a transient union, enacts the permanence of the higher relation, and when profoundly studied agrees with the precepts of Revelation and the results of the best experience.

God's will is clearly shown in the effect of marriage upon the moral condition of the parties themselves. It is generally essential to their true life--to the proper development of their affections and faculties. Under good Providence, it is the school of the heart, the motive to the most laudable exertion and sacrifice. There are persons indeed whose peculiar duties may exempt them from its cares,--scholars, devotees, philanthropists, who may give their whole heart to their chosen speciality, and make of science, religion or humanity their family and home. Yet these are not the general rule, and even these generally prove that the peculiar power acquired by concentrating their whole mind upon a single pursuit gives them force at the expense of breadth of culture, and may be morbid because preternatural. The monk and nun, in the convent or out of it, have done noble things, and every faithful memory must bless them for it--but not the noblest things. They have shown much mercy, yet quite as much spiritual pride. If they have fed the poor, they have framed the Mass Book and the Confessional. If they have cared for the orphan, they have also invented infant damnation and the Inquisition, insisting on hell hereafter for all not baptized by their priesthood, and devising a hell here below for all heretics against their creed. Unmarried people ruled Christendom for a thousand years, and that they did not rule in wisdom, the Bible, history, and our best modern culture all declare. Nay, the very sage of modern celibacy, Swedenborg, gave years of his life and the chief labors of his pen to prove, that the best wisdom comes from minds united conjugially, imbuing thought with affection, and informing affection with thought, and so best interpreting the God in Christ. They who may be puzzled by his mystical lore will have no difficulty with the more practical argument, or refuse to allow that the most healthy thought and feeling, the most comprehensive culture, frequents the home which a true marriage makes.

"Marriage," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms and fills cities and churches and heaven itself. Celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath designed the present constitution of the world."

To carry out the argument and show the necessity of this relation to due provision for children, to the peace and purity of society at large, would but lead us into common-places that can as well be spared. Better pass on and speak of the nature and duties of the relation in question.

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It differs from the other relations that we have thus far considered, first of all in the fact, that it is elective or voluntary. The tie is one of choice, not of blood, and of course this fact of itself speaks to reason and conscience to stir themselves in the choice, instead of leaving it to a giddy eye or a silly ear. The relation, moreover, is exclusive, and in this fact it is distinguished from all ties of blood and all other ties of choice. Again it is entire--extending to all the interests of human life. Elective, exclusive, entire, marriage is thus the most momentous of human relations. Decalogue, Gospel, Providence, experience, all declare it such, and rest upon an act of choice the only obligation that brooks no rival and allows no limitation.

In accordance with the tenderness and dignity of the relation, the ruling sentiment and correspondent duties must be. Of the sentiment, more than filial or parental love, more than brotherhood, for which friendship is an inadequate name, and which at once fascinates by natural affinities and binds with the sacredness of religion, I have no elaborate analysis to give. We escape at once the peril of maudlin sentimentality and metaphysical abstraction, by speaking of the sentiment in the practical fruits, which best show its nature.

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We say first of all, that husband and wife should be true to each other--true first and last. Wo to them, if they begin their relation with a lie, either spoken or acted. They promise to love, honor and cherish each other, and they lie abominably in the sight of God and their own consciences, if they nullify the solemn promise by capricious levity or sordid selfishness. Full liberty of conscience must be allowed for the action of various minds, temperaments, circumstances, and not all dispositions are to be judged by the same degree of the moral thermometer. Yet of all diversities of gifts, this statement holds good, that marriage begins in an impious falsehood, if the parties do not regard each other with affection and respect, and do not mean to be mutual helpers. An earth-born impulse should not steal a sacred name, nor a mercenary bargain intrude its traffic into precincts more sacred than the temple courts. The sale of a human creature under the marriage ring is more degrading because more voluntary than under the auctioneer's hammer, and God will not withhold his verdict against the profanation of his altars by such outrage against nature and the Gospel.

The beginning is true, when the bond is sincerely assumed, and spirit and truth go fully together when the whole mind and heart agree in a congeniality without alloy and without misgiving.

True in the beginning, husband and wife are to be true in their progress together. Of that gross falsity against which God launches an express law of the Decalogue, and of whose curse on the offender and the victim, so many wretched lives and homes are the providential commentary, I need not speak with minuteness. Fidelity demands more than any negative policy--demands truthfulness throughout the whole relation, the confidence that will not mask its face or thought in reserve, and will deem it a fraud to confer with any third party upon any matter belonging in its nature to the two. It is the beginning of bitter sorrow, when this limit is overstepped, and that enamel of mutual confidence is broken, which kind Heaven has given for the protection of so delicate a nerve.

Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in action--prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together, and to prove by devotion to each other's welfare the truth of what they say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God's blessing upon all who keep their truth by being true as well as kind.

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We add now a second duty of married persons--one that has a very prosaic sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that husband and wife should be reasonable--reasonable that they may be true in fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true enough--


"A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
But a fool's wrath is heavier than both;"


and we might add, a fool's love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds befooling themselves by levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the interpreter of God's will to them, and of their own relation to each other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world's folly, and time will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs through the land, and most girls are brought up to exact more expense than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.

Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.

Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a compromise of follies--the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding--the other irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement or sensibility--the two sometimes settling the difficulty by non-interference--the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will consent not to insist upon having her husband's time or thought--the other allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally--the more gainers as in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor, would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with argument--ready sensibility with executive strength--nice perception with comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into each household, and over the great globe.

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One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state, and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.

The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home. Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make both what they should be. Let not a man's laborious gains be squandered in folly, nor a wife's faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts--do not its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty? Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and boarding-houses reveal. They do not learn it well, unless they mingle faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?

How shall we urge at length this point of union, or illustrate its bearing upon all interests, plans, and hopes? It is a great thing for two frail natures to live as one for life long. Two harps are not easily kept always in tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a thousand strings? What human will or wisdom cannot do, God can do, and His Providence is uniting ever more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work of life and enjoy its goods together. For them there is in store a respect and affection--a peace and power, all unknown in the heyday of young romance. Experience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in stronger cords, and as they stand at the loom of time, one with the strong warp, the other with the finer woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a tissue of unfading beauty and imperishable worth. A blessing on the brave and gentle spirit of the elect poet of our time, Alfred Tennyson, for speaking in his exquisite verse a truth that might too much task our prosaic analysis:--


"For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this
Not like to thee, but like in difference;
Yet in the long years liker 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 throw the world;
She mental breath, nor fail in childward care:
More as the double-natured Poet each:
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-summed in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
Then springs the crowning race of humankind."


"It is the worst clandestine marriage," said old Thomas Fuller, "when God is not invited to it, wherefore, beforehand beg his gracious assistance." Equally bad, we add, is the marriage, where His presence is not retained, and they who at first sought His blessing do not hold to it ever to keep them true and thoughtful, to lift them into a union to which the Beloved Son was not ashamed to compare His own communion with souls. Perfection on earth we may not ask, nor call a hasty word or impatient thought unpardonable. They who love much must expect to forgive something and forbear sometimes. But this may be expected and is demanded, that they who take each other's welfare in charge should never do any intentional unkindness, or fail of aught that may be done for the other's welfare. This may be expected and is demanded, that when the tie that binds them is severed by the only power that can fitly part them, and they are to part at death--they should look back with mutual blessing to the hour of their first union, be assured that through all vicissitudes and infirmities, they have tried to make each other better and happier, and that they have learned of Him whose name at their Cana made their wedding sacred, to trust in the realm where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God.

Shrink not from applying the truth now before us to ourselves. Parents, apply it, and in training your sons and daughters use good sense upon a subject so often left to utter folly. They talk and think about it enough in a certain way, and with such poor aids as trashy novels and paltry gossip. Let them think and talk about it wisely, and let them not, if you can help it, learn wisdom at the cost of wretchedness. Respect Heaven's own laws, and do not allow the world's fashions and tyrannies to get the better of reason and conscience in controlling the most important of destinies. Husbands and wives, apply the troth--allow no routine to chill affection--no monotony to break down thoughtfulness. If the envious years should not allow you to celebrate your golden or even your silver wedding, live while you may in the wisdom which is the word of love, and the worth of it is beyond silver or gold or rubies.

[The end]
Samuel Osgood's essay: Marriage

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