The Marriage Book (44 page)

JOHN MATHER AUSTIN

A VOICE TO THE MARRIED
, 1847

A Universalist minister and descendant of Cotton Mather, John Mather Austin (1805–1880) wrote several books of instruction early in his life and was later known as a defender of abolition and women’s rights. His first marriage, to Sarah Somerdyke, lasted twenty-seven years and produced twelve children, four of whom survived him. He married twice more after Sarah’s death, going on as well to become paymaster in the Union army and, later still, a newspaper editor.

Personal appearance is too often the only qualification which has any influence in choosing a companion. A young man meets in society a lady of prepossessing appearance. Her fair complexion, regular features, and symmetrical form make a deep impression upon him. He soon becomes very assiduous in his attentions—calls frequently upon her at her residence, and becomes more and more enraptured with the beauty of her person, and the pleasing vivacity of her manners. The young lady is flattered by his devotion—and being pleased with his person and manners, very naturally strives to exhibit her most attractive qualities, and to be as engaging as possible. Thus a courtship commences, and is carried on to the consummation of matrimony. Neither party sees the other, except under the most favorable circumstances—when they are
prepared
for company, and when they make their best appearance. If the thought of each other’s disposition ever enters their minds, their captivated imaginations are ready to whisper that the inward person corresponds with the outward, and that one possessing so much personal beauty, must necessarily be everything desirable in moral and intellectual characteristics. Under this pleasing hallucination, and in entire ignorance of each other’s actual tastes, habits, and dispositions, the irrevocable vows are plighted, and the indissoluble knot is tied!

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

JANE EYRE
, 1847

In
Jane Eyre
, one of the most popular British novels of the nineteenth century, Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) presented a protagonist who was strong, moral, and yearning for love—all things common to the author, who nonetheless turned down three marriage proposals until, just a year before her death, she accepted that of Arthur Bell Nicholls. In the novel, Jane’s employer and love interest, Edward Rochester, explains how he ended up marrying the woman who would later go mad, be confined to his attic, and ultimately set fire to his house.

Blanche Ingram is a socialite with designs on Rochester.

When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me, because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in parties splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her relatives encouraged me: competitors piqued me: she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!—an agony of inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her: gross, groveling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was!

EMILY WARD

LETTER TO SALLIE WARD LAWRENCE, 1849

Sallie Ward was the belle of the ball in her native Louisville, recalled in later years as “the most splendid creature this country has ever produced.” She was accustomed to adoration, fine clothes, and makeup. Her new husband, Timothy Bigelow Lawrence, insisted she give up the cosmetics, which he and his Boston circle rejected as unhealthy. Sallie wrote home in abject misery. The excerpt below is part of the feisty response from her mother, Emily Flournoy Ward (1810–1874). But despite Emily’s advice, discovery of Sallie’s continued use of makeup led to confrontations with her husband, backsliding, tears, and finally, just a year after her marriage, divorce.

Sallie Ward went on to marry three more times. The inscription suggested for her tombstone by a Kentucky humorist was “At Last She Sleeps Alone.” Her devotion to appearance extended even past her death. Her funeral instructions called for her to be wrapped in a white satin shroud and buried in a lavender casket draped in white satin.

I am going to write you a real war letter. You say you are acting by Mr. Lawrence’s command, and you are unhappy by so doing. Then let me advise you in this case; seem to obey, but do as you please. If you use proper caution he can never know it. You say I can imagine your appearance now; yes, Sallie, I can, and nothing to object to either. You are better looking without complexion than with too much. This I have always said. But if you think differently, then do what would make you happy. You could not be less so, I should judge, under any circumstances. Then never fear Mr. Lawrence’s anger; it could not be more enduring. Now, dear Sallie, if you would take the right means, he could never discover it. You must begin with caution, and keep it up. The most delicate tinge possible is all you want. If you have no more, defy the opinion of the universe, the commands of Mr. Lawrence, and every one else. Stick to it with some of your mother’s spunk. Could you be worse off than now? You are miserable now; could you be more so then?

B. G. JEFFERIS AND J. L. NICHOLS

SAFE COUNSEL: SEARCH LIGHTS ON HEALTH
, 1897

Benjamin Grant Jefferis (1851–1929) was a Canadian physician who teamed up with professor and publisher James Lawrence Nichols (1851–1895) in Chicago to write a series of practical books about health and home life. In
Safe Counsel
, there were sections on personal hygiene and letter writing, tight-lacing and “all the different kinds of baths,” and—in the following section—what women like in men.

Above all other qualities in man, woman admires his intelligence. Intelligence is man’s woman captivating card. This character in woman is illustrated by an English army officer, as told by O. S. Fowler, betrothed in marriage to a beautiful, loving heiress, summoned to India, who wrote back to her: “I have lost an eye, a leg, an arm, and been so badly marred and begrimmed besides, that you never could love this poor, maimed soldier. Yet, I love you too well to make your life
wretched by requiring you to keep your marriage-vow with me, from which I hereby release you. Find among English peers one physically more perfect, whom you can love better.”

She answered, as all genuine women must answer:

“Your noble mind, your splendid talents, your martial prowess which maimed you, are what I love. As long as you retain sufficient body to contain the casket of your soul, which alone is what I admire, I love you all the same, and long to make you mine forever.”

RAFAEL DE LEON

‘’UGLY WOMAN,” 1934

In 1963 it was a
Billboard
chart topper sung by Jimmy Soul as “If You Wanna Be Happy.” But with somewhat different words, the original song, called “Ugly Woman,” was written and performed by Trinidadian calypso singer Hubert R. Charles, a.k.a. Rafael Arias Cairi Llama de Leon, a.k.a. The Roaring Lion (1908–1999).

De Leon’s recording is scratchy at best, and transcriptions of the lyrics vary. But we have it on Trinidadian authority that “Du-du,” as in the expression “du-du darling,” means
love
.

If you want to be happy and live a king’s life

Don’t ever make a pretty woman your wife.

If you want to be happy and live a king’s life

Don’t ever make a pretty woman your wife.

All you gotta do is just what I say

And you will be jolly, merry, and gay.

Therefore from a logical point of view

Always marry a woman uglier than you.

A pretty woman makes her husband look small

And can very often cause his downfall.

As soon as she marries, there and then she’ll start

To do the things that will break his heart.

And when you really think she belongs to you

She callin’ somebody else du-du.

Therefore from a logical point of view

Always marry a woman uglier than you.

LOVE

1 CORINTHIANS 13:1–8

This may be one of the most popular readings used at Christian weddings, but it is not quite as straightforward as it seems. It is part of a letter written by the Apostle Paul to members of the Christian community he had founded when he was a missionary in Corinth, Greece. Having left there to live in Turkey for a number of years, he got wind of the fact that divisions had broken out among the members. In his letter, Paul’s goal was apparently to refocus the Corinthians on Christ’s teachings, and Paul’s definitions of love, below, while perfectly noble for marriage, were actually given as a contrast to the fractious, internecine squabbles of which he had learned.

Many Bible translations, including the original King James Version, use the word
charity
instead of
love
.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. . . .

PROVERB

Marry first, and love will follow.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SONNET 116, 1609

The life of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) has been the subject of endless speculation, and his 154 sonnets are among the reasons. More than a third of the poems—including Sonnet 116—are thought to have been written to a man, but whether the relationship was sexual or platonic, autobiographical or fictional, remain open questions. Some critics see echoes of religious, rather than romantic, love, in the opening quatrain. None of this speculation, however, has kept these fourteen lines from being read at uncountable wedding ceremonies and held up for centuries as a guideline for marital happiness.

Among the few facts known about Shakespeare’s private life: He married Anne Hathaway when he was eighteen and she was already pregnant; they had three children together, two of whom survived to adulthood.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

WILLIAM PENN

SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE
, 1682

Born in England in 1644, William Penn was a Quaker convert who was frequently published, often imprisoned for expressing his views, and eventually best known as founder of Pennsylvania, which he named for his father. By the time of Penn’s death in 1718, he had married twice, fathered sixteen children, and written more than a thousand maxims, including quite a few about marriage.

73. Never marry but for Love; but see that thou lov’st what is
lovely.