Courtship and Marriage Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration]

VIII.

_ON KEEPING UP APPEARANCES._

In these very words lurks a danger likely to beset our young couple, on the very threshold of their career.

All eyes are upon them, of course; their house and all it contains, their way of life, the position they take up and maintain, are, for the time being, topics of intense concern to all who know them, and to many who do not. There is no doubt that we need to go back in some degree to the simpler way of life in vogue in the days of our grandmothers; that pretentiousness and extravagance have reached a point which is almost unendurable. We are constantly being informed by statistics which cannot be questioned that the marriage rate is decreasing; and we know that in our own circles the number of marriageable girls and marriageable youths who for some inexplicable reason _don't_ marry is very great.

What _is_ the reason? Is the age of romance over? is it impossible any longer to conjure with the words love and marriage in the garden of youth? or is it that our young people are less brave and enduring, that they shrink from the added responsibility, care, and self-denial involved in the double life? My own view is that this pretentiousness and desire for display is at the bottom of it; that young people want to begin where their fathers and mothers left off, and that courage is lacking to take a step down and begin together on the lowest rung of the ladder.

I have heard many young men say that they are afraid to ask girls to leave the luxury and comfort of their father's house, and to enter a plainer home, where they will have less luxury and more care; and though I grant that there are many girls who would shrink from the ordeal, and who prefer the indolent ease of single blessedness to the cares of matrimony on limited means, yet have I been tempted sometimes, looking at these young men, to wonder in my soul whether it was not _they_ who shrank from the plain home and the increased responsibility marriage involves. The salary sufficient for the comfort and mild luxury of one is scarcely elastic enough for two.

It would mean giving up a good many things; it would mean fewer cigars, fewer new suits, fewer first nights at the theatre,--in fact, a general modification of luxuries which he has begun to regard as indispensable; and he asks himself, Is the game worth the candle? His answer is, No.

And so he drifts out of young manhood into bachelor middle age, pa.s.sing unscathed through many flirtations, becoming encrusted with selfish ideas and selfish aims, and gradually less fit for domestic life. And all the time, while he imagines he has a fine time of it, he has missed the chief joy, the highest meaning of life.

The conditions of modern life are certainly harder than they were.

Compet.i.tion in every profession and calling is so enormous that remuneration has necessarily fallen; and it is a problem to many how single life is to be respectably maintained, let alone double. Then the invasions of women into almost every domain of man's work is somewhat serious in its consequences to men. A woman can be got to do a certain thing as quickly, correctly, and efficiently as a man; therefore the man goes to the wall. While we are glad to see the position of woman improve, and the value of her labour in the markets of the world increase, we are perplexed as to the effect of this better condition of things on the position of men. The situation is full of perplexities, strained to the utmost.

There is no doubt whatever that this improvement in the position of woman, the increased opportunities afforded her of making a respectable livelihood, has had, and is having, its serious effect in the marriage market. A single woman in a good situation, the duties of which she has strength of body and strength of mind to perform, is a very independent being, and in contrast with many of her married sisters a person to be envied. She has her hours, for one thing; there is no prospect of an eight hours' day for the married woman with a family to superintend.

Then she, having earned her own money, can spend it as she likes--and has to give account of it only to herself; and she is free from the physical trials and disabilities consequent upon marriage and maternity.

If you tell her that the sweet fulness of married life, its multiplied joys, amply compensate for the troubles, she will shake her head and want proof.

Altogether, the outlook matrimonial is not very bright. Now, while we deplore, as a serious evil, hasty, improvident, ill-considered marriages, and hold that their consequences are very sad, we would also, scarcely less seriously, deplore that over-cautiousness which is reducing the marriage rate in quarters where it ought not to be reduced,--our lower middle-cla.s.s, which is the backbone of society.

There is no fear of a serious reduction in other quarters: where there is no responsibility felt, there is none to s.h.i.+rk; and so, among the very poor, children are multiplied, and obligations increased, without any thought for the morrow, or concern for future provision. There is a very supreme kind of selfishness in this over-cautiousness which is not delightful to contemplate, the fear lest self should be inconvenienced or deprived in the very slightest degree; and all this does not tend to the highest development of human nature, but rather the reverse, since the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice is one of the loveliest attributes of human character.

That it is possible for two people to live together almost as cheaply as one, and, if the wife be careful, thrifty, and managing, with a great deal more comfort, is hardly disputed; and surely love is yet strong enough to take its chance of falling on evil days, and when they come of making the best of them. Our girls must exhibit less frivolity, less devotion to dress and idle amus.e.m.e.nts, if they wish for homes of their own; because at present it is partly true that men are afraid to take the risk and responsibility of them as partners in life.

And this brings us back to the heading of our chapter, the subject of keeping up appearances. This fearful rivalry to make the greatest show on inadequate means, to outs.h.i.+ne our neighbours in house and dress and everything else, is really a tremendous evil, the scourge of many middle-cla.s.s families. And what, after all, is its aim or outcome; what its rewards?

To begin with, it is a pandering, pure and simple, to the baser part of human nature--the desire to out-rival your neighbour, to be able to soar over him at any price; and more, it is both hypocritical and immoral.

Hypocritical, because it is pure pretence to a station which has no means to support it; and immoral, because you cannot afford to pay for it, and thereby suffering is entailed somewhere and somehow. How many of us number among our acquaintances (if not absolutely guilty ourselves), persons who, possessed of a small and limited income, live in a large house, the rent of which is a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over them for ever?

You know them by their hunted, eager, restless look, which tells of inward dispeace, of worry too great almost to be borne. Their servants do not stay long, perhaps because the larder of the big house is kept very bare, and comfort is sacrificed to outside show. They never have anything to give away, and their excuse is that they do not believe in indiscriminate charity. And they look back with a painful longing, never expressed, however, to the days when they lived at peace in a little house, and had enough and to spare for man and beast, and a penny for the beggar at the gate. The big house is but one thing; the struggle to keep up appearances is observed in many other ways--in expensive and not always efficient education of the children, in party-giving, extravagant dress, frequent going out of town, and many others too numerous to mention. And what, after all, is the advantage of it? Is there any advantage gained? You may succeed in exciting in the breast of your neighbour a bitter envy which will probably find expression in some such remark as this--"I only hope it is all paid for."

And you never will have any peace of mind, without which the outward trappings are but a mockery.

Oh, let us be simpler! Let us at least not pretend to be what we are not. In a word, let us not try to humbug ourselves and the world at large.

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IX.

_MOTHERHOOD._

It is a great theme, which I approach with fear and trembling; yet--is the home complete without the child? Can even an unpretentious book of this sort be written without some attempted treatment of the same?

The first year of married life is often very full, as well as specially trying, a record of new and very crucial experiences such as are bound to prove the grit of our young housekeeper. She has many things to learn in her new sphere, both in the department of ethics as well as of housekeeping. She has a husband to study, for even though they have seen a great deal of each other before marriage, there yet remains much to learn of many little peculiarities before undreamed of, which in the full glare and test of daily life sometimes stand out with a certain unpleasant prominence, which both find trying. There are new tastes to discover and consider, new likes and dislikes to be studied--in a word, the situation is a severe ordeal, especially if our young wife be very young and inexperienced. Of course she has an adoring and approving love to aid her, and all her efforts to please will be appreciated at their full value, and perhaps a little over, and that is much.

If in addition to all the trying amenities of her new position there be added early in her married life the prospect of motherhood, with its attendant cares, anxieties, and fears, then our young housekeeper may be granted to have hand and heart full. That it is a prospect full of joy and satisfaction, the realisation of a sweet and secret hope, n.o.body will deny. There are a few women, we are told, who do not desire motherhood, preferring the greater freedom and ease of childless wifehood; but it is not of such we seek to write, because the vast majority agree with me that motherhood is the crown of marriage, as well as the sweetest of all bonds between husband and wife.

It is the great, almost awful, responsibility of this bond which makes thinking people deplore the prevalence of early and improvident marriage between persons who seem to lack entirely this sense of responsibility, and who undertake the most solemn duties in the same flippant mood as they go out on a day's enjoyment. The idea that they have in their power the making and marring of a human soul, to say nothing of the influences which in fulness of time must go forth from that same soul, does not trouble them, or indeed exist for them at all. They have no ideas--they never think. If the child comes, good and well--it has to be provided for; welcome or unwelcome it arrives; and is tolerated or rejoiced over as the case may be.

We need a great deal of educating on this particular point, and the fact that a child may have rights before it is born is one which presses home to the heart of every man and woman who may give the matter any serious attention whatsoever.

If we marry, then as surely do we undertake the possible obligations of parentage; and if we do not see that we are fit physically, mentally, and morally for this undoubtedly greatest of all human obligations, then are we blameworthy, and answerable to G.o.d and man for our shortcomings.

Heroism is a word to stir the highest enthusiasm in every heart, and we Britons are not supposed to lack in that glorious quality. While not despising nor making light of that heroism which shows an unflinching front on the battlefield, or in the face of any danger, and while recognising also and glorying in that other heroism of which the world hears less, but which is nevertheless very rich and far-reaching in results--I mean that brave heart which does not sink under adverse circ.u.mstances, which makes the best of everything, which can do, dare, and suffer for others, without notice or applause--there is yet another phase of heroism of which the world knows not at all, but which in my estimation is as great, if not greater, than any of these. It is a delicate theme, and yet in such a book as this are we not justified in touching upon it, reverently and tenderly as it deserves? There are some--more, I believe, than we dream of--who, being afflicted physically or mentally, and who, fearing some hereditary moral taint for which they have to suffer, though entirely blameless, deliberately abstain from marriage for the highest of all reasons--that they fear to perpetuate in their own children the weaknesses which are already so stupendous a curse to mankind. Oh that such examples could be multiplied, and that we were once thoroughly awakened to the solemn significance of the fact that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children!

But when we look around we see the innocent made to suffer daily for the guilty; we see children whose lives even in infancy are but a burden to them, and whose later life can only be a cross, and we pray for a great baptism of light on this painful subject, for a great awakening to that personal, individual responsibility which is the only solution of a difficulty which concerns the future and the highest interest of the race.

To return to the question of rights as affecting the unborn babe: the mother has then so much in her power that she can not only determine to a great extent what kind of infancy the child shall have, but also whether her own duties therein shall be heavy or light. By attending strictly to her own health, adhering to natural laws, living simply and wholesomely, she can almost ensure the bodily health of the child; and by keeping her mind calm and even, avoiding worry, and cultivating cheerfulness and contentment, she thus moulds the disposition of the child to a far greater extent than she dreams of. The woman who lives in a condition of perpetual nervous excitement and worry before the birth of her child, who is fretful, complaining, impatient of the discomfort of her condition, need not be much surprised if her baby be fretful and difficult to rear. Of course this is all very easy to write down, and most difficult--in many cases of physical and nervous prostration impossible--to bear in mind; nevertheless, it is worth the trial, worth the self-denial involved, even looking at it from the most selfish standpoint, one's own ultimate comfort and ease. The gain to the child is too great to be estimated.

And surely taking into consideration the enormous number of miserable, weakly babies who have never had a chance, the day of whose birth, like Job's, is sadder than the day of their death, it is not too much to ask from thoughtful Christian women, who at heart feel their responsibility and their high privilege, that nothing shall be lacking on their part to make the child given to them by G.o.d a moral, mental, and physical success. We are careful in all other departments of life to try and obtain the best--why not here? Is human life less precious, human souls of less account, than merchandise?

I do not see why mothers should not seek to impress upon their daughters, and fathers upon their sons, as they approach maturity, the solemnity and sacredness of such themes, which involve all that is most important in human life. I consider that the ignorance with which so many young girls are allowed to enter matrimony is nothing short of criminal; and I do not myself see that a plain, straight, loving talk from her mother beforehand, which will prepare her for her new obligations and make them less a surprise and a trial when they come, can possibly take the edge off that exquisite and delicate purity which we would wish to be our daughters' outstanding characteristic, and which every right-thinking man desires in his wife. There are many who do not share this opinion, and hold that the wall of reserve should never be broken. But the issues are great, and I cannot but think that in this case ignorance is more likely to be fruitful of anxiety and foreboding, to say nothing of mistakes, than is a little knowledge wisely imparted by those whom experience has taught.

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X.

_THE SON IN THE HOME._

The son is peculiarly the mother's child, and the bond between them, seen at its best, is one of the loveliest, and, to the woman who has suffered for her firstborn, one of the most soul-satisfying on earth. I suppose most women given choice would wish their firstborn to be a son; and her pride in the boy as he grows in grace and strength and manliness is a very exquisite thing in the mother.

As a rule, a boy is more difficult to rear. He has more strength of limb and will, and shows earlier, perhaps, the desire to be master of the whole situation, as very often he is. It is amazing at how early an age a child can begin to discern between the firm will and the weak will of those who guide him, and to profit thereby; and she is a wise woman who begins as she means to end, and who teaches her child that her decision is absolute from the earliest stage. The moment he begins to understand that though you say no a yell will probably convert it into a yes, your occupation is gone, so to speak--you have lost your hold, and Baby is master of the situation and of you.

There is no doubt, I think, that the woman who has a nurse to relieve her of the child has a better chance than the one who has to fight the battle single-handed--for this reason, that extreme weariness of body, which nothing brings about more quickly than the perpetual care of a baby, is apt to weaken the will; the desire for peace at any price becomes too great to be resisted, and so the citadel is lost. It is impossible also for the ordinary woman, who has the care of a baby all day long, in addition to a mult.i.tude of other duties, not to become nervous, irritable, and excitable, and the probability is that the child becomes a reflex of herself. I know of no more self-denying and hara.s.sing life than that of the mother of many children, whose limited means prohibit much a.s.sistance in her labours. It would require the strength of a Hercules and the patience of a Job. Yet how many go on from day to day with an uncomplaining and heroic cheerfulness which does not strike the onlooker, simply because it is so common, like the toothache, that it attracts but little sympathy or attention.

In one day such a mother may win moral victories beside which the brilliant engagements of the battlefield would pale. It is not one that she has to consider and contend with, but many; the diversity of disposition in one family is truly amazing, and affords a most interesting psychological study. If she be a thoughtful and conscientious woman she knows that she is sowing the seeds of future good and ill, that early impressions are never erased, and that her own influence is the one which will leave the strongest, the most indelible mark on the future of the little ones she has under her wing. To this there is no exception whatever; it is a fact n.o.body attempts to dispute.

Who shall say, then--who shall dare to say--that a woman's work is slight, her sphere narrow, her influence feeble? Have we not yet with us the proverb, "She who rocks the cradle rules the world"? as true to-day as it was a hundred years ago, as it will be in a hundred years to come.

But though the anxieties and responsibilities of the nursery are great, they increase, especially in the case of some, as the years go by; though as the boy grows older his mother may be somewhat relieved by the wise guidance of the father. There comes a time when the lad wants to emanc.i.p.ate himself from his mother's jurisdiction, and begins to look to his father, seeing in him the image of what he may yet become. He will not love his mother any less, but he will be impatient a little, perhaps, of her careful supervision; he wants to be a man, to imitate his father, to show that he is a being of another order. It is always amusing to look on at this subtle and inevitable change, but sometimes touching as well. It is the strong soul seeking his heritage, the first stirring of manhood in the boy, who will never be other than a bairn to his mother. Happy then the mother, blessed the boy, who has a good, wise, and tender father to take him by the hand, and show him at this critical stage the beauty of a n.o.ble, pure, and honest manhood, and how great is its power to bless the world.

There are some men who never grow old, who, while doing a man's part better than most in the world, keep the child-heart pure within them.

Happy are the children who call them father! The ideal father (since we are writing of what we all know to be the highest in home relations.h.i.+p, we may call him so) will be a boy in the midst of his boys all his days; he will share the pastimes, the interests, the absorbing occupations of his boys, in the schoolroom and the recreation-ground, just as he did not disdain to join sometimes in the frolic of the nursery. He will understand cricket and football, and hounds and hares, and know all the little points of schoolboy honour, so that he may at once grasp the situation when his lad brings his grievance or his tale of victory to him. And through it all, without preaching, which the soul of the average boy abhors, he will seek to inculcate the highest moral lessons, thus accentuating and deepening the teaching of the nursery still fresh in the boy's mind.

This is the ideal which we would wish to see in every home, but the real is rather different, and sometimes perplexing to deal with. We have seen homes where the boys do not "get on" with their father, who seem to rub each other the wrong way, and to have no sort of kins.h.i.+p with each other--in a word, who are not chums, which is a boy's definition of the jolliest possible relations.h.i.+p, and which is very beautiful existing between father and son. But there are fathers who have no patience with the boy who, feeling in him the promptings of a larger life, begins to give himself little airs, and to adopt a manly and masterful manner; no sympathy with his desire for freedom; and who, instead of wisely guiding all these accompaniments of young manhood into fresh and legitimate channels, seeks to curb them, to restrain every impulse, and to enforce an authority the boy does not understand, and inwardly, if not outwardly, kicks against.