Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 25

Your intended spouse has a right to absolute integrity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING TO BE MARRIED.]

18. MARRY CHARACTER.--It is not so much what one has as what one is.

19. DO NOT MARRY THE WRONG OBJECT.--Themistocles said he would rather marry his daughter to a man without {177} money than to money without a man. It is well to have both. It is fatal to have neither.

20. DEMAND A JUST RETURN.--You give virtue and purity, and gentleness and integrity. You have a right to demand the same in return. Duty requires it.

21. REQUIRE BRAINS.--Culture is good, but will not be transmitted. Brain power may be.

22. STUDY PAST RELATIONs.h.i.+P.--The good daughter and sister makes a good wife. The good son and brother makes a good husband.

23. NEVER MARRY AS A MISSIONARY DEED.--If one needs saving from bad habits he is not suitable for you.

24. MARRIAGE IS A SURE AND SPECIFIC REMEDY for all the ills known as seminal losses. As right eating cures a sick stomach and right breathing diseased lungs, so the right use of the s.e.xual organs will bring relief and restoration. Many men who have been sufferers from indiscretions of youth, have married, and were soon cured of spermatorrhoea and other complications which accompanied it.

25. A GOOD, LONG COURTs.h.i.+P will often cure many difficulties or ills of the s.e.xual organs. O. S. Fowler says: "See each other often spend many pleasant hours together," have many walks and talks, think of each other while absent, write many love letters, be inspired to many love feelings and acts towards each other, and exercise your s.e.xuality in a thousand forms ten thousand times, every one of which tones up and thereby recuperates this very element now dilapidated. When you have courted long enough to marry, you will be sufficiently restored to be reimproved by it. Come,

UP AND AT IT.--Dress up, spruce up, and be on the alert. Don't wait too long to get one much more perfect than you are; but settle on some one soon. Remember that your uns.e.xed state renders you over-dainty, and easily disgusted. So contemplate only their lovable qualities.

26. PURITY OF PURPOSE.--Court with a pure and loyal purpose, and when thoroughly convinced that the disposition of other difficulties are in the way of a happy marriage life, then _honorably_ discuss it and honorably treat each other in the settlement.

27. DO NOT TRIFLE with the feelings or affections of each other. It is a sin that will curse you all the days of your life.

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Women Who Make the Best Wives.

1. CONSCIOUS OF THE DUTIES OF HER s.e.x.--A woman conscious of the duties of her s.e.x, one who unflinchingly discharges the duties allotted to her by nature, would no doubt make a good wife.

2. GOOD WIVES AND MOTHERS.--The good wives and mothers are the women who believe in the sisterhood of women as well as in the brotherhood of men.

The highest exponent of this type seeks to make her home something more than an abode where children are fed, clothed and taught the catechism. The State has taken her children into politics by making their education a function of politicians. The good wife and homemaker says to her children, "Where thou goest, I will go." She puts off her own inclinations to ease and selfishness. She studies the men who propose to educate her children; she exhorts mothers to sit beside fathers on the school-board; she will even herself accept such thankless office in the interests of the helpless youth of the schools who need a mother's as well as a father's and a teacher's care in this field of politics.

3. A BUSY WOMAN.--As to whether a busy woman, that is, a woman who labors for mankind in the world outside her home,--whether such an one can also be a good housekeeper, and care for her children, and make a real "Home, Sweet Home!" with all the comforts by way of variation, why! I am ready, as the result of years practical experience as a busy woman, to a.s.sert that women of affairs can also be women of true domestic tastes and habits.

4. BRAINY ENOUGH.--What kind of women make the best wives? The woman who is brainy enough to be a companion, wise enough to be a counsellor, skilled enough in the domestic virtues to be a good housekeeper, and loving enough to guide in true paths the children with whom the home may be blessed.

5. FOUND THE RIGHT HUSBAND.--The best wife is the woman who has found the right husband, a husband who understands her. A man will have the best wife when he rates that wife as queen among women. Of all women she should always be to him the dearest. This sort of man will not only praise the dishes made by his wife, but will actually eat them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUNISHMENT OF WIFE BEATERS IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE EARLY DAYS.]

6. BANK ACCOUNT.--He will allow his life-companion a bank account, and will exact no itemized bill at the end of the month. Above all, he will pay the Easter bonnet bill without a word, never bring a friend to dinner without first telephoning home,--short, he will comprehend that the {180} woman who makes the best wife is the woman whom, by his indulgence of her ways and whims, he makes the best wife. So after all, good husbands have the most to do with making good wives.

7. BEST HOME MAKER.--A woman to be the best home maker needs to be devoid of intensive "nerves." She must be neat and systematic, but not too neat, lest she destroy the comfort she endeavors to create. She must be distinctly amiable, while firm. She should have no "career," or desire for a career, if she would fill to perfection the home sphere. She must be affectionate, sympathetic and patient, and fully appreciative of the worth and dignity of her sphere.

8. KNOW NOTHING WHATSOEVER ABOUT COOKING OR SEWING OR HOUSEKEEPING.--I am inclined to make my answer to this question somewhat concise, after the manner of a text without the sermon. Like this: To be the "best wife"

depends upon three things: first, an abiding faith with G.o.d; second, duty lovingly discharged as daughter, wife and mother; third, self-improvement, mentally, physically, spiritually. With this as a text and as a glittering generality, let me touch upon one or two practical essentials. In the course of every week it is my privilege to meet hundreds of young women,--prospective wives. I am astonished to find that many of these know nothing whatsoever about cooking or sewing or housekeeping. Now, if a woman cannot broil a beefsteak, nor boil the coffee when it is necessary, if she cannot mend the linen, nor patch a coat, if she cannot make a bed, order the dinner, create a lamp-shade, ventilate the house, nor do anything practical in the way of making home actually a home, how can she expect to make even a good wife, not to speak of a better or best wife? I need not continue this sermon. Wise girls will understand.

9. THE BEST KEEPER OF HOME.--As to who is the best keeper of this transition home, memory pictures to me a woman grown white under the old slavery, still bound by it, in that little-out-of-the-way Kansas town, but never so bound that she could not put aside household tasks, at any time, for social intercourse, for religious conversation, for correspondence, for reading, and, above all, for making everyone who came near her feel that her home was the expression of herself, a place for rest, study, and the cultivation of affection. She did not exist for her walls, her carpets, her furniture; they existed for her and all who came to her. She considered herself the equal of all; and everyone else thought her the superior of all.

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Adaptation, Conjugal Affection, and Fatal Errors.

ADVICE TO THE MARRIED AND UNMARRIED.

1. MARRYING FOR WEALTH.--Those who marry for wealth often get what they marry and nothing else; for rich girls, besides being generally dest.i.tute of both industry and economy, are generally extravagant in their expenditures, and require servants enough to dissipate a fortune. They generally have insatiable wants, yet feel that they deserve to be indulged in everything, because they placed their husbands under obligation to them by bringing them a dowry. And then the mere idea of living on the money of a wife, and of being supported by her, is enough to tantalize any man of an independent spirit.

2. SELF-SUPPORT.--What spirited husband would not prefer to support both himself and wife, rather than submit to this perpetual bondage of obligation. To live upon a father, or take a patrimony from him, is quite bad enough; but to run in debt to a wife, and owe her a living, is a little too aggravating for endurance, especially if there be not perfect cordiality between the two, which cannot be the case in money matches.

Better live wifeless, or anything else, rather than marry for money.

3. MONEY-SEEKERS.--Shame on sordid wife-seekers, or, rather, money-seekers; for it is not a wife that they seek, but only filthy lucre! They violate all their other faculties simply to gratify miserly desire. Verily such "have their reward"!

4. THE PENITENT HOUR.--And to you, young ladies, let me say with great emphasis, that those who court and marry you because you are rich, will make you rue the day of your pecuniary espousals. They care not for you, but only your money, and when they get that, will be liable to neglect or abuse you, and probably squander it, leaving you dest.i.tute and abandoning you to your fate.

5. INDUSTRY THE SIGN OF n.o.bILITY.--Marry a working, industrious young lady, whose const.i.tution is strong, flesh solid, and health unimpaired by confinement, bad habits, or late hours. Give me a plain, home-spun farmer's daughter, and you may have all the rich and fas.h.i.+onable belles of our cities and villages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ILL-MATED COUPLE.]

6. WASP WAISTS.--Marrying small waists is attended with consequences scarcely less disastrous than marrying {183} rich and fas.h.i.+onable girls. An amply developed chest is a sure indication of a naturally vigorous const.i.tution and a strong hold on life; while small waists indicate small and feeble vital organs, a delicate const.i.tution, sickly offspring, and a short life. Beware of them, therefore, unless you wish your heart broken by the early death of your wife and children.

7. MARRYING TALKERS.--In marrying a wit or a talker merely, though the brilliant scintillations of the former, or the garrulity of the latter, may amuse or delight you for the time being, yet you will derive no permanent satisfaction from these qualities, for there will be no common bond of kindred feeling to a.s.similate your souls and hold each spell-bound at the shrine of the other's intellectual or moral excellence.

8. THE SECOND WIFE.--Many men, especially in choosing a second wife, are governed by her own qualifications as a housekeeper mainly, and marry industry and economy. Though these traits of character are excellent, yet a good housekeeper may be far from being a good wife. A good housekeeper, but a poor wife, may indeed prepare you a good dinner, and keep her house and children neat and tidy, yet this is but a part of the office of a wife; who, besides all her household duties, has those of a far higher order to perform. She should soothe you with her sympathies, divert your troubled mind, and make the whole family happy by the gentleness of her manners, and the native goodness of her heart. A husband should also likewise do his part.

9. DO NOT MARRY A MAN WITH A LOW, FLAT HEAD; for, however fascinating, genteel, polite, tender, plausible or winning he may be, you will repent the day of your espousal.

10. HEALTHY WIVES AND MOTHERS.--Let girls romp, and let them range hill and dale in search of flowers, berries, or any other object of amus.e.m.e.nt or attraction; let them bathe often, skip the rope, and take a smart ride on horseback; often interspersing these amus.e.m.e.nts with a turn of sweeping or was.h.i.+ng, in order thereby to develop their vital organs, and thus lay a substantial physical foundation for becoming good wives and mothers. The wildest romps usually make the best wives, while quiet, still, demure, sedate and sedentary girls are not worth having.

11. SMALL STATURE.--In pa.s.sing, I will just remark, that good size is important in wives and mothers. A small stature is objectionable in a woman, because little women {184} usually have too much activity for their strength, and, consequently, feeble const.i.tutions; hence they die young, and besides, being nervous, suffer extremely as mothers.

12. HARD TIMES AND MATRIMONY.--Many persons, particularly young men, refuse to marry, especially "these hard times," because they cannot support a wife in the style they wish. To this I reply, that a good wife will care less for the style in which she is supported, than for you. She will cheerfully conform to your necessities, and be happy with you in a log-cabin. She will even help you support yourself. To support a good wife, even if she have children, is really less expensive than to board alone, besides being one of the surest means of acquiring property.

13. MARRYING FOR A HOME.--Do not, however, marry for a home merely, unless you wish to become even more dest.i.tute with one than without one; for, it is on the same footing with "marrying for money." Marry a man for his merit, and you take no chances.

14. MARRY TO PLEASE NO ONE BUT YOURSELF.--Marriage is a matter exclusively your own; because you alone must abide its consequences. No person, not even a parent, has the least right to interfere or dictate in this matter.

I never knew a marriage, made to please another, to turn out any otherwise than most unhappily.

15. DO NOT MARRY TO PLEASE YOUR PARENTS. Parents cannot love for their children any more than they can eat or sleep, or breathe, or die and go to heaven for them. They may give wholesome advice merely, but should leave the entire decision to the unbiased judgment of the parties themselves, who mainly are to experience the consequences of their choice. Besides, such is human nature, that to oppose lovers, or to speak against the person beloved, only increases their desire and determination to marry.