The Marriage Book (53 page)

Marriage lasts a lifetime, and a husband is not a man like other men. Therefore, never commit the folly of giving yourself into his power in anything. Keep up a constant reserve in your speech and in your actions. You may even be cold to him without danger, for you can modify coldness at will. Besides, nothing is more easy to maintain than our dignity. The words, “It is not becoming in your wife to do thus and so,” is a great talisman. The life of a woman lies in the words, “I will not.” They are the final argument. Feminine power is in them, and therefore they should only be used on real occasions. But they constitute a means of governing far beyond that of argument or discussion. I, my dear child, reigned over your father by his faith in me. If your husband believes in you, you can do all things with him. To inspire that belief you must make
him think that you understand him. Do not suppose that that is an easy thing to do. A woman can always make a man think that he is loved, but to make him admit that he is understood is far more difficult. I am bound to tell you all now, my child, for to-morrow life with its complications, life with two wills which
must
be made one, begins for you. Bear in mind, at all moments, that difficulty. The only means of harmonizing your two wills is to arrange from the first that there shall be but one; and that will must be yours.

JOHN MATHER AUSTIN

A VOICE TO THE MARRIED
, 1847

As a minister, Austin (see
Looks
) wrote and preached in favor of abolitionism, prison reform, and—somewhat implausibly in light of the advice below—women’s rights.

Although ultimate authority is vested in the husband, yet it should be his desire, his study, in all his conduct, to keep this circumstance from view as much as possible. Instead of constantly asserting his authority, and seeking opportunities to exhibit it, he should endeavor to act towards his wife, so far as practicable, as though he had no power superior to her own. He should exercise rule in a manner so gentle, so mild, so unseen, that those who are swayed by it, shall be unconscious of its existence. Delicacy, propriety, love for his companion, desire for domestic tranquility and peace, all urge him to pursue this course.

There are two methods in which the husband can make known his will—the one is in the form of a
command
—the other in that of a
request.
In the great majority of cases, the latter course is altogether the most successful manner of securing compliance. . . . Where despotic command is exercised, confusion, disobedience, and rebellion most generally prevail; for fear cannot produce so perfect an obedience from a rational being as love.

GEORGE ELIOT

ROMOLA
, 1863

For Eliot’s background, see
Expectations
.
Romola
was the author’s fourth novel, a historical work set in fifteenth-century Florence. Romola, the erudite daughter of a classics scholar, falls in love with and marries Tito Melema, an Italian scholar who comes to Florence after a shipwreck, but whose increasing ambition makes him less and less desirable to his wife.

Romola’s touch and glance no longer stirred any fibre of tenderness in her husband. The good-humoured, tolerant Tito, incapable of hatred, incapable almost of impatience, disposed always to be gentle towards the rest of the world, felt himself becoming strangely hard towards this wife whose presence had once been the strongest influence he had known. With all his softness of disposition, he had a masculine effectiveness of intellect and purpose which, like sharpness of edge, is itself an energy, working its way without any strong momentum. Romola had an energy of her own which thwarted his; and no man, who is not exceptionally feeble, will endure being thwarted by his wife. Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

A MARRIED MAN

“THE MARRIAGE INJUNCTION TO OBEY,” 1886

On June 2, Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room of the White House, and a few days later, the
St. Louis-Globe Democrat
ran a letter from “A Married Lady,” complaining that the president should have traveled to Folsom’s native Buffalo, New York, instead of having her come to Washington. “In my judgment,” the woman wrote, “[Folsom] sacrificed, to a certain extent, the dignity of her sex.” What follows is the opinion, printed the following day, of one male reader.

“The good old days of St. Paul” is a reference to the biblical injunction “wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.”

You ask the ladies of St. Louis and the West to give you their opinion of the propriety of the omission of the injunction to “obey” from the recent marriage ceremony in Washington. Let me tell you the reason. I have been married ten years. My wife promised at the altar to obey me. Has she done it? Yes, whenever it suited her to obey me she has obeyed me. I think clergymen omit “obey” because it has been found by experience that it’s no use to put in. The good old
days of St. Paul have passed away. My wife and I live very happily together. We get along first rate, but if I should remind her of her marriage vow to obey her husband, I think there would be a fuss in our house, and I don’t want that; so, if there is any “obeying” done, I do it myself.

The injunction that women shall obey their husbands is a dead letter, and that’s why the preachers don’t mention it. I am sorry, but “ ’Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis ’tis true.”

JOHN UPDIKE

COUPLES
, 1968

Poet and essayist, critic and short-story writer, John Updike (1932–2009) produced twenty-three novels, many of which explored modern relationships.
Couples
was his fifth.

Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner.

NIA VARDALOS

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
, 2002

As screenwriter and star, Nia Vardalos (1962–) lovingly created the character of Toula Portokalos, a thirty-year-old woman trying to break away from the expectations of her traditional Greek-American family. Step one—convincing Toula’s father to let her take a college course—provided her mother, Maria (played by Lainie Kazan), the opportunity to explain wifely power.

PROPOSALS

MARTIN MARTIN

A LATE VOYAGE TO ST. KILDA
, 1698

Every marriage proposal involves the risk of rejection. But, as documented by the late-seventeenth-century travel writer Martin Martin (?–1718), one fabled Scottish approach to popping the question created physical peril as well. Climbing up and balancing on the “mistress stone” in the archipelago of St. Kilda was apparently a test both of rock-climbing agility (and thus of food-gathering ability in difficult terrain) and also a show of gallantry, both necessary before marriage. Drily, the author noted that when a native offered him a chance to try the feat, “I told him [that if I did it] the performance would have a quite contrary effect upon me, by robbing me both of my life and mistress at the same moment.”

In the face of the rock, south from the town, is the famous stone, known by the name of the Mistress-stone; it resembles a door exactly, and is in the very front of this rock, which is twenty or thirty fathom perpendicular in height, the figure of it being discernible about the distance of a mile: upon the lintel of this door, every bachelor-wooer is, by an ancient custom, obliged in honour to give a specimen of his affection for the love of his mistress, and it is thus: he is to stand on his left foot, having the one half of it over the rock, he then draws the right foot towards the left, and in this posture bowing, puts both his fists further out to the right foot; after he has performed this, he has acquired no small reputation, being ever after accounted worthy the finest woman in the world: they firmly believe this achievement is always attended with the desired success.

The Mistress Stone

PERSONAL AD

BOSTON EVENING POST
, 1759

Sadly, there is no record of whether this proposal ever succeeded or, for that matter, attracted any answers at all.

Four hundred pounds in 1750 is the equivalent of about 60,000 pounds, or $100,000, today.

To the Ladies. Any young Lady between the Age of Eighteen and twenty three of a Midling Stature; brown Hair, regular Features and a Lively Brisk Eye; Of Good Morals & not Tinctured with anything that may Sully so Distinguishable a Form possessed of 3 or 400£ entirely her own Disposal and where there will be no necessity of going Through the tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guardians for their consent: Such a one by leaving a Line directed for A. W. at the British Coffee House in King Street appointing where an Interview may be had will meet with a Person who flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above description. N.B. Profound Secrecy will be observ’d. No trifling Answers will be regarded.

JANE AUSTEN

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
, 1813

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” With that, one of the most famous opening lines in all literature, Jane Austen (1775–1817) set out to tell the story of the Bennet clan, a gentrified family living in a rural township outside London. Of the five Bennet daughters (all of whom their mother fervently wishes to marry off), Elizabeth, the second oldest, is the most independent. Unworried about the possibility of spinsterhood, and unmoved by the potential for financial security, she can scarcely stifle her amusement as a pompous and earnest clergyman, William Collins, does his best to entreat her.

Longbourn is the Bennets’ home. The wealthy Lady Catherine de Bourgh is the noblewoman who is Collins’s patron and, incidentally, the aunt of Elizabeth’s future husband.

The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances which he supposed
a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words, “May I hope, Madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning?”

Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. Bennet instantly answered, “Oh dear!—Yes—certainly.—I am sure Lizzy will be very happy—I am sure she can have no objection.—Come, Kitty, I want you up stairs.” And gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when Elizabeth called out, “Dear Ma’am, do not go.—I beg you will not go.—Mr. Collins must excuse me.—He can have nothing to say to me that any body need not hear. I am going away myself.”

“No, no, nonsense, Lizzy.—I desire you will stay where you are.”—And upon Elizabeth’s seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added, “Lizzy, I
insist
upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins.”

Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction—and a moment’s consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again, and tried to conceal by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as they were gone Mr. Collins began.

“Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there
not
been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you that I have your respected mother’s permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it will be
advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and moreover for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did.”