The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1868-04-18
sdships OF Wives and Hus-
bands.

4StulnX OI tue UNdpHulutmSut uNu
S~wretched1css which so many married
men and women VIGOROUSLY experience
in their relations with each other. 1t
may be useful to state the principal
causes of this unhappiness, and to give
some definite directions in the way of
remedy. Absence of love, absence of
reason, absence of justice, absence of
taste-in other words, harshnoss and
neglect, stiffness and frivolity, vice and
crime, vulgarity and slovenliness-are the
leading and inevitable creators of aliena-
ton, dislike and misery in marriage
Whatever tends to increase these tends
to multiply separations and divorces be-
tween those who cannot endure each
other and to multiply irritations, quar-
rels, sorrows and agonies between those
who may endure, but cannot enjoy each
other. In marriage the intimacy is so
great and constant that the slightest
friction easily becomes CALLING. Nowhere
beside is there such need of magnanimous
forbearance in one, or else of equality of
worth aud refinement in both. "Love
does not secure happiness in marriage
often the contrary; reason is necessary"
SO said the wise Jean Paul. He also
said: tfThe best man Joined with the
worst woman has a greater hell than the
best woman joined with the worst man"
This is, no doubt, true as a general rule,
because woman is so much more capable
than man of self-abnegation, silent pa
thence, meek submission and flexible ad-
Iustment to inevitable circumstances
Probably the women who keenly and
chronically suffer from unhappy mar
riages arc far more numerous than the
kindred sufferers of the other sex. This
Is because they are more deeply suscepti-
bic to cruelty and Indifference and to all
the repulsive traits of character; are less
capable of ignoring such things; have
less of absorbing occupation of their own
to take up their attention, and are less
able to be absorbed in things beyond the
personal and domestic sphere. There
are unquestionably thousands of married
women whose experience is made a liv-
ing martyrdom by the infdelity, the ty-
ranny, the coarseness, the general odious-
ness and WearisOmeneSs Of their hus-
bands. In most cases, even where a d.
vorce is wished, the shocking public
scandal and disgrace is too much and
they wear on to the end. What misery
delicate and conscientious women, of ded-
icated souls and polished manners, who
love everything that is pure and beauti-
full, are compelled to undergo IN their
bondage to husbands, ignorant, u%ninter-
esting, ignoble, relentlessly domineering,
Is not to be expressed. Their best weap-
ons, in such cases, if they knew it, are
gentleness, patience, persuasion, and the
sHllful use of every means to improve
and uplift their unequal companions to
their y level. TIE Persian poet ex-
pressed a rich truth when he wrote,
@'Gentleness is the salt on the table Of
morals" 1t is a tragedy that the good
wife of a bad husband is to identified
with him that the penalties ofhis offences
fall on her head, often more terribly than
on his. A pure woman loving a wicked
man must expect to have her affections
raVaged by his sins; does not the light
ming drawn By the rod blast the innocent
ivy entwining it? What lacerating woes
the gambler. the drunkard, the forger,
the adultcrer, inficts on his wife
And yet, profound as is the misfor-
tune, sharp as is the suffering of such, it
may be doubted whether a noble, sensi-
tive, cultivated man, with a yearning
heart of softness and peace, a capacious
miRd full of grand aspirations, married,
by some fatal chance, to a woman with
a petty soul, a teasing and tyranni-
cal temper, a mencacious and rasping
tongue, whose taste is for small gossip
and scandal, whose ambition is for fash
ionable show and noise, whose life is one
fncessant fret and sting-it may be
doubted if this mans lot is not severer
with his Unmatched consort than hers
would be with the worst husband in the
world. He had better marry a vinegar
cruet than such a Tartar. When weary
and seeking to rest, to be reused up by a
ascolding; when searching for truth, or
contemplating beauty, Or eommuning
with God, or aspiring to perfection, or
.scheming some vast good for mankind, to
he aggravated by abuse, insuIted by false
charges, dragged down to petty interests
which he despises, and mixed up with
wrongs and passions which he loathes-
these degrading injuries, these wasteful
Vexations, and what he must endure. No
wonder if he vehemently resents a treat
ment so homogeneous with his worth. No
wonder if, yexed, hurt, goaded half to
madness, ne gets enraged, and unseemly
contentious ensue, followed by painful de-
.pressions and remorseful grief. No won-
der if he finds it hard indeed to forget or
to forgive the infiction of an evil SO In
comparabiy profound and frightful. There
Is, to a high-souled man, nc wrong merely
hurtful or more difficult to pardon than
to have mean motives falsely ascribed to
him, to be placed by misinterpretation on
lower plane than that where he belongs.
Every such experience stabs the moral
source of life, and draws blood from the
soul itself. Husband and wife power.
fully tend to a common leveland likeness.
The higher must redeem and lift the un.
equal mate, or live In strife and misery.
IF the lower takes pattern after the su.
perior enc, the petty, frivolous, false, and
hetfui becoming -magnanimous, dediea.
ted, and serene, 1t is a divine triumph Of
grace, and the result will be full of bless.
edness. But otherwise a wearing unhap.
piness is inevitable, however carefully il
be hidden, however bravely it be borne
-@From the Friendships of Women" 6s
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