Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1869-07-31
Well-assorted Marriages.


Rev. DR.. Lamsom, Of Brookline, Mass,
enters his earnest protest through the
Boston reflector against the preyalen,
doctrine that the great majority Of mar.
riages are ill-assorted and unhappy. He
regards this opinion as not only false, but
deeply pernicious; tending to produce
the very state Of things which it asserts
to be so very common. lie SAYS that. in
the course Of his long ministry Of about
thirty years, he has been brought into
relations Of comparative intimacy with
ht least four hundred families, and among
all these he can scarcely count a dozen
lll-assorted marriages. On the contrary,
IN considering with how little care mar.
riages are often contracted, his habitual
wonder has been why there are not more
unhappy marriages than really exist. In
accounting for the prevalence of the
opinion which he condemns as false
and pernicious, DR.. Lamson suggests
that in most cases it is the result Of in
consideration, because single case Of
unhappy marriage within ones circle of
acquaintance SO oyertops and oyershad-
ows the multitude of happy unions.
Another reason might have been given
for the prevalence OF this opinion, viz.
Few people in estimating the happiness
OF married couple make due allowance
for human imperfection. No two human
beings can be brought into the intimate
relationship of husband and wife without
the occasional development of something
discordant. Only perfect, absolutely
Sinless persons, could live absolutely per
feet lives together; and such men and
women can never be found in this world
and as in another world there will be no
marrying, absolutely perfect marriages
can never be realized either in this world
or that which is to come. But, are not
the vast majority of married persons
quite as happy as an equal number OF
unmarried ones? Nay, more, are not
the great majority of married people as
happy in their married state as they
would be unmarried? And still more,
are they not as happy with each other
as they would be with anybody else
By change of partners they might get
rld OF some one or more causes OF dis
turbances between them-some constitu.
tional defects or inirmities, or some dis
agreeable cherished habits; but they
would find in other parties other causes
of disturbance quite as serious, though
of an entirely different kind; so that
after all it might be very difficult 20 say
on which side there was the greatest
amount of happiness or misery. The
fact is, that men and women are suscepti.
BILE of only given amount of content.
ment and happiness, in any condition OF
life; and marry whom they will, they
can never exceed their capacity for en-.
joyment. Many people are foolish
enough to imagine that marriage is the
sovereign cure for all the disquietudes and
miseries of lite; and when they get mar.
ried, and they find their favorite panacea
docs not work perfectly, they jump to
the conclusion that it 10 because their
marriage was not true one; that it
was ill-assorted, and therefore an unhappy
one; whereas, the only trouble is, that
both husband and wife are human
neither divine nor angelic-and have,
like all other human beings, more or less
of sinful infrmity about them.