The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-10-27
Happy Marriages.

We have spoken of unhappy mar
riages. 1t is but fair that we should
give the other side turn. Few people,
comparatively, are unhappily welded.
Fewer still, if possible, can be said with
truth to be happily married. The great
mass of married people are doubtless
happier than they would be single.
They have their cups and downs"
They have some pleasant journeying
and good deal of rough road, but they
manage to escape serious breakdowns,
and are on the whole thankful that they
are not positively unhappy. There are
many comfortable matches. There are
few positively happy ones. 1t is
really melancholy to see how some peo'
pie just miss of felicity. Chiefly because
of selfishness-not open, wiilful selfish
ness, but seltishness in thousand dis
guises.
You say, Augustus, that you and your
wife are not adapted" to one another.
You do not say it in words. You would
not tell the "tellows that you go with.
And yet that is your opinion. 1t is in
your halfdissatisfied face. You say it
to yourself. You say it to your wife.
Do not look startled. You have said it
to her hundred times. You wish she
would read more. Or you wish she
would read less. You wish she would
stay at home. Or, perhaps, you wish
she would go out. You tell her so in a
way that says she does not quite satisfy
you. You praised Miss Hardreader in
talking to your wife the other day.
There was no harm in that. Any wo
man who cannot bear to hear her hus-
band praise another woman is-well,
that is neither here nor there. 1t was
the acay in which you did it. Your
manner said that you would like your
wife better if she were more like Miss
Hardroader. We do not say anything
about the unfairness of your hasty com
parson, your lack of consideration of
the difference of circumstances, your
gross injustice. Let us admit that it
would improve your wife TO be more
like your friend Nevertheless, if you
had not been selfish egotist, you would
not have said this even by your man
ner. You say by your whole air that
you are the head of the firm, and that
what you need is wife suited to you.
anu Nudu uocS yOul WIG licSu Dut d
husband suited to her? Suppose you
had set yourself to work to "adapt
yourself use your own locution-to
adapt your tastes, your habits, your feel
ings, to those Of your wife. If you were
not selfish, you would have seen tina,
her happiness is Of quite as great mo-
ment as your own. And when you be-
gan to " adapt" she might have learned
the lesson from your example, which
she has failed to learn from your words.
And two people might have been as
happy as the happy people in novels, if
they had not thrown their felicity away
"a sop to their selfshness.
When will people learn that they
will never get attention by exacting it
that they can never make people love
them by being disagreeable? If we
were only half soanxious to make other
people happy as we are ourselves! The
really happy marriages do rot come
from adaptation chiefly. No feeler of
bumps can match people to order and
guarantee felicity. An eminent phre-
nologist married his daughter on
theory OF adaptation, and there was a
divorce suit in few years, on the
ground of incompatibility. The really
happy marriages are often incongruous
enough in their appearance to outsid-
ers. We have known people apparent
ly opposed in taste, widely different in
age, who gave evidence of being genu-
inely happy in each others society,
simply because either was ready to sac
rifice to the others happiness. Hop
kinsianism taught that one could not
be saved until he was willing to be
damned. 1t is true that husband or
wife cannot achieve domestic felicity
unless he or she is willing to endure un-
happiness for the sake of the happiness
of another.-Hearh and Home.