The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1874-03-21
Marriage a Bargain.

marriage is emphatically bargain like
any other. Certain advantages are ex-
changed for certain considerations, express
ed or understood among which are
moderate amount of complaisance on both
sides, and at least the appearance OF some
degree of personal content Also from the
husband the protection Of his name and
strength and fortune from the wife re.
spcct for that name, homely service, aud
fit administration Of his means. What
else there may be Of love and sympathy,
OF ecstatic romance or extraordinary devo-
tion, are matters by the bye-things which
sanctiiy and render blessed, but things
which in no wise touch the elemental con-
ditions Of the union, as bargain to be
kept faithfully and honorably.
Now, 1t is just this character of the bar
gain which is SO often ignored in marriage
So long as there is love and mutual har-
mony things go well together; but, when
love dies out or is not at all, il is sell
dom that the same principle of business
steadfastness 10 the terms Of an agreement,
such as would be enforced in any other
circumstance Of life, comes in to supply its
place, and to render the marriage success
in so far as il is the honorable ful6lment
of an agreement. Take the case of wo-
man who has married man she does not
love for tho sake of his money. If she
happens to have dash of that masculine
selfcontrol and ability to balance the good
and the bad together, and to accept the
latter for the sake of the former, which
are about the rarest qualities to be found
in a woman, she will smother her personal
misliking and feign the affectionate con-
tent she does not feel feigning here being
virtue far out-topping the grace of sin
cerity. If she is only an ordinary woman
-ono who is ruled by her emotions, and
who is unable to control either her temper
or her nerves-one who, thinking love the
sole obligation to be regarded in mar
riage, because she does not love her hus.
band therefore holds herself entitled to disrc-
gard him-she "dl show him before the
month is out th4sshe has married him for her
own purpose, but is not minded to fulfil the
unwritten terms Of the bond as he reads 1t
for his He has given her all that he has
agreed to give-his name, his rank, his
love, and share Of his fortune. She de-
nies him the return she undertook to make
her love, her sweet submission, her
wifely complaisance of humor, her endeav-
or to make him happy and the marriage
pleasant union of lives and interests. She
does not love him; wherefore he Of
fends her, though he is the best-natured
fellow in the world, and one for whom his
very enemies find good words and she
lets him see that he does. It is not BY
any fault of his, and surely not for any
shortcoming of a wilful kind, that he does
not please her. She knew that she did
not love him and that he was not cher
kind when she married him but she
rescnts as personal wrong done to her.
self the disdainful displeasure she feels
toward him, and never reflects that she is
dishonorably failing in her bargain when
she accepts all for which he covenanted
and restores nothing on her own side by
way Of equity.
Nothing is more painful than this want
Of honorable steadfastness to the esoteric
terms of the matrimonial bargain so often
seen among men and women who yet would
hold faithfully by their word in any other
relation-who yet, too, would have been
good husbands and wives had they married
for love, lived on emotion, and not been
required to prove the quality of their prin-
ciples. When things go SO far wrong that
the contract is broken openly in some of
its more essential parts, then the law steps
in to punish the one in fault Very often
the world knows nothing of the secret sore,
the hidden failure; for it may be that
those who fail most lamentably in private,
are wise enough to keep up appearances in
public, and not carry their dirty linen to
the public wash. But sometimes, and
still oftener, the world at large is taken
into the confidence of the mismated, and
the dullest bystander can see what is amiss.
The averted head, the cold reply, the face
that flashes into smiles whom speaking to
any one else, putting itself into mask Of
stony immobility when speaking to him or
her; the ready dissent from every plan
proposed, every opinion propounded, so
ready as to be almost instructive the abid-
ing air Of sullen wrong and enduring dis
pleasure-all this tells the world as plainly
as words that the marriage has failed as
marriage in any high or lofty sense, and
that, even as a bargain, it is no better than
line of faded writing, or a knot that
slips and docs not hold.
We take all this to be utterly dishonor.
able, to call it by no harsher name. When
marriage fails on both sides, and for
causes that make themselves known only
BY experience and after trial, then the
poor victims of mistake must arrange the
broken fragments Of their happiness as
they best can. They are both to blame,
both to be pitied, and both suffer alike.
But il is in the cases where the one fulfils
all the terms of his or her contraet---asks
indeed, nothing better than leave to fulfil
them--and the other breaks all his or hers
because the marriage has not pleased, and
the bargain Is not regarded as thing to
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