Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1874-09-17
Prentice Milford ON Marriages.

| Prentice Milford says, in one of his
! London letters to the San Francisco But-
| Ltin.
The marriage service has never been
! fully written out People who marry
| don't know what they are promising.
| The bond should read: You promise to
| take this man or this woman for life; you
must not, after this, walk or talk with
any other woman, If you are man, or
any other man, If you are woman, save
| in the most circumspect and guarded
manner; you must not become interested
! in any other woman; if you are interest
ed you must not show it; you must con-
slider your wife or your husband as the
| Incompatible man or woman in the uni
verse; there must be none other like
unto him or her; If there be, or you
think there be, you must if possible not
believe il, or try not to believe it you must
now be wholly devoted to each other; you
must also now lay aside allremembrance
Of your old flames you must get rid of
the idea that you ever had any regard
for them; if you had you must try and
make yourself believe you had not, and
if such notion will stick to you, you
must never mention it to each other, or
there will be row."
Young man! and young woman! You
think that the divine intoxication of
couftship is to last forever. You think
it is always going to be an ecstatic pleas
ure to trudgc mile through mud and
rain to buy Seraphine Ann a paper of
pins. But this state of things can't last.
It's too high pressure. 1t must cool
down. When you are married and she is
yours and you are hers, and the novelty
of the affair is over, and you are fairly
settled down into "old married folks
then comes the test Then, if you have
been grabbed old bachelor, full of little
whims, habits and peculiarities as is the
fretful porcupine of quilts, then will
come the tug of war. Don't you recol-
lect how, when single, and you came
home after some tedious business, heat
ed, tired, irritable and Disguised with the
world, and got alone in your room, that
you used to fling books and backing
brushes about, and swear and thrash
around for an hour or two before you
simmered down into comparative calm
ness? Well, matrimony won't cure this
at least at first. But you mustn't cut
up so now. Even temporary raving
maniac is not proper or pleasant per
son for any young woman to be shut up
alone with. And if, on entering, she
sees trouble written on your face,
and asks you What's the mat
because you don't want to be spoken
irritates you to be so Intercepted, and
still she persists in asking What's the
matter?" and still you try to say "Oh,
nothing" as mildly as you can, only it
won't be said mildly, and it comes off
your tongue like pistol shot, and you
would just then like to bite somebody's
head off-Ohl won't you at such time
wonder where the amiability, the oil, the
sugar, the honey, the sunshine of court
ship has all gone to? And how will you
feel, you who have been accustomed to
go in and out of your vile bachelors den
without inquiry or hindrance-how will
you feel as you start to go out for the
purpose of getting drink around the
corner, to hear her say "Where are you
going?" and this dozen times day,
and every time it is asked you must stand
and rack your brains for new lie? And
those girls on the opposite side of the
street, who are always at the window,
and with whom, before marriage, you
carried on a sort of optical Irritation,
which, to be sure, went no further than
the eyes-how do you feel now as you
catch yourself still looking into those
windows and find your wife regarding
you in a peculiar manner, and you know
that she knows that you know how she
knows all about your goings on at those
windows?
But ] have learned great deal during
my short matrimonial career. / would
not have remained single If only for the
sake of the information I've gained. /
know, in the first place, that ones wife is
never in the least wrong. If there's a
row, it's you, all you, every bit your fault.
You may labor by the hour trying to
make her own up that, there being one
pound avoirdupois or sixteen ounces of
blame between you, you are willing to
take fifteen ounces of that blame pro-
vided she will but shoulder the remain
ing ounce, and she won't. When she
says she will be only five minutes getting
ready to go out it means an hour, and
when she says she's all ready it means
fifteen minutes more for putting on the
final touches. She may never be con-
sidered really dressed until fairly out of
the house and round the corner and even
then the chances are that she's forgotten
gloves or handkerchief.
Ii there was bedroom mile long,
and her entire wardrobe could be packed
in bandbox, still you'd find portions of
that wardrobe scattered along the whole
mile of dressing-room. She's nice
thing to look at when put together, but
this wonderful creation is evolved from
a chaos interminable of pins, ribbons,
rags, powder, thread, brushes, combs and
laces.
If there were seven thousand drawers
in your room, and you asked but for one
to be kept sacred and Inviolate for your
own private use, that particular one
would be full of hair-pins, ribbons and
soled cuffs. Some provision, some pro-
lection in this matter, should be inserted
in the marriage service.