The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-09-03
Unhappy Marriages.

" As arule, marriages are unhappy" SO
says the New Y Ork Sun.
1t is safe to say that fully twenty-five
per cent. of married people would read and
laugh at this assertion. Others would sigh
and look melancholy, as if they knew from
bitter experience that the statement was
too true while others still would brighten
up and look cheerful, and feel comfortable
over the revelation that large proportion
of husbands and wives were as miserable
as themselves. If the writer had said that
marriage, as rule, is a disappointment,
he would have come nearer the truth.
This is, perhaps, fact, and for very plain
reasons. The anticipatiOns of pair of
sentimental lovers-and where are the low
ers who are not sentimental ?-arc impos-
sible ofrealizatiOn outside of paradise. The
realities of married life cannot by any pos
sibility reach the transport of joy locked
forward to. and, therefore, though couple
may be well and evenly matched, and as
happy as mortals can be in this world of
uncertainty, yet the lofty heights of their
vision cannot be scaled by flesh and blood,
and disappointment more or less wOful
usually succeeds. It's after husband and
wife have learned that they are mortal, and
not angelic, that each has fOibles that must
be borne with patiently by the other.
that the true happiness of married life be-
gins.
Domestic troubles usually commence
early, and nine-tenths of the divorces are
obtained by those whose married life has
been short. Long association. community
of interests, thoughts naturally drawn into
the same channel by the same surround
ings, a common love for the same children
when children have blessed the union
these, and hundred other things, natur-
ally draw married couple together, and
make the union stronger as the years adj
vance, until they are practically one in
feeling, thought, sympathy and action.
Even when brsils are frequent, and love,
i'm the better sense, cannot be said to exist,
there is after all feeling closely akin to it
which bursts forth at the most unexpected
times, and proves that few men and women
can pass much of their lives together in
pursuit of the same object without grow
ing into an affection strong if not tender.
1t is this which almost invariably causes
the benevolent man who interferes be-
tween quarreling husband and wife to get
curses if not blows from both parties for
his pains.
In one dramatizatiOn of Grip Van
Wrinkle" the feeble old man totters back
to his home, and with fearful eyes and
trembling voice asks for his wife. He is
told she is dead. He opens his faded eyes
in wonder at the news, and then, as he re-
members the harsh words she has given
and the cruel blows she has dealt him with
that terrible brOomstick, a smile of salts
faction Overspreads his face as he halt
triumphantly eXclaims: Veil! her clap
per ish stopped at last ~ But then come
visions of their younger days, when he led
the likeliest girl in the village away from
her other admirers and married her on the
green at Falling Waters; of the ups and
downs of their after life, and of Gretchen's
tenderness as well as cruelty, and at re-
membrance ofthese come kinder thoughts,
till the simple-hearted Dutchman bows his
head and speaks his humanity by saying
TREMENDOUSLY: But she vas my wife for
all that" That was the secret. She
was his wife in spite of all, and it is an
honor to the race that these tender
thoughts of days that are dead thus come
back to us.
Whoever speaks of marriages being un-
happy, as a rule, must have had a limited,
as well as unfortunate view of society. II
has become quite common of late years to
refer to the misery and tyranny of marriage
as a very common thing; but nothing
could be more false or unjust. As a rule,
unhappy marriages come to light and are
blazoned forth to the world with loud
trumpetings. The noise thus made at
tracts wide attention, and creates among
the thOughtless the idea that domestic
happiness is rare; but such persons forget
that while the details of one unhappy fam
ily's experience are given to the public.
thousands are living happy lives, blessed
and strengthened by that tenderest of all
relations. 1t would not be surprising to
us if the great Brooklyn scandal, which
has so long absorbed attention, were to
prove in the end a substantial blessing to
the country, by showing up the infamous
doctrines of free-lOve in all their sickening
particulars. Already revelations are being
made which exhibit the true objects OF
this movement, and there is a good pros
pect that the community will be so out
ragged by subsequent developments as TO
put to shame and silence the advocates OF
this nefarious system. If the result is to
increase the respect for marriage and
strengthen the regard for marital honor
and fidelity, the exposure will not have
been in vain.-LnteT-Oce