The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-08-28
THEMYsrERIEs OF MATRIMoNY,


A New Marriage Service-What Sort
or bridegroom an Old Bachelor Makes.
I am still unmarried and intend re-
naming SO for some months to come.
But marriage is fearful and risky bus
mess. No one knows what may turn up
ON either side. Temper and tempera-
ment are such peculiar things. How
ever, all as yet is quiet on the Potomac
The marriage service has never been
fully written out. People who marry
don't know what they are promising.
The bond should read s'You promise
to take this man CT 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 a woman,
save IN the most circumspect and guard
ed manner; you must not become inter
ested In any other woman if you are
interested you must not show it YOU
must consider your wife or your hus-
band as the incompatible man or woman
in the universe there must be none
other like unto him or her if there be
or you think there be, you must if pos
sible not believe it, or try not to be-
Heve it /; you must now be wholly de-
voted to each other you must also now
lay aside all remembrance 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 to make your
self believe you had not, and if such
notion will stick to you, you mustnever
mention it to each other, or there will
be row.
Young man +! and young woman
You think that the divine intoxication
of courtship is to last forever. You
think it is always going to be an costa
tic pleasure to trudge a 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. It
must cool down. When you are mar
ried, and she is yours and you are hers,
and the novelty of the affair is over,
and you are fairly settled down into
cold married folks" then comes the
test. Then, if you have been a crab
bed old bachelor. full of little whims,
habits, and peculiarities, as is the fret
full porcupine of quilts, then will come
the tug of war. Don't you recollect
how, when single, and you came home
after some tedious business, heated,
irritable, and disguised with the world,
and got alone in your room, that you
used to fling books and blacking- brushes
about, and swear and thrash around for
an hour or two before you simmered
down into comparative calmness? Well,
matrimony won't cure this-at least at
first. But you mustn't cut up so now.
Even temporary raving maniac is not
a proper or a pleasant person for any
young woman to be shut up alone with.
And If, on entering, che sees trouble
written IN your face, and asks you
What's the matter ?" and you reply,
"Oh, nothing" because you don't want
to be spoken to, and, above all things,
it annoys and irritates you to be
SO Intercepted, and still she persists
in asking, "What's the matter?" and
then you try to say, ooh, nothing" as
mildly as you can, only it won't be said
mildly, and it comes off your tongue as
a pistol shot, and you would just then
like to bite somebody's head of. Oh,
won't you, at such time, wonder where
the amiability, the oil, the sugar, the
honey, the sunshine of courtship 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 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 a new lie. And
those girls on the other side of the
street, who are always at the window,
and with whom, before marriage, you
carried on 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 yonr 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 I have learned a great deal du-
ring my short matrimonial career.
would not have remained single if only
for the information I've gained. know
now, in the first place, that some ones
wife is never in the least wrong. If
ther s 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, provided she will but |
shoulder the remaining 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 is fifteen minutes more for |
final touches. She may never be con- |
sidered really dressed until fairly out of |
the house and around the corner, and |
even then the chances are that she's
forgotten gloves or handkerchief.
If there was bedroom a 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 bedroom. She's nice
thing to look at when she's put together,
but this wonderful creation is evolved
rom chaos interminable of pins, rib
oons, rags, powder, thread, brushes,
combs and laces.
If there were seven thousand drawers
n your room, and you asked but fer
)ne to he kept sacred and inviolate for
your own private use, that particular
1ne would be full of hair-pins, ribbons,
md soiled cuffs. Some provision, some
protection in this matter, should be in
,arkad IN tho m orri oa corvioa