The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1874-09-17
Prentice Milford ON Marriages.

Prentice milford ON Marriages.
Prentice Milford says, in one of his
London letters to the San Francisco Bul-
letin:
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 arc a man, OF
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 he none other like
unto him or her; if there be, or you
think there be, you must if possible not
believe it, or try not to believe it; you must
now be wholly devoted 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 and
make yourself believe you had not, and
if such a notion will stick to you, you
must never mention it to each other, or
there will he a 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 ccstatic pleas
ure to trudge mile through mud and
rain to buy Seraphine Ann paper of
pins. But this state of things can't last.
It's too high pressure. 1t must cool
down. When you arc 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 rs is the
frctful porcupine Of quilts, then will
come the tug of war. Don't you rccol-
lcct 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
simmcred down into comparative calm
ness? Well, matrimony won't cure this
at least at first. But you mustn't cut
up so now. Even a 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
secs trouble written ON your face,
and asks you whats the mat
tcr:" 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 whats the
mattcr:" 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 a pistol shot, and you
would just then like to bite somebody's
head otf-Oh! won't you at such Il 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 hindrancc-how will
you feel as you start to 80 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 opposite side of the
street, who are always ut the window,
lAu Win W iOul, UCIOlC you
carried ON sort of optical Irritation,
the cyes-how do you feel now as you
catch yourself still looking into those
windows and find your wife regarding
you in peculiar manner, and you know
that she knows that you know how she
windows?
But have learned great deal during
my short matrimonial career. l 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
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 20 out it means IN hour, and
when she says she's all ready it means
fifteen minutes more for putting ON the
final touches. She may never he con-
sidercd 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.
If there was bedroom mile long,
and her entire wardrobe could be packed
in a 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 intcrminable of pins, ribbons,
rags, powder, thread, brushes, combs and
laccS.
If there were seven thousand drawers
in your room, and you asked but for one
to be kept sacred and inviolatc for your
own private use, that particular one
would be full of hair-pins, ribbons and
soiled cuffs. Some provision, some pro
lection in this matter, should be inserted
in the marriage service.