Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1877-07-27
Beecher on Getting Married,

oCIHIoH VI l1CHIy dTU DeCcueF con-
tains food for reflection, and is worthy
the consideration of old people with
young ones to marry, and young ones
who ever expect to enter into the sacred
relation: "And let me say still further,
that while | deplOre boarding house
marriages, and hotel marriages. and
French-tlat marriages, except on an am
pier scale than is possible, perhaps they
are not SO dangerous as the opposite ex-
treme, where men and women wait be-
fore coming together till they can bios
som out in great glory, and lay the foun-
dations of their house in pomp and
show and vanity, that their children
may be born to sumptuous furniture, in
circumstances of no simplicity, and very
little liberty except that which the law
of vanity allows Children born into a
bazar, where everything is gilded and ar
tificial to the last degree are much to be
pitied: Fools envy them. Wise men
pity them. To marry early, to live at
once in separate household, and to
have that household .hOmely-nobody
knows how invaluable this is until he
has been planted as Seed and has
grown, little by little, unfolding, and
coming, later in life, to largeness and
perhaps to wealth. But folly would
have our children put off marriage until
they can blazon wealth, and would have
them delay founding household till it
is palace, where they can bring up
their children without a knowledge Of
how the ground smells. We are of
earth, earthly; and children that are
brought up without coming in contact
with dirt will not be of much account.
To know how to meet changed condi-
tions, to know how to practice enforced
economy, to know how to get along un-
der adverse circumstances, to live on
little, to make your own happiness and
to rejoice in each other when you have
nothing else to rejoice in, this is an ed
ucation that is without price | would
not take any consideration for the first
two or three years of my married life. I
was settled on salary of four hundred
dollars in the county of Dearborn, and
the town OF Lawrenceburg, Indiana,
and with two hundred dollars of it |
came east and married my wife, and got
back to Lawrenceburg with eighteen
and three quarter cents in my pocket!
| lived in the second story of a house
that was without dOor-yard in front,
but that unfortunately had one in the
rear which was the pigs common. Oife
OF the rooms was my cellar, my kitchen
and my dining room, all together. The
other was my bedroom, my library and
my parlor, all together. In those two
rooms l spent the first two or three
years OF my married life; and every day
was problem; every day we set in bat
tie array the question Of economy; ev-
cry day we studied to make the most
out of the least, and to make expedients
satisfy us when we had not the sub
stance. 1t was very active play; and
as | was young and handsome, and my
wife was young and discreet, we to this
day look back with pleasure to those
early years of married life in our small
quarters of two rooms, when (now l am
confessing l may as well tell the whole)
| wore Judge Burnett's clothes, and our
carpet was given to us, and our cooking
stove was given to us, and everything
in the rooms was given to us. If the
articles Of furniture were oddly match
ed it was no fault of ours; for they
came from different persons who had
different ideas of house keeping. And
yet, little as there would seem to have
been to feed the Imagination, | look
back upon those happy years, and l
would not part with the memories of
them for countless gold. People make
a sad mistake when they suppose that
happiness in marriage is to be found in
circumstance and pomp. 1t is folly for
parents to desire to set off their chill
dren with magnificent wedding, and es-
tablish them in grand home Ifyoung
married people will go right to work for
themselves, in the circumstances where
they are placed in the providence of
God, they will learn to extract happi-
ness out of each other 1t is blessed
thing. And think | see in society a
tendency in this direction"