The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-01-12
Second Marriages.

Nothing is more characteristic than
the very general sentiment of disappro-
baton with which women regard sec
ond marriage. Their first impulse is to
condemn it, and to speak, if not with
eensure, at least in terms of gentle dep
recatiOn, of the people who have entered
upon it. Talk to the loveliest of her sex
of the sorrow of a widower, and she will
probably reply, "That is a grief for
which he will soon find consolation"
Announce the engagement of such
one in any circle of friends, and the
feminine portion will Immediately be-
gin to count the months aud years since
the death of his former wife. There
will be observations upon the transitory
nature of human affections, and the
quality of forgetfulness which inheres
in men. Yet the severity of wOmanly
comment on mans second marriage is
tempered with mildness, most women
being conscious of a tolerant pity for
the helplessness and loneliness of a male
creature left to take care of himself, or
to battle through the world with chill
dren. 1t is to women that they look for
fidelity beyond the reach of another
love. The widow who lays aside her
weeds, and gives herself once more to
welded joys, is felt by many of her
married sisters to have lost caste, and is
imagined by some of the unmarried to
have done them a personal wrong. She
has stepped from the niche, sanity and
revered, where her dark days placed her,
and descended to the ordinary common
place level of life. 1t is not in India
only that the wife is thought most of
who is willing to immediate herself on
her husbands funeral pile. Equally are
there communities here, where she
who is "widow indeed' occupies
station quite unapproached in its ex-
ceptional reverence, and where she who
seems to listen again to matrimonial
overtures is thought to have forfeited
| little of the traditional esteem with
which sympathy had invested her.
! The foundation of this unfOrmulated
creed of society is built broadly on the
respect we all feel for true love. Love
| is strong as death, we say, with a sup
| plement in our hearts, to the effect that
it ought to be stronger. Its silver cord
should not be loosened, though the an
| gels stretch it over into the shadowy
land whittier our beloved have been
taken. We miscalculate the length of
IaboriOus days, lightened by happy
memories, but dimmed by present tears.
We forget how hard it is to keep fresh
and vivid the impressions of kisses un-
renewed, of touches no longer tangible,
of voices hushed. We do not estimate
the force of the rebound by which the
soul, desolate, weary, uustrung, lacer-
ated in its finest sensibilities, turns to
receive the sweetness of some gentle
compassion, or some tender comprehen-
sion. Often it is those whose welded
lives have been most united, flowing on
like a poem set to fitting music, who
seem soonest to be ready to rear new
temple on the ruins of the old. Perhaps
in their case the heart-hunger is the
deepest, and the vacancy needs most to
be filled. Whatever may be the reason,
it is a fact beyond denial that many
second marriages, so tar as the world
can see, are more satisfying and telicit-
Gus than the first were. The choice of
the man in the maturity of his powers
is often quite other from the selection of
his youth. No doubt in 8 second mar
riage there is less of the element of fall
ing in love, and more of sober judgment.
, The youth was won mainly by the
pretty face, with its soft curvrs, its sea-
shell tinting, its swift bushes, and
dewy freshness. Propinquity had much
to do with his decision. He lived near
her fathers house. They sang in the
same choir. They went to the same
church. Neither had emerged from the
: erudites of adolescence, or knew to
what manner of man or woman the soul
within them would grow, when they
plighted their troth and took on them
. solemn vows. Whether in the close
ness of daily panionship they would
become knit and blended into COM
pleteness which is possible only to dual
ity when love unifies it, or whether
they would fluid life hopelessly halved,
was a problem they could not resolve.
No second marriage ought to be the re-
suit of passing fancy or the product of
caprice. Love should be real and
pure, but it should be deeper than a sem
. timeut. It should dare to look open-
eyed at the chances it has for develop
ment into that perfect affection which
r is based upon tastes, pursuits, aims, and
: education in OmmOn.-HdTpeT' Bdzdr.