The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-03-02
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

questions of the day, the question OF
divorce. 1t is rarely, if ever, that harm
can come of public discussion if it be
carried on with good manners and good
sense; though we indulge in no extraya-
| CANT hopes as to the elevation OF So
| ciety, and the sweetening OF do
mestic life, TO be derived from
all the talk at Washington. In
treating the question of married happi-
ness, or unhappiness. people are too often
tempted TO deal with the supefficialities
Of the matter rather than t. grapple
with the problem in its essentials; but if
the superficialities are taken for what
they are worth, ii is certainly as we'll to
mention them. A smile of welcome for
husband on his return home IA smile
of greeting, quite as often in default, we
fancy, for wife who has been for hours
on the outlook for her husbands an
excellent prescription. He is a surly
fellow who will not be propitiated if
he sees that his wife is quietly bent
upon preparing "dainty dishes" for him
or in generally ordering her household
so that his particular fads are considered.
But, in point of fact, the happiness OF
marriage ought to rest upon deeper
foundations than these. Such little
instances of care and kindness are
important only as illustrations of the
way in which the grand principle
of mutual regard, of resolute unself-
ishness, is to be applied in the
domestic sphere. When two married
people sincerely vie with each other in
making each other happy, not even the
terrible force Of poverty and sickness
can make them miserable; but If the man
does not cherish the ambition of pleasing
his wife, and if the wife has not the cor
responding ambition on her side, then
the most elaborate devices in the way
of ready smiles and dainty dishes will
not make the semblance of affection
serve for the reality.
OF course the maxim that unselfish
affection is the secret of married happi-
ness presupposes that the marriage has
been based upon sound principles from the
first. The importance of being right at
the beginning, great in all cases, is never
greater than in the case of marriage. On
the other hand, 1t would be forming
visionary theory of society if we were to
presume that average marriages imply
start from unselfsh affection and
from such compatibility of temper and
agreement of taste as commonly go
with genuine and tried attachment.
The majority Of marriages fall far be-
low that ideal which, when attained,
makes home and heaven something like
|~eonvertible terms. But marriage may
be an eminently agreeable and advah-
tageous condition although it is not one
undisturbed how Of happiness, and al
though 1t can be treated of in language
| suited to business rather than
to poetry and romance. We shrewd-
| ly suspect that no small proper
tion of the ills Of married life may be
traced to indulging in extravagant hopes
before marriage. To all persons about
to marry, and TO all persons uncomfort-
ably married, no counsel more likely to
be useful can, we think, be addressed
than that of remembering that marriage
involves, practically, in all cases sacri-
fee, or at least curtailment of
one thing which every man and
every woman likes-namely, his or her
freedom. If you cannot be happy with
out always having your own way, you
need not hope to be happy in matri-
mony. To establish habit of give and
take with ones wife or husband--to
know how to smile when one is crossed
to forget, before the harms done, the
irritation of the moment-this is to
have modus vivendi that will, to say
the least, avert extremes of
disappointment in married life.
To make generous and sympathetic
allowance for each others shortcomings
is rule which all will accept in theory;
but few appreciate the difficulties of
practising it. How hard. for example,
it is to keep up that cheerfulness which is
the very sunlight Of married life at
times when one of the married pair is in
a mirthful mood and the other is OPP
pressed with an apparently causeless
gloom! Yet very slight arrangement
of health, unsuspected even by the one
who is not well, may be affecting the
temper or chilling the faculties, and may
thus entitle the sufferer to kind consid-
Grafton instead Of blame.
1t there is one rule that can be laid
down as absolutely essential to married
happiness, it is that of admitting no out
side friends to confidential talk on the
relations between man and wife. IL you
would escape the gnawing mseries Of
separation, or the tortures of the divorce
court, beware Of tasting the forbidden
\ n