Year: 1868

1t may be said as general rule, that we'd
dings celebrated with pomp and show are fol-
lowed by little of the happiness which matri
mony should bring. Whoever looks around
among the snobs of both sexes that perform
the parts of husband and wife at these osten-
tatious ceremonies, will find proof enough of
our assertion. Some sensible remarks on
these subjects-subects concerning the hap
piness of our mestic relations to a greater
extent than many of US may at first imagine
are here quoted from the n Y Ledger:


mean to say that marriage which is
farce will follow wedding which is sham
Nor is it the solemnization in church alone
which is painful it is almost as bad at home
For three brides who can afford the display
which fashion demands, thirty will achieve
1t who have not the means to pay, who must
borrow the money, or accept it as gift, many
screw and pinch to save it from a really neces-
sary outlay. The first method of supply is
lie, the second a degradation the third is a
meanness: and each is an extravaganza.


Seltrespect is too dear price to pay for
wedding silk and velvet cloak and if the
girl does not know that she is paying in that
costly coin, but puts the reckoning by, ten
times the worse for her / know young
women who had elaborate trousseaus, and
whose mothers went without fit under-clothes,
without thick boots, in shabby gloves, in bat
tered and soiled hoops; whose tables were
meagre, whose charities were none, whose
little needful journeys and visitings were
stopped for years of their shortcomng lives,
in consequence. There was no harm in the
girls. They were sorry that they had not
money enough to make these sacrifices un.
necessary; they were sorry to have their
mothers nInohad Int
them that they could go without brides
allotment. What other girls had they must
have. Besides Adolphns must not be asham-
ed of his wife, they reasoned seeing
that if he was ashamed of his wife, because
she wore a cloth coat instead of a velvet. he
he was an empty coxcomb. unfit to have a
wife at ail-never seeing the insult of their
womanly worth implied in such an estimate.


In the new household, as in the old. there
will be pinching of the real needs to supply
the unreal. Books and flowers and travel
will be TOO costly, but dressmakers and
tailors' bills must be met. Life will narrow
to petty issues-children will grow up.
taught by example of pettiness, to be petty
last, no precepts of largeness could ever teach
them to be large And so the evil Is entail
ed, terrible legacy to coming generations.


But a fashionable wedding need not pro-
duce hollow life. you think, expectant bride?
Ten to one it will. As the girl starts on her
new life she feels bound by the stern code of
society to continue. Satan on her weddino
day, ushers in a train of silk for all the days
of her life, and silk in these DAYS, is expens-
i've and all the men whom ! know ANYTHING
about, brood and worry over the price of liy-
ing. and the children's future. And when the
husband worries the wife frets. or snubs him.
or, at best, carries heavy burden of care and
all the sunshine of the morning fades. Don't
imagine that | think most of the unhapniness
Of marriage comes from the vanity of wives
do not know that very much of it is born
OF the constant struggle between reality of
narrowness and seeming of wealth-not in
dress alone, but in houses, in furniture. in
dinners in wine, in cigars, in all the details
of expenditure. Mean cares rasp the sweet.
est temper. Souls are born for better THINGS
than scrutinizing wash-bills, and CALCULATING
how the third turning of silk dress can he
concealed by founces. An irritable temner
sows dIscord as dragons teeth, and thew
spring up armed iends of disagreement rpcr;-
menation, wretchedness. Byand bv Florida
and Adolphus talk of separate maintenance
or worse still, live on in this terrible duality.
which has no element of unity.


And what shall be said of the vuloar;tv of
fashionable weddings? Let us, by fine
flight OF the Imagination, believe that the
twain who are about to become one flesh love
each other utterly. To each the world rp-
wolves about the other. To each san rises and
set' because the other lives They are the new
Adam and the new Eve, for whom the world
is this day born. Life itself is a sacrament
marriage a beauttude, the holy of holies-
shall these two pure and honest souls say.
go to- nOw-let US ring bells and beat gongs
and cry out to the world, Come and see how
we turn this miracle of love and choice into
spectacle of tnse and gauds. Come and
hear US tell the dearest experiences of our
llves..' Yet they do it, simple souls, be-
cause it is expected. They Go another thing
as ili-bred. They set forth their weddine
presents to be gazed at.


Now the custom of giving wedding presents
Is, IN itself. beautiful Your friend is. 'as it
were' born again on this, her wedding day-
so new and changed is her feature Won
nope sne VIII be happy you hope she will
never forget you, and your tenderness for her
and you send her some dainty Gift whose
beauty shall delight her-wbose da;Iv nroS.
ence shall sweetly remind her of Won VI,
do not send it that Mrs. Smith NAV wondo.
whether 1t cost as much as hers. You do not
send 1t to be regarded, by all who gaze upon
1t, as the measure of our Z" lean and low ab;l-
Ity," by the dear, five hundred friends of the
BRIDE; and when it is so used, if Won have
your delicacy within you, you are panied and
surprised. Somebody, in an evil hour. once
showed her bridal presents, and then the
pretty custom at once became vulgarity.-
If the gifts were to be shown, this one must
give, and that one, not because her heart
moved her-not because her purse permitted
but because her offering must not be absent
And now every fashionable wedding is polite
extortion, deliberate tax-levy on the friends
Of the bride to be paid in silver spoons and
butter dishes. One of the sweetest girls
know told me that she asked such and such
people TO her wedding-vulgar, miserable
acquaintance as they were-bacause she
knew they would give her presents. Indeed,
she confessed, without the slightest shame