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 ostentatious
ceremonies, will find proof enough of our asser-
ton Some sensible remarks on these subjects
subjects concerning the happiness of our do
mestic relations to greater extent than many of
US may at first imagine-are here quoted from
the New York Ledger:


mean to say that marriage which is a farce
will follow wedding which is sham. Nor is
it the solemnzation in church alone which is
painful it is almost bad at home. For three
brides who can afford the display which fashion
demands, thirty will achieve it 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 Il really necessary outlay. The
first method of supply is a lie, the second de-
graduation, the third is a meanness, and each is
an extravaganza.


ding 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 elabo-
rate trousseaus, and whose mothers went with
out fit underclothes, without thick boots, in
shabby gloves, in battered and soled hoops !;
whose tables were meager whose charities were





ings were stopped for years of their short-coming
lives, in consequence. There was no harm in
the girls. They were sorry that they had not
money enough to make these sacrifices unneceS-
sary they were sorry to have their mothers
pinched but it never occurred to them that
they could go without bride allotment. What
other girls had they must have. Besides Adol-
phus must not be ashamed of his wife, they rea-
soned-never seeing that if he was ashamed of
his wife, because she cloth coat instead
of velvet, he was an empty coxcomb, unfit to
have wife at all - never seeing the insult of
their womanly worth implied in such an esti-
mate.


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 pet
tiness, to be petty ; last, no precepts of large
ness could ever teach them to be large. And so
the evil is entaied, terrible legacy to coming
generations.


But fashionable wedding need not produce a
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 wedding day, ushers in
a train of silk for all the days OF her lie, and
silk, in these days, is expensive and all the
men whom l know anything about, brood and



drens' future. And when the husband worries,
the wife frets or snubs him. or, at best, carries
a heavy burden of care, and all the sunshine of
the morning fades. Don't imagine that | think
most of the unhappiness of marriage comes from
the vanity of wives. l do not know that very
much of it is born of the constant struggle be-
tween a 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
sweetest temper. Souls are born for better things
than scrutinizing wash-bils, and calculating
how the third turning of a silk dress can be con-
ceaed by hounces. An irritable temper sows
discord as a dragons teeth, and they spring up
armed fends of disagreement, recrmnation,
wretchedness. By and by Florinda and Adolphus
talk of separate maintenance, or worse still, live
on this terrible duality, which has no element Of
unity.


And what shall be said of the vulgarity of
fashionable weddings? Let US, by fine flight of
the imagination, believe that the twain are about
to become one flesh, love each other utterly. To
each the world revolves about the other. To
each, sun rises and sets because the other lives
They are the new Adam and the new Eve, for
whom the world is this day born. Life itself is
sacrament, marriage beatitude, the holy of
holies-shall these two pure and honest souls
say, I" 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 tinsel and gauds. Come and
hear US tell the dearest experiences of our
lives p" Yet they do it, simple souls, because it
is expected. They do anothe. thing as ill-bred.
They set forth their wedding 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