The Wedded Life
The benediction that falls upon the homes of a country is like the g-entle rain that descends among” the hills. A thousand springs are fuller afterward, and along the banks of a thousand streamlets, flowingthrough the valleys, the grass is greener and the flowers pour out richer fragrance.
Homes are the springs among the hills, whose many streamlets, uniting, form — like great rivers — society, the community, the nation, the Church. If the springs run low, the rivers waste; if they pour out bounteous currents, the rivers are full. If the springs are pure, the rivers are clear like crystal; if they are foul, the rivers are defiled.
ftbe perfect ‘borne
A curse upon homes sends a poisoning blight everywhere; a blessing sends healing and new life into every channel.
Homes are the divinely ordained fountains of life. It is not by accident that men live in families rather than in solitude. The human race began in a family, and Eden was a home. The divine blessing has ever rested upon nations and communities just in the measure in which they have adhered to these original institutions and have kept marriage and the home pure and holy; and blight and curse have come just in the measure in which they have departed from these divine models, dishonouring marriage and tearing down the sacred walls of home.
At the root of the home lies marriage. The wedding-day throws its shadow far down the future; it may be, ought to be, a shadow of healing and benediction.
In a tale of mediaeval English life a maiden goes before the bridal party on
Cbe Idefcoed Xife
their way to the church, strewing flowers in their path. This was meant to signify that their wedded life should be one of joy and prosperity. Almost universally, wedding ceremonies and festivities have some feature of similar significance, implying that the occasion is one of gladness. In some countries flowers are worn as bridal wreaths. In some they are woven into garlands for the waist, the tying of the ends being a part of the ritual. In others they are carried in the hand or worn in the hair or on the bosom. Music comes in also — joyous music, implying that the ceremony is one of peculiar gladness. In some places, too, wedding-bells are rung, and their peals are merry and gladsome.
All these and similar bridal customs indicate that the world regards the wedding as the crowning day of life, and marriage as an event of the highest felicity, an occasion for the most enthusiastic congratulations. Yet not perfect “Dome
always are these happy prophecies fulfilled. Sometimes the flowers wither and the music grows discordant, and the wedding- peals die away into only a memory of gladness. It ought not to be so. It is not so when the marriage has been true, and when the wedded life is ruled by love. Then the bridal wreath remains fresh and fragrant till it is laid upon the bier by the loving hands of the one who survives to close the eyes of the other; and the wedding music and the peals of the bells continue to echo in tones of gladness and peace until hushed in the sobbings of sorrow, when the singers sing in dirges, and the bells toll out the number of the finished years.
Marriage is intended to bring joy. The married life is meant to be the happiest, fullest, purest, richest life. It is God’s own ideal of completeness. It was when He saw that it was not good for man to be alone that woman was made and brought to him to supply
TLife
what was lacking1. The divine intention, therefore, is that marriage shall yield happiness, and that it shall add to the fulness of the life of both husband and wife; that neither shall lose, but that both shall gain. If in any case it fails to be a blessing- and to yield joy and a richer, fuller life, the fault cannot be with the institution itself, but with those who under its shadow fail to fulfil its conditions.
The causes of failure may lie at the back of the marriage altar, for many are united in matrimony who never should have entered upon such a union; or they may lie in the life after marriage, for many who might attain to the very highest happiness in wedded life fail to do so because they have not learned the secret of living happily together.
To guard against the former mistake, the sacred character and the solemn responsibilities of marriage should be well understood and thoughtfully considered by all who would enter upon perfect tpome
it. Marriage is a divine ordinance: it is not a mere human arrangement, something that sprang up in the race as a convenience during the course of the history of ages. It was not “devised” by any earthly lawgiver. It is not a habit into which men fell in the early days. The stamp of divine intention and ordination is upon it.
As a relationship, it is the closest and most sacred on earth. The relation of parent and child is very close. Children are taught in all the Scriptures to honour their parents, to revere them, to cleave to them, to brighten and bless their lives in every possible way. Yet the marriage relation is put above the filial, for a man is to leave his father and his mother, to give up his old home with all its sacred ties and memories, and cleave to his wife. After marriage, a husband’s first and highest duties are to his wife, and a wife’s are to her husband. The two are to live for and in each other. Life is to be lost for life.
IdeDDefc Xife 13
Every other interest is thenceforward secondary to the home interest.
Then the marriage relation is indissoluble. The two become in the fullest, truest sense one. Each is incomplete before; marriage is the uniting of two halves into one complete whole. It is the knitting together of two lives in a union so close and real that they are no more twain, but one; so close that nothing save death or the one crime of infidelity to the marriage bond itself can disunite them. Marriage, therefore, is not a contract which can be annulled at the will of one or both of the parties. It may be discovered after the marriage has been formed that the parties are ill-mated; one may find in the other traits or habits unsuspected before, which seem to render happiness in union impossible; the husband may be cruel and abusive, or the wife ill-tempered, thriftless, or a burden; yet the Scriptures are very explicit in their teachings, that the tie once formed is
ZTbe perfect 1bome
indissoluble. There is one crime, said the pure and holy Jesus, which, committed by either, leaves the guilty one as dead, the other free. But, beside this, the teaching- of Christ recognises no other lawful sundering of the marriage tie. When two persons stand at the marriage altar and with clasped hands promise before God and in the presence of human witnesses to take each other as wife and as husband, to keep and to cherish each other, only death can part them. Each takes into sacred keeping the happiness and the highest good of the other to the end of life.
In view of the sacredness and indissolubleness of this relation, and the many tender and far-reaching interests that inhere in it, it is but the simplest commonplace to say, that the greatest care should be taken before marriage to make sure that the union will be a true one, that the two lives will sweetly blend together, and that each will be able to make the other at least
Xife
measurably happy. Yet obvious as is the fact, none the less is it profoundly important that it should be heeded. If there were more wise and honest forethought with regard to marriage, there would be less afterthought of regret and repentance.
A word may fitly be spoken here concerning the marriage formalities. The wedding-day is one that should ever be remembered and held sacred among life’s anniversaries. It is the day whose benediction should fall on all other days to the end of life. It should stand out in the calendar bright with all the brightness of love and gratitude. The memory of the wedding-hour in a happy married life should shine like a star, even in old age. It is surely worth while, therefore, to make the occasion itself just as delightful as possible, to gather about it and into it whatever will help to make it memorable, so that it shall stand out even more bright and sacred among all life’s
1 6 ftbe perfect fjome
days and hours. This is not done when the marriage is secret; there are no associations about the event in that case to make its memory a source of pleasure in after years. Nor is it done when, on the other hand, the occasion is made one of great levity or of revelry; the joy of marriage is not hilarious, but deep and quiet.
On the wedding-day the happy pair should have about them their true friends, those whom they desire to hold in close relations throughout their life. It is no time for insincerity; it is no place for empty professions of friendship. Everything about the circumstances, the festivities, the formalities, the marriage ceremony itself, and the congratulations, should be so ordered as to cause no jar, no confusion, nothing to mar the perfect pleasure of the occasion, and so leave only the pleasantest memories behind. These may seem too insignificant matters for mention here, yet it is surely worth fctfe
while to make the occasion of one’s wedding such that it shall always be remembered with a thrill of delight, with only happy associations, and without one smallest incident or feature to mar the perfectness of its memory.
But it is when the wedding ceremony is over, and the two are one, that the life begins which has so many possibilities of happiness, of growth, of nobleness of character, of heroism in living, of tenderness in loving. Angels hover about the marriage altar and hush their songs while hands are clasped and holy vows are plighted, and then spread their sheltering wings over the happy pair as they start out together on the voyage of life. The greatest blessedness, the highest development of character, the noblest manhood and womanhood, the most perfect attainments in Christian life, are to be reached in the marriage relation, if it be made what God meant it to be. It will be the fault of those who wed, of one or of both, if marriage proves aught but a blessing, and if the happiness of either is wrecked in the voyage together.
Yet it must not be concluded that the bridal gate opens essentially into a garden of Eden. Marriage is not the panacea for all life’s ills. It does not of itself lead invariably and necessarily to all that is noble and beautiful in life. While its possibilities of happiness and blessing are so great, its possibilities of failure must not be ignored. Only a true and wise, only the truest and wisest, wedded life will realise the blessings of the ideal marriage relation.
The first lesson to .be learned and practised is loving patience. It requires some time to bring any two lives into perfect unison, so that they shall blend in every chord and tone. No matter how intimate the relations may have been before, neither knows really much of the actual and inmost life of the other until every separating wall and every thinnest veil is removed.
In China the bridegroom does not see his bride until she is brought to him on his wedding-day, closely veiled, and locked up in a sedan chair. The key is handed to him when the chair reaches his house, and he unlocks the door, lifts the veil, and takes his first look at his treasure. Brides and bridegrooms with us are not usually such strangers to each other as among the Celestials; they see each other’s face often enough, but it is doubtful whether as a rule they really know much more of each other’s inner life. Even without any intention of hiding their true selves or appearing veiled, it is only after marriage that their acquaintanceship becomes complete. There are graces of character and disposition that are then discovered for the first time; and there are faults, peculiarities of habit, of taste, of temper, never
Cbe perfect fjonie
suspected before, which then disclose themselves.
It is just at this point that one of the greatest perils of wedded life is met. Some are disappointed and discouraged by the discovery of these points of uncongeniality, these possibilities of discord, concluding at once that their marriage was a mistake and must necessarily be a failure. Their beautiful dream is shattered, and they make no effort to build it up again. But really all that may be needed is wise and loving patience. There may be no reason for discouragement, much less for despair. It is entirely possible, notwithstanding the discovery of these points of friction and uncongeniality, to realise the highest ideal of wedded life. It is like the meeting of two rivers. At first there is confusion, excitement, commotion, and apparent conflict and strife, as the two flowtogether, and it seems as if they would never blend and commingle; but in a
Cbe WefcOeo fctfe
little time they unite in one broad, peaceful stream, rolling- in majesty and strength, without a trace of discord. So when two independent lives, with diverse habits, tastes, and peculiarities, first meet to be united into one, there is embarrassment, there is perplexity, there is seeming conflict, there is the dashing of habit against habit, of life against life, at many points. Sometimes it may seem as if they never could blend in one, and that the conflict must go on hopelessly and unceasingly; but with loving patience the two will in due time coalesce and unite into one life, nobler, stronger, fuller, deeper, richer, and move on in calmness and peace.
Perfect harmony cannot be forced in a day, cannot indeed be forced at all, but must come through gentleness, and perhaps only after many days. There must be mutual adaptation, and time must be allowed for this. The present duty is unselfish love. Each must forget self in devotion to the perfect ftome
other. Each must blame self and not the other when anything” goes wrong”. There must be the largest and gentlest forbearance. Impatience may wreck all. A sharp word may retard for months the process of soul-blending1. There must be the determination on the part of each to make the marriag-e happy, and to conquer everything- that lies in the way. Then the very differences between the two lives will become their closest points of union. When they have passed through this stage of blending”, though it may for the time be painful and perilous, the result will be a wedded life of deep peace, quiet joy, and inseparable affection.
Another secret of happiness in married life is courtesy. By what law of nature or of life is it that after the peals of the wedding-bells have died away, and they have established themselves in their own home, so many husbands and wives drop the charming little amenities and refinements of manner toward ‘WflefcDe& ULife 23
each other that so invariably and delightfullycharacterised their intercourse before marriage? Is there no necessity for these civilities any longer? Are they so sure now of each other’s love that they do not need to give expression to it, either in affectionate word or act? Is wedded love such a strong, vigorous, and self-sufficing plant that it never needs sunshine, rain, or dew? Is politeness merely a manner that is necessary in intercourse with the outside world, and not required when we are alone with those we love the best? Are home hearts so peculiarly constituted that they are not pained or offended by things that would never be pardoned in us if done in ordinary society? Are we under no obligations to be respectful and to pay homage to our dearest friends, while even to the rudest clown or the veriest stranger we meet outside our own doors we feel ourselves bound to show the most perfect civility?
On the contrary, there is no place in the world where the amenities of courtesy should be so carefully maintained as in the home. There are no hearts that hunger so for expressions of affection as the hearts of which we are most sure. There is no love that so needs its daily bread as the love that is strongest and holiest. There is no place where rudeness or incivility is so unpardonable as inside our own doors and toward our best beloved. The tenderer the love and the truer, the more it craves the thousand little attentions and kindnesses which so warm the heart. It is not costly presents at Christmas and on birthdays and anniversaries that are wanted; these are only mockeries if the days between are empty of affectionate expressions. Jewellery and silks and richly-bound volumes will never atone for want of warmth and tenderness. Between husband and wife there should be maintained, without break or pause,
Cbe We&fcefc Xtfe 25
the most perfect courtesy, the gentlest attention, the most unselfish amiability, the utmost affectionateness. Coleridge says: “The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions, the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.” These may seem trifles, and the omission of them may be deemed unworthy of thought; but they are the daily bread of love, and hearts go hungry when they are omitted. It may be at first only carelessness in a busy husband or a weary wife that fails in these small, sweet courtesies, and it may seem a trifling matter; but in the end the result may be a growing far apart of two lives which might have been for ever truly happy in each other had their early love been but cherished and nourished.
“For love will starve if it is not fed, And true hearts pray for their daily bread.”
26 Cbe perfect fjome
Another important element in married life is unity of interest. There is danger that wedded lives drift apart, because their employments are nearly always different. The husband is absorbed in business, in his profession, in his severe daily toil; the wife has her home duties, her social life, her friends and friendships, her children; and the two touch at no point. Unless care is taken, this separation of duties and engagements will lead to actual separation in heart and life. To prevent this, each should keep up a constant, loving interest in whatever the other does. The husband may listen every evening to the story of the home-life of the day, its incidents, its pleasures, its perplexities, its trials, the children’s sayings and doings, what the neighbours said who dropped in, the bits of news that have been heard, and may enter with zest and sympathy into everything that is told him. Nothing that concerns the wife of his heart should be too small
WefcDeD Xifc 27
for even the gigantic intellect of the greatest of husbands. In personal biography few things are more charming and fascinating than the glimpses into the homes of some of the greatest men of earth, when we see them, having laid aside the cares and honours of the world, enter their own doors to romp with the children, to listen to their prattle, and to talk over with loving interest all the events and incidents of the day’s home-history.
In like manner, every wise and true-hearted wife will desire to keep up an interest in all her husband’s affairs. She will want to know of every burden, every struggle, every plan, every new ambition. She will wish to learn what undertakinghas succeeded and what has failed, and to keep herself thoroughly familiar and in full sympathy with all his daily, personal life.
No marriage is complete which does not unite and blend the wedded lives
28 tTbe perfect fpome
at every point. .This can be secured only by making every interest common to both. Let both hearts throb with the same joy, and share each pang of sorrow. Let the same burdens rest on the shoulders of both. Let the whole life be made common.
In another sense still should their lives blend. They should read and study together, having the same line of thought, helping each other toward a higher mental culture. They should worship together, praying side by side, communing on the holiest themes of life and hope, and together carrying to God’s feet the burdens of their hearts for their children and for every precious object. Why should they not talk together of their personal trials, their peculiar temptations, their infirmities, and help each other by sympathy, by brave word, and by intercession, to be victorious in living?
Thus they should live one life, as it were, not two. Every plan and hope
Cbe TraeODeD %itc 29
of each should embrace the other. The moment a man begins to leave his wife out of any part of his life, or when she has plans, hopes, pleasures, friendships, or experiences from which she excludes him, there is peril in the home! They should have no secrets to keep from each other. They should have no companions or friends, save those which they have in common. Thus should their two lives blend into one life, with no thought, no desire, no feeling, no joy or sorrow, no pleasure or pain, unshared.
Into the inner sanctuary of this wedded life no third party should ever be admitted. In its derivation, the word home contains the idea of seclusion. It shuts its inmates away from all the other life of the world about them. I have read of a young wife who prepared one little room in her house into which none but herself and her husband were ever to enter. The incident is suggestive. Even in the sanctuary of the
30 Cbe perfect 1>ome
home-life there should be an inner holy of holies, open only to husband and wife, into which no other eye ever shall peer, in which no other voice ever shall be heard to speak. No stranger should ever meddle with this holy life, no confidential friend should ever hear confidences from this inner sanctuary. No window or door should ever be opened into it, and no report should ever be carried out of what goes on within. The blended life they twain are living should be between themselves and God only.
Another rule for wedded life is to ‘watch against every smallest beginning of misunderstanding or alienation. In the wreck of many a home there lingers still the memory of months or years of very tender wedded life. The fatal estrangement that rent the home asunder, and made scandal for the world, began in a little difference which a wise, patient word would have dispelled. But the word was not ircie&&eo fcife
spoken, — an unwise, impatient word was spoken instead, — and the trivial breach remained unclosed, and grew wider, till two hearts, that had been knit together as one, were torn apart for ever. Rarely are estrangements the work of one day, or caused by one offence: they are growths.
“It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever-widening-, slowly silence all — The little rift within the lover’s lute: Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all.”
It is against the beginning’s of alienations, therefore, that sacred watch must be kept. Has a hasty word been spoken? Instantly recall it and ask for forgiveness. Is there a misunderstanding? No matter whose the fault may be, do not allow it to remain one hour. Is the home-life losing a little of its warmth? Ask not for the cause nor where the blame lies; but hasten to get back the old fervour
32 Ube perfect Ibotne
at any cost. Never allow a second word to be .spoken in a quarrel. Let not the sun go down upon an angry thought or feeling between two hearts that have been united as one. Pride must have no place in wedded life. There must never be any standing upon dignity, nor any nice calculation as to whose place it is to make the apology or to yield to the other. True love knows no such casuistry: it seeks not its own; it delights in being foremost in forgiving and yielding. There is no lesson that husbands and wives need more to learn, than instantly and always to seek forgiveness of each other, whenever conscious of having in any way caused pain or committed a wrong. The pride that will never say, “I did wrong; forgive me,” is not ready for wedded life.
“Oh, we do all offend — There’s not a day of wedded life, if we Count at its close the little, bitter sum Of thoughts, and words, and looks unkind and fro ward — ntfe 33
Silence that chides, and woundings of the
eye-But, prostrate at each other’s feet, we should Each night forgiveness ask.”
A writer closes a book on home-life with this earnest word: “The great care should be so to live in the home that when it shall any way be lost, there may be no accompanying sting of memory, harder to bear than any will of God. A little constant thought, self-denial, fidelity, a true life each with each, and each with God, will not only save all unavailing regret, and ensure the purest peace under all experience, but make the thought of reunion and life again in the Home of God chief among incentives to His service.” The only way to ensure a memory without a pang, when the separating hand has done its work, is to make each hour of wedded life, as it comes, tender and true as two loving hearts can make it.
To crown all, the presence of Christ should be sought at the marriage festivity, and His blessing on every day of wedded life. It is a sad omission when, in setting- up their home, the husband and wife leave out Jesus. No other omission they could possibly make would cause so great a want in the household. Without His presence to bless the marriage, the congratulations and good wishes of friends will be only empty words. Without His benediction on the wedded life day by day, even the fullest, richest tenderness of true affection will fail to give all that is needed to satisfy hungry hearts. Without the divine blessing, all the beauty, the gladness, the treasure which earth can give to a home, will not bring peace that may not any moment be broken.
Surely too much is involved, too great responsibility, too many and too precious interests, to venture upon wedded life without Christ. The lessons are too hard to learn to be attempted without a divine Teacher,
Xifc 35
The burdens are too heavy to be borne without a mighty Helper. The perils of the way are too many to be passed through without an unerring Guide. The duties are too delicate, and the consequences of failure too far-reaching and too terrible, to be taken up without wisdom and aid from above.
The prayer of the Breton mariner, as he puts out on the waves, is a fit prayer for every wedded life as its barque is launched: “Keep me, O God, for my boat is so small and the ocean is so wide.”