CHAPTER I.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE.

There is nothing of greater interest to all classes of people, in all times of life, than Love and Marriage questions -- because all people are affected, directly or indirectly, either by their own, by those with whom they are associated in every day relations, or by the ties of consanguinity. And yet there is nothing that society meddles with so much in an unhealthful manner, thus preventing clear and dignified thought and action in a healthy direction.

The affections need cultivating, guarding and guiding. It would be sophistry, to say that anger, malice, revenge, or any of the so called unamiable traits of character, should be allowed to be exercised without reason to restrain them, on the ground of naturalness; and

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yet there is a class of people who openly, --and a still larger class who clandestinely, live out the belief, that if one is pleased with another, the love element of our being should be exercised without restraint; and such a vast number have so little of Love, and so much of excitability of sexuality, that great wrongs are inflicted on soul and body, to an incalculable extent.

The grossest people, those not far removed from the animals, cannot understand that there can be, that it is possible in human nature, for a soul love, unmixed with sensuality; they cannot comprehend the existence of a deeper and purer element than they possess themselves; and yet, if they were to reason upon the subject, they would believe that, as others possess various gifts vastly superior to their own, shy not the pure love element?

That some are born with greater musical, mathematical, logical and artistic powers or capabilities than others, no intelligent person will deny; but that cultivation makes all of these more perfect and useful, is equally true. Suppose we apply the same to Love. Observation must teach that the most affectionate and loving, have so cultivated themselves, that they can Love without a mixture of what is usually 19termed animal passion, and unless married people have this kind of cultivation, the time must come when they will become weary of each other, and desire nothing so much as to be anywhere but at home.

Every faculty of our being is capable of cultivation and of restraint--and our reason and observation are for the purpose of assisting and inducing action in effecting these designs, of correcting the evil, and cultivating the good.

Combativeness and destructiveness, and all the passions of the brain, are all good in their places, and were all designed for a wise purpose, just as much as Love.

The most truly logical on the Love and Marriage question, live the best lives and obtain the most substantial and permanent blessings of earth.

The few, O the lamentable few, cases of observation, teach us this truth! But away down in the depths of the soul, where no false, reasoning can ever penetrate, we see, we hear, we feel, the evidence.

True conjugal companionship is the greatest blessing of which mortals can conceive in this life---to know that there is supreme interest in one individual, and that it is reciprocated. Everything sinks into nothingness20 without such an assurance, for all that earth can give without it, is but as "sounding brass and a thinking cymbal," Nothing can make an individual more wretched than to lose confidence. It is not simply that which is lost in the one person, but the distrust that is felt in all humanity.

The deceived, who has placed implicit trust in one so nearly related as is one conjugally, can not soon and easily (without much evidence) trust those with whom there has been but an ordinary or general acquaintance.

The most beautiful stories of faithfulness; the most charming poems, with heart and soul richness; the sweetest and tenderest songs, seem but a solemn mockery of a once believed-to-be reality.

Love is ever placed upon a dedestal, with pictures of cheating lies and living sepulchres. Try as hard as the poor victim can, to tear all down and trample under the feet of forgetfulness, the "Nevermore" of the "Raven" is intent on drowning every other thought of sound, and every possibility of confidence in mortals.

And then, as if to test the capacity for enduring and suffering, the world heaps its scorn upon the poor subjects, driving them into a far deeper gulf, when, but for such treatment, while struggling so hard to try to feel that there was a little Love in the world, souls to society and themselves, might have been saved!

Is any one who has caused such depths of sorrow, capable of Love and fit for marriage? There is no need of a pause for a reply. In every pulsation of your heart, there is an unmistakable no ?

Tupper has beautifully expressed his ideas on this subject, in the following words:

The polygamists, whether in Utah, Oneida, or scattered about the world generally, under moral or religious canopies, all fail to comprehend the meaning of true affection. But the polygamists and the communists, who openly in their life declare Love and lust to be one and the same, and that they have rights that are inalienable in passional directions, that their respective societies designate, are a thousand fold better than the people outside, who are preaching morality, and practicing the most

22 underhanded and trickish measures, to accomplish the same results under their false colors, not only, but cruelly thrusting others out of society, who are their victims, as soon as they are tired of them, or have made new conquests, or are forced by publicity to take such a step. As men are the makers of general laws, so are they of social laws, and this one they keep rigidly, when the victim has been their own.

We have often heard it said, that men always love women, and are their natural protectors, because of their great strength, and great Love. Some men love women as children love dolls, and, as a natural result, treat them just as dolls are cared for. They dress them in all the finery they are able to procure, pet and exhibit them until the clothes become old, and the beautiful color of the face is gone, and the eyes are contracted and dim, and then, like worn out dolls, they are thrown aside for neighbors' dolls, or for some beautiful images in the show windows of false society's market.

In the thousands of such cases, that are all over our country, is it to be wondered at, that a looker into the condition of society as it is, cannot believe that there ever was anything approximating anywhere near genuineness in 23 the affections, between the so-called husbands and wives!

Such cannot sing the soul-satisfying ballad--"Let us grow old together," for they do not desire to do so; like the few who can sing in the spirit, finding beauty and charms in wrinkles, that are entirely wanting in the undeveloped faces of rose and lily colored smoothness.

There is more depth in the old tear-dimmed eye of affection, than in the soul-piercing glance, from the most beautiful and brilliant eyes of youth. Those whose love shall have been constant and faithful, until age shall creep upon them, will assuredly find a calm and peace that shall be in itself true happiness.

The masses will sometime realize that there must be stability in the affections, or there can be no true Love; and if there is no reliability in the affections by having the love concentrated on some one object, a man (as a rule) cannot be fully relied upon, in any of the duties of life, for the fortress of the soul is sooner or later captured by the enemy.

It is well known that a married man, whose affections are properly exercised and directed, succeeds much better in life than the single, unstable lover.

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There cannot be love without respect, and there cannot be respect unless there is implicit confidence.

How wretched are two partners in ordinary business relations, when confidence is wanting! But how much more wretched, aye agonizing, where it is a life partnership, and confidence and love are both wanting! No jealousies ever creep in, where there is that amount of confidence which should exist between the married, and nothing is more absurd than to say that "the affectionate are always jealous," for it comes from a lack of confidence, instead of an excess of affection.

"Love worketh no evil."

Thousands of women have been accused of being jealous, when they were not so at all, for they were sorrowing over a husband's infidelity. They could not prove his vileness, according to the codes of man, but it was proved to them, in the severing of the invisible magnetic cable, which can never again be so united as to possess its former strength and power.

It is impossible for one unfaithful in the Marriage relation, to come into the presence of the other without feeling a consciousness of that unfaithfulness, and appearing unworthy of 25 the confiding one, who trusted all and was deceived.

Law, man-made law, very soon dissolves other partnerships, where there is nothing but filthy lucre in the case: but when the heart and soul, and the dearest interests of a life-time are in the question, quibbles are found to chain both soul and body for years and years and years, until their effects open an early grave, for a body whose soul has been matured, by great and deep wrongs and trials, so that nothing of an earthly nature can hold it any longer.

Many of our States have laws compelling married people to live together, when the wife perfectly loathes the very sight of her husband, and one after another child is given an existence, that is hated by both, before it is born. Each parent sees traits of character in their children, that have been inherited from the other, thus arousing still greater repugnance to their children, (if possible,) and but for public sentiment and law, would as soon deprive them of their unwelcome existence, as they would a viper that comes unasked and undesired into their presence. The children are wretched, having a most unhappy organization, fit for any sort of misdemeanor, or crime. Still, 26 there are people who wonder how such terrible crimes could ever have been committed in a Christian country, as are recorded daily.

There are members of churches, who so read the Bible, as to make out that it is the duty of wives to submit to all sorts of oppression, in a Christian manner, while husbands outrage every sense of common decency, to say nothing about their sworn obligations to love and cherish their wives.

Paul's injunction to obey their husbands is taken to mean the women of to-day, instead of in the lifetime of Paul, when he saw that the men were so corrupt and tyrannical, that in the treatment of their slave-wives they would only be much more abusive if, they did not treat their husbands as the lords they assumed to be. Paul's advice was in quite a different age, and to quite a different people, and was given as advice, and not as a command of God. It was 170 years after Christ's birth before there was any religious ceremony in marriage.

Untold wrongs to wives are perpetrated all over our land, under cover of a false construction of "the words of the Book of books," which, if rightly understood, would induce all mankind to live out the principles of humanity, 27 but another name for giving to every human being, rights and liberties that are fully guaranteed them by their having an existence. Any law or custom that deprives a being of individuality, in any of the relations of life, contravenes the great laws of Deity, thus bringing evil results, as the legitimate consequence.

Men and women should enter into the social contract of marriage, as equal and life-long partners. No young lady, when she is being courted, and flattered, and petted, for a moment supposed that her lover can ever be so brutal as for a moment to ever wish her to be his slave, and the idea of his assuming the position of master or tyrant, is to her perfectly preposterous. She feels that, as she is entitled, by her intelligence, her purity, nobleness, and worthiness, in every respect, to be treated as an equal and individual in all the relations of life, that she will be treated accordingly. But she can have no guarantee of any better usage than the law compels.

O how terrible wretched, beyond comparison, when woman realized that her purity and affection, and all her worthy traits of character, fail to bring the appreciation she has a right to expect! And she too, tied for life to one whose 28 own soul was annihilated, the four he deemed the law gave him the possession of another soul! Too true, lamentable true, that there was but one soul in the twain; the one possessing it in reality, and the other possessing it by law!

"What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

The Bible has no command that is more sacred than this; not even the one "thou shalt not kill," and it matters not how forgiving the injured party may be, the penalty must be felt, not only in this life, but that which is to come. The soul that sinneth, must suffer, and the innocent are brought to suffering through the iniquities of the guilty.

Men, the protectors of women, usurp the power to make laws that oppress your mothers and sisters, a thousand-fold worse than human language can express, and then you call it sacred marriage, when it is only legalized villainy!

A woman may see her husband kill another person, which may be the work of but a few moments, and law makes her a competent witness against that husband; but she may bee him disregard his marriage obligations, any number of times, and her husband can laugh

29 her in the face, with a paramour in her own house, who shall drive her from her own room, and yet law says she is not a competent witness against her husband in such a case. She may suffer untold agonies in her pure soul, and yet be compelled to live with him, or be posted, or be called jealous and fault-finding, and exacting, when , if there was a real cause for leaving him, why does she not prove it?

You call such, sacred marriages, and a woman is a free lover , or a some terrible creature, if she ever leaves a husband for his infidelity, if she cannot prove it, when you have made a law for the purpose of preventing her from proving his iniquities. He may, under a very smooth face, be one of the vilest men living, and his wife suffer a thousand agonies, that are a thousand-fold worse than murder , and yet your laws let her suffer, while she might e free from the villain, if law gave her as much a right to protect her marriage purity, as it does to witness against the crime of murder, which is but a play of indiscretion , compared to the great physical and moral wrongs , that are allowed in the marriage relation, without the power to free herself, under the laws of some of our great States that have so much regard for the sanctity of marriage, that it closes nearly 30 every avenue of freedom from the guilty party of the terribly perverted institution.

There can be nothing more beautiful, than the true marriages that are so rare, in the great mass of the so-called "what God has joined together," when He has had nothing to do with the matter, any more than suffering their consummation and continuance.

But there can be a beautiful confidence, where would reads soul, appreciatingly, and neither tries to deceive the other. Such, and such alone, are truly married, and must recognize and practice the great and beautiful laws of true marriage.

It has been said that the "truest men and the truest women, are those who are the most under the influence of each other."

But the usages of society are such, that it is not an easy matter for the truly congenial to understand each other. Many a man has married, who supposed that he , above all others in the world, was preferred for a husband, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Were it not impolitic for women to confess this truth, few could be found who would not admit that, if they had been as free to select a husband, as men are to select wives, they would 31 not have married as they did! But women's failure to come to the confessional on this subject, does not prevent every individual of observation from seeing, not only, the ill-assorted marriages on every hand, but the terrible results which crop out in the shape of affinities, communities, desertions, and murders of various kinds, beside a host of evils too numerous to mention.

Society pays a premium to women for being deceitful, by being sure to abuse those who dare to be honest and frank.

A woman does not dare to show the least preference for a man, until he has made the first advances, and young men are taught that such a course is unladylike and bold, and to be beautifully feminine and charming, she must carry on a course of gauzy deception, pretending she does not care especially for him, until he will seek to win her regard, and even then she must keep up a little deceit.

Men talk about the great intuitive powers of woman, and declare her superior to them in this intuition, yet they ridicule the idea of society allowing her to exercise this intuition in the selection of a husband. We are far behind the people of Persia , for there was a time when the women were authorized by law to select 32 husbands for themselves, if they owned a hut, or a fishing boat.

There should be perfect freedom for woman to select a partner for life in a straight forward, honest and honorable manner.

Queen Victoria has set the world a praiseworthy example, instead of intriguing and deceiving.

Noble men must feel themselves highly honored, when they realize that society is in such a condition that honesty in lifelong interests, is almost unknown. But men themselves are to blame for this condition, for just as long as woman is politically a slave, having no voice in making the laws by which she is governed, and compelled to pay taxes to carry on man's government, she must of necessity do the best she can in her slave chains.

The time is not distant when women as wives, and mothers, and sisters, will be equal with men in all the social, and political relations of life; and then men themselves will be astonished that they could have opposed what was really for their own interest, as well as that of women. It was many years before men could understand that an intelligent and well educated woman was a better wife and companion than an ignorant one.

33 Women cannot be deprived of God-given rights, or of Republican rights, without man being sufferers as well as women.

We could not understand how much disadvantage the whited labored under, in consequence of the slavery of the blacks, until the slaves were freed, and the scales, one after another, fell from our eyes.

The oppressor is of necessity a tyrant, and the oppressed are always slaved, and as slaves they feel that slavery is not the natural condition of one human being, and if there is not a revolt, sooner or later, there is a constant study to gain advantage by the science of deception.

Slave deceives master, and master deceives slave. So in the marriage relation in thousands of instances. The fault is in the perversion of the institution, and not the institution itself. And men and women are both required to make laws, which shall be just to both, and not in the least oppressive to either, before the generality of marriages will be the beautiful companionship that our Heavenly Father intended.

That there are but few nations that are in a degree just to women in their counting and marriage relations the following will show.34

There is no criterion by which one can judge so correctly in regard to the broad, liberal and just ideas of the people of a state, or a country, as by a knowledge of their Marriage customs, and vice versa.

The facts that are contained in this part of the chapter, have been gathered from different sources, for the purpose of contrasting them with the social and national laws in the various States of our Union, and as they were gleaned for that purpose alone , the author neglected to note the different sources from which they were obtained. The greater part of the same were found in extracts from letters of travellers, who witnesses such customs, and it would be impossible to give the credit to the sources due. Those from various books, in libraries and elsewhere, were noted down for the same purpose and just stated, and in most instances without attempting to remember the writer's name.

The reader will observe that in some countries, Marriage is positively a religious rite, while in others, their religion has nothing to do with the matter, but in many , that it is a combination of legal and religious ceremonies, and in still others, of neither.

In the United States, the laws are so various 35 in the different States, and among different religious sects, that our country represents not only a few beauties, but many absurdities.

In some States, a couple cannot marry without a license, but a justice of the peace can join their hands and ask them if they will live as husband and wife, and when they respond "yes," he pronounces them such, and it is legal. In other States, New York, for instance, a Marriage is perfectly legal, with the ceremony just stated, without any license, it matters not what time of day or night a couple call for such ceremony. Indeed, it is still easier, for a simple declaring in presence of witnesses, that they will live together as husband and wife, at any hour of day or night, renders the marriage lawful, and it cannot be annulled, except for crim.con. (adultery).

The News in our country live up to their ideas of not committing the sin of marring a Gentile; they control their own Marriages in their churches, and acknowledge no power out of the church to grant divorces, unless they divorce the couple first in the church of their own faith.

Roman Catholics must be married by a priest of their own church, and a divorce is never granted under any circumstances.

36 In the State of Kentucky, a Marriage is not legal unless a license is procured, not only, but a man at hand who will go bail in the sum of $200, that both are fit persons to marry, no matter what their ages are, even if they are heads of families.

A marriage is legal in some States, if the girl is but twelve years old, and the boy fourteen, while in others, the woman must be eighteen, and the man twenty-one. But such children Marriages will not be suffered, when women are enfranchised, and have a voice in the making of the laws. Congress ought to make general Marriage laws, and no State ought to have the power to legislate in matters of the most vital interest to the people of every State. Frauds and deceptions of every grade are constantly perpetrated, resulting from the different Marriage laws of the various States, and although women and children are great sufferers, still men are occasionally victimized.

Only a few of the Absurdities that might be mentioned in our dear native land, have been presented to the public, in the light that they really deserve; but enough has been said to prevent so much boasting about "our institutions being superior to those of all the rest of the world," when they are far from being simply 37 just , and are in reality, in some respects, greatly inferior to some of those of other countries.

No pretension is made to give the reader all the Beauties and Absurdities of the Marriage relation all over the world, but only such as are, in the modest estimation of the writer, some of the most prominent ones.

The Quakers marry themselves, with their promises to each other to live as husband and wife while life lasts. This is usually in their own churches, but sometimes at the bride's house, before a number of witnesses, ho sign the marriage certificate or contract.

In England, when a marriage engagement is made, the couple, and all their friends, are not only free to speak of it, but they consider it a duty which they own society, that an honorable engagement may be known, in order to prevent any others from placing their affections on the affianced. It often occurs that they are engaged several years, and if they finally conclude to break their engagement they are free to state the fact without seeking to injure each other. They do not sit up late at night, but they visit in the drawing-room in the presence of the family, or at least the mother. Few who are engaged, ever go 38 to any place without a third person, and no couple could be in public alone, without people supposing that they were engaged to be married.

A Marriage must be solemnized before twelve at noon, to make it legal. The ceremony is usually performed in church. When they start upon their bridal tour they throw an old slipper of the bride out of the carriage. The bride submits to the tyrannical custom of promising to "honor and obey."

England is not the only country that would do well to import the Marriage ceremony from Sicily, where they promise to "Love and cherish" each other. Neither is it the only country that still has the barbarous law, that if a wife flees from her husband, he can have her arrested and compel her to live with him! In the time of George the Third, about the year 1772, an act was passed in Parliament to prevent all Marriages of the princes over twenty-five years of age without the approval of that body, and another to prevent princes marrying under twenty-five without the consent of the King. Without the consent of the authorities just mentioned, the Marriages were pronounced null and void.

A woman's name is as dear to her as a 39 man's is to him, and custom ought, and will prevail, where each will keep their own names when they marry, and allow the children at a certain age to decide which name they will prefer. It would make no more confusion in families than where a man's widowed sister is keeping house for him with her own and his children together, or where a widow with children marries a widower with children. That some women are will satisfied to have heir identity perfectly swallowed up in Marriage by losing both surnames and Christian names, when they have been guilty of no crimes, to make it desirable to hide them, is indeed wonderful.

Miss Jane Jones is lost in Mrs. John Smith. Who would dream that she is the same person she was an hour since? A woman must be called Mrs. To let all the world know she is married, and if there is a necessity for this, why not call a man Misterer , for the purpose of enlightening the world as to his condition?

Let men and women stand as equals. We believe in men's rights as well as women's, and if there are any advantages to be gained by the titles of Marriage, let men share them as well as women.

In France, if a gentleman asks a lady to 40 dance with him more than once at a social party, he is considered to be in love with her. An unmarried gentleman does not sit near an unmarried lady, in company, but as soon as he seats her after having danced, he takes a chair near another gentleman or a married lady, although the couple are attentive to each other while dancing. The marriages are in the Roman Catholic faith, and the husband takes the wife's name if she desires him to do so. There must be four witnesses to a Marriage ceremony, and there must be two distinct ceremonies, one of state and one of the church.

In the interior of Africa, Dr. Livingstone found that in the marriage relation the man took the name of the woman, and was bound to go and reside in the native village with the wife, if she chose to have him. He is bound to provide her mother with firewood for life. If the Marriage is not a pleasant one, the woman alone can have a divorce, and the children belong to her.

The men have several wives, but the first one is the one by whose name the husband is called.

The wives allow polygamy, as the husbands are on such a low plane, that it would be useless to attempt to prevent it, although they 41 have an equal voice in making the laws. The man ask their wives before engaging in any occupation or job of labor.

On a small island near Mull and Iona, on the northwest coast of Scotland, a race of people live, who subsist mostly on fish, wild birds' eggs, and oat meal. The marriage portion of a bride is an iron kettle, and a long rope. The latter is made on the island, and used for the purpose of swinging under the shelving rocks, and securing the birds and fowls' eggs. The young men are said to marry for the sake of being supported.

The marriage of people belonging to the Brahmin class, living in Calcutta, is very complicated, and occupies five days.

The first day is devoted to washing the bridegroom and bride in the sacred waters of the Ganges, and to various ceremonies intended to guard them against the influences of the evil eye . The second day the two fathers join their children's hands, and pour over them seven measures of water, seven of corn, and seven of milk, while the officiating Brahmin reads the portion of the law which treats of conjugal life and its duties. A cord is then put round the bridegroom's shoulder, and a 42 great ring, typical of marriage, is fastened to the neck of the bride.

On the third day, the bride and bridegroom march seven times round the sacred fire. On the fourth day, they dine together in public. On the fifth day, an offering of rice is sacrificed, the only religious ceremony except suttee, to which a woman is admitted. The ceremonies terminate by a triumphal procession.