A HANDBOOK TO MARRIAGE


(Pall Mall Gazette, November 18, 1885.)

In spite of its somewhat alarming title this book may be highly
recommended to every one. As for the authorities the author quotes, they
are almost numberless, and range from Socrates down to Artemus Ward. He
tells us of the wicked bachelor who spoke of marriage as 'a very harmless
amusement' and advised a young friend of his to 'marry early and marry
often'; of Dr. Johnson who proposed that marriage should be arranged by
the Lord Chancellor, without the parties concerned having any choice in
the matter; of the Sussex labourer who asked, 'Why should I give a woman
half my victuals for cooking the other half?' and of Lord Verulam who
thought that unmarried men did the best public work. And, indeed,
marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men
disagree. Our author, however, is clearly of the same opinion as the
Scotch lassie who, on her father warning her what a solemn thing it was
to get married, answered, 'I ken that, father, but it's a great deal
solemner to be single.' He may be regarded as the champion of the
married life. Indeed, he has a most interesting chapter on marriage-made
men, and though he dissents, and we think rightly, from the view recently
put forward by a lady or two on the Women's Rights platform that Solomon
owed all his wisdom to the number of his wives, still he appeals to
Bismarck, John Stuart Mill, Mahommed and Lord Beaconsfield, as instances
of men whose success can be traced to the influence of the women they
married. Archbishop Whately once defined woman as 'a creature that does
not reason and pokes the fire from the top,' but since his day the higher
education of women has considerably altered their position. Women have
always had an emotional sympathy with those they love; Girton and Newnham