And you have to conform to the usages of a country, especially when you live in one which, like provincial France, is built of gla.s.s houses.

How long should a widow mourn the loss of her husband?

Two days after the funeral of her husband, a young widow received the visit of a friend, who remarked, on seeing the sadness engraven on her face:

'Poor dear! how sad, how haggard you look!'

'Ah, dear, that's nothing,' sighed the young widow; 'you should have seen me yesterday!'

As a rule husbands are mourned as long as they deserve.

And so are we all.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

ON OLD MAIDS

Different types of old maids--Many of them are undisguised blessings--Few men are good enough for women--Old bachelors and old maids.

Next to the mother-in-law, the stepmother, and the widow, it is the old maid who comes in for the largest share of scorn and sarcasm, and this is all the more mean that, nine times out of ten, she is not responsible for her position. The more generous-minded call her 'unclaimed blessing,' but many are found, women amongst them, who whisper 'Cat!' And all this is perhaps nothing compared to 'ancient spinster.'

I cannot help thinking, however, that feelings of quite a different nature ought to be entertained towards the old maid. If it is owing to her bad looks or her poverty that her hand has not been sought, or if she was once engaged to be married and then jilted and disgusted out of all idea of ever marrying, she should be pitied. If she has had offers of marriage and has declined them, she should be respected for not having married a man she could not love. If she was once engaged, and her lover died, she should be admired for wishing to remain faithful to his memory. If she simply wished to remain free and independent and use her fortune, as many old maids do, in philanthropic work, she should be blessed. If she refused to accept matrimony as a means of livelihood (the hardest and most thankless of all), her example should be followed. And, finally, if there do exist old maids crabby, sulky, peevish, selfish, and with all the other defects that are generally and most ungenerously attributed to old maids, they should be thanked by a grateful community for having spared men the risk of leading with them a life of wretchedness and misery.

I am of opinion that old maids and widows should inspire nothing but generous feelings of sympathy in the heart of man. Old maids are the wallflowers of that great dancing-party which is called Life. Let men who have overlooked them and women who have found partners be charitable, and let men whom they declined to a.s.sociate with in the bonds of matrimony be gentlemanly, manly enough to take no mean revenge by scorning them.

No doubt there are despicable old maids--women who shirk all their duties in life, and on whom not even a dog or a parrot depends for its happiness, but they are the great exception, and for selfishness and self-indulgence I should decidedly feel inclined to give the palm to old bachelors. Some old maids are the comfort of parents in their old age, others are the devoted mothers of brothers' and sisters' children, while others are the friends of the poor and the nurses of the sick.

A great prejudice on the subject of old maids is that they are poor forlorn creatures, who spend their lives wailing and mourning over the absence of that man who never proposed. There is nothing to mourn over in that. It is no loss, nothing to regret; not more than one man out of ten is worth having. Most old maids ought to spend their lives in glee and grat.i.tude for a narrow escape. I know very little about women, but I am afraid I do a great deal about men, and it is my firm conviction, and I will express it with all the frankness, all the brutality I am capable of, that there are very few men indeed who are good enough for women.

I know of nothing more pleasant than the company of a jolly, broad-minded, intelligent old maid, who knows that she can let herself 'go' and be a good 'pal' to you, without running the risk of hearing remarks pa.s.sed of a more or less objectionable character. I know of nothing more enjoyable than the pleasure of such an old maid's company.

I count old maids among my most cheerful and companionable friends.

The old bachelor is a social failure, a sort of rebellious outcast, who ought to pay an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound. But the old maid who is bright, clever, cheerful, generous, charitable, hospitable, is an ornament to society and one of its most useful members.

CHAPTER XL

SHOULD PEOPLE REMARRY?

The excuse most people give for remarrying--St. Peter's opinion of men who have been married more than once--Stepmothers.

In some countries of the Far East the question has been settled, so far as women are concerned: they burn their widows. In many places much nearer home it is not unfrequent to hear the opinion expressed that widows should be disposed of as in Malabar. Our genial friend Mr. Sam Weller, senior, entertained, on the subject, views which did not much differ from those of the sages of Malabar.

In the case of widowers I should feel inclined to answer the question in the negative. If you have been happy in your first marriage, do not risk comparisons which might be odious. If you have been unhappy, do not ask for a second dose. In both cases, therefore, I come to the conclusion that the answer should be, Don't!

People who remarry, men or women, have invariably the same excuse. They apologize by saying that they take the important step for their children's sake. If they were to follow their own inclination, they would spend the rest of their natural lives weeping over the graves of the beloved defunct, but they must not be selfish and think of themselves alone, they must remember that they have children who depend on them for their welfare, and they are ready to do their duty and sacrifice their own inclinations and feelings. The devotion of which the human heart is capable, man's especially, will save the race from oblivion when it is gone from the earth.

A widower who remarries invariably reminds his friends that children should be brought up under the sweet and beneficial care of a woman, and he tells them that he remarries to give a mother to his dear little ones--nine times out of ten an indifferent one, and not unfrequently a bad one. If he has no children, he says he is so lonely that he must have a companion, also a housekeeper, and he gives you to understand that all this is 'en tout bien, tout honneur.' And he says it to his friends, and he repeats it to himself so often that he finishes by believing it is so.

The widow with children will tell you that she cannot support her children and that she wants a protector for them and for herself. And she often speaks the truth. At any rate, if you listen to them all, not one will ever tell you frankly that he remarries because he has fallen in love with a woman, and she because she has met a man who appeals to her fancy. When people apologize for what they do, I always suspect them of having done something of which they are not particularly proud, if not absolutely ashamed.

No man has ever been in the next world and returned to earth to tell his fellow-creatures what he saw there except Lazarus; but his contemporaries neglected to interview him, and we are as much in the dark on the subject as if he had never left his grave. However, there is a rumour, in Catholic countries at all events, that St. Peter admits all married men, without any other qualification than the fact that they were married and, therefore, had their purgatory on earth, but that he invariably and rigorously turns out any man who has been married more than once. It is said that, when they protest, suggesting that if he lets in men who have been married once and have thus had their purifying martyrdom on earth, surely he ought to let them in who have been married more than once, he slams the door in their faces, saying: 'Do you take this place for a lunatic asylum?'

I know a Scotchman who, the other day, married his fourth wife. He is only sixty-seven years old, and no widow or old maid should give up hope in the little village of five hundred inhabitants where he lives.

He is proud to say that he has never taken a wife out of that village.

All his wives have made him happy, and he has made them all happy, as you can ascertain from the epitaphs he has written himself on the tombstone that stands over the grave where they are all at rest in chronological order. He specially praises them for the love and care they bestowed on the children of those that went before.

I believe, in spite of what is said, that such a thing as a good stepmother can be found. Stepmothers, like mothers-in-law, get more abuse than they deserve.

I know stepmothers who have been devoted mothers to their husband's children. I even know some who had children of their own, and who continued to be excellent mothers to the children by a former wife; but it is expecting too much of a woman to ask her to love other people's children as dearly as she does her own. Two broods will seldom live happily huddled together in the same nest. If it sometimes happens to be so, it is the exception.

The world is crowded with young girls who have preferred a rough life of toil and misery to living with cold, indifferent stepmothers, who made them keenly feel the loss they had sustained when their own mothers died.

When the children are grown up, there is no excuse for a man to remarry. Yet he sometimes marries a young girl, but then it is, on his part, a sacrifice again. He wants to give a companion and a playfellow to his daughters, and, to attain that end, he does not hesitate to commit an infamy. Sometimes he marries an old one, and commits an act of profanity, of _lese amour_. A man, fond of his wife, does not see her grow old; but no woman above fifty can inspire in a man of any age any other sentiments than those of friendship and respect. He may be the friend of such a woman, but he should not be her husband.

We might philosophize at great length on such topics.

I loathe giving advice, yet I cannot refrain from saying as much as this: If either a widower or a widow fall in love again, let them remarry by all means; but if the real inducement is the love of their children, let them, for the sake of Heaven, for the very sake of their children, engage the services of a good, motherly housekeeper. This has invariably proved to answer very well.

CHAPTER XLI

THE LAWS AND CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE

Laws that will be altered during the twentieth century--People will have to pa.s.s examinations before they are allowed to marry--The Church should give young couples a happy start, and change the ceremony of marriage.

It is my sincere belief, as it is my fond hope, for the sake of humanity, that the laws of marriage will be altered before this century is fifty years old. Just as the Legislatures of all the civilized nations will change the laws relating to inheritance and the tenure of the land and the treasure therein, so that the earth may be enabled to feed her children and keep her workers in comfort, and that none may enjoy the privileges of wealth who does not return some equivalent for it to the community, just so will these Legislatures alter the present laws of marriage, which now bind people unfit to live together and allow the production of species which ought to get extinct. I believe that by-and-by people will not be allowed to get married just as they please, and simply because they please. Insane, sickly persons will not be permitted to marry and bring insane and sickly children into the world. There will be some careful pruning done for the good of the human race, which, as it is, threatens to overcrowd the earth.

Before the law allows couples to marry, I believe--upon my word, I do!--that it will require them to pa.s.s an examination and to prove that they are fit persons for the undertaking, that their bodies and their minds are sound and healthy, that they have means of living and the prospect of keeping the families that may be born to them. Their antecedents will be thoroughly investigated. It will be ascertained that there is no insanity, no hereditary disease in the family of either of them.

Old men of seventy will not be allowed to marry young girls of eighteen or twenty. Old ladies of temporarily unsound minds will not be permitted to be taken to the altar by calculating young men eager to live without working, whatever indemnity the said young men may receive for their adoption by the said old ladies. Marriage will be held sacred, and no one will be allowed to trifle with the inst.i.tution.

Then it will no longer be the custom to commit adultery or acts of cruelty in order to obtain a divorce. No couples will be compelled to remain fastened together, living a life of misery. If they find it impossible to live happily and comfortably together, their mutual consent to a divorce will be sufficient to secure their freedom.

By the adoption of such laws, with the daily improvement of all sanitary arrangements and the progress of science, disease and misery will disappear, the human race will become more healthy, happy, and beautiful, and more than ever men and women will fall in love with each other.