What a Young Wife Ought to Know. Emma F. Angell Drake

the color of the ribbon, the manner of dressing the hair, are not affected, but chosen deliberately because she knows they are pleasing to him.

      She should be the willing mother of his children. Marriage comprehends not only wifehood, but motherhood. To-day this is hardly believed by the many, and we may well mourn it as fatal, not only to the future of the American race, but to the best and highest interests of the home.

      She should seek to keep pace with him in his mental growth, and never for a moment think that she is advancing his highest interests when she is denying herself that which would contribute to her development in order that he may advance. The marriage contract is not so one-sided a matter as this. Everything is for the interests of both, not one alone. There is something heroically pathetic in the story of Nasby’s Hannah Jane, but something perniciously unjust and blameworthy as well. Many a divorce has come from such blind neglect of self, that the interests of the husband may be advanced. “Incompatibility,” is the plea, a word full of tears, when discovered after years of married life.

      The thoughtful husband will never allow such self-abnegation on the part of the wife. What he reads, she should read; and if she have not the time, he should read it aloud, while her hands are busy with the household cares. I remember well hearing Mrs. Livermore say, that she had her husband to thank for much of her mental growth, and varied information. “He was determined,” she said, “that I should read everything that he read; and many times in our little parsonage in a western state, when I was busied about the work of the home, he would come out into the kitchen, heated as hot as the fiery furnace, and read to me the book he was enjoying.”

      In the line of intellectual development there is a danger that must be guarded against. In this day of literary clubs and reading circles, the ambition to excel and keep pace with other women in mental culture, will prove a snare if not guarded against.

      All that the wife can do in outside work, while not neglecting the higher duties of home and heart, will only freshen and brighten her for companionship, and give her glimpses, yes, extended views, of the world and its doings, that will serve to broaden her horizon, and bring her in closer touch with her husband in his wrestlings with the affairs of life.

      The words of the wise man are not obsolete, and are as timely to-day as when written. “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness; she looketh to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excelleth them all.”

      A converted heathen said of his wife, “I do thank God for my Christian wife. She has been such a help to me. I nearly always take her advice. In fact I may just as well tell you that I always take it, she is so wise.”

CHAPTER VI.

       TROUSSEAU AND WEDDING PRESENTS.

       Table of Contents

      Husband and Wife Ruined before Their “Crane is Hung.”—The Foolish and Ruinous Display at Weddings.—An Illustration Given.—How Wedding Presents Lead to Debt and Unhappiness.—Living Does not Need much Machinery.—Mistake of Copying after People of Large Wealth.—Wise Choice of Furniture.—The best Adornments for the Home.—The Trousseaux of our Foremothers.—The Need of Simplicity.—Artificialities That make a Veil between our Souls and God.

      “Be not vain, oh my soul, and suffer not the din of thy vanity to deafen the ears of thy heart.”—Augustine.

      “It is possible so to complicate the machinery of living that the very life itself is crushed among the wheels. We may wrap ourselves so in comfort until our breath is smothered in the folds. The man whose wants are few is the man most likely to be found carrying a light heart.”—W. R. Huntington.

      Many young married people are ruined before their “crane is hung.” Ruined through the false vanity engendered by the foolish display made in their attempt to follow the fashion in the preparations for the wedding, and their start in life.

      This could not be better illustrated than by an article in The Ladies’ Home Journal, which I quote in full. While this does not typify all grades of society, yet the same spirit of show and vanity permeates all.

      “A little woman who lives in one of the interminable rows of cheap, turreted, showy houses, came to me a few days ago, pale with anxiety. ‘Kitty,’ she said, ‘is going to be married to young Holt, who is a salesman in one of the department stores, and I’m sure I don’t know how we are to raise money for a wedding breakfast and a full choir.’

      “Kitty’s father is also a salesman on thirty dollars a week, and there are four other girls. Oh, the scrimping and saving that have gone on in that house to turn out Kitty and her sisters fashionably clothed. The cheap cuts of meat, the rancid butter, the beds without blankets, the stoves without coal, and the unpaid creditors, scowling out of every shop in the neighborhood when the old man passes by. He toils six days every week, early and late without complaining, and his wife spends his wages for, as she thinks, the best interests of his girls.

      “ ‘White satin, even the sleaziest, has gone up to a frightful price,’ she moaned, ‘and I dare not count what the wedding breakfast will cost.’

      “When I asked why there must be a wedding breakfast and a full choir, she said, that every bride in their set had had both this summer, and what would the Holts think if Kitty came creeping like a pauper into their family? ‘The Holts,’ she assured me, ‘are high-flyers. No indeed: there shall be nothing half cut in any way about Kitty’s wedding.’

      “The wedding breakfast is served and Kitty, (or Kathryn as she calls herself), is married in the white satin. She begins life in a showy, tiny house, chiefly furnished with her wedding presents. She has no comfortable underclothing or bedding, and not a dollar in her pocket. But Kathryn has her ‘receiving days,’ and is careful to order her cakes and café frappé from the caterer who is patronized by the millionaire who employs her husband.”

      Not what would we like, and what can we afford? but, “What do other people do, and what would they think did we do otherwise?”—is the sentiment which controls the preparation of the young people, in all grades of society, in their beginning life together. How refreshing to find occasionally a father and mother who care little what “they say,” and who equip their daughters as becomes their station in life, and their means, regardless of what others about them are doing.

      Wedding presents are a happy reminder of a happy occasion, but they often prove a snare in the demand for surroundings that are beyond the means of the recipients. “These are such very pretty and nice things that we really must have pretty things to go with them,” is the thought of the young people, and in setting up much more is spent than they can afford, and they are handicapped by debt, and harassed by worry at the outset; and what should be the happiest and most care-free time of their life is spoiled by this hydra-headed intruder, debt.

      It is but a repetition of the old story of the good woman, who must have a new pair of andirons. When they were set up in the best room in all their shiny newness, a new carpet was a thing of necessity. This was followed by new chairs to keep countenance with the carpet; then curtains, walls and all must be transformed and little wonder that the good man was appalled at the cost of one pair of inoffensive andirons.

      “Living does not really need so much machinery,” is a trite and true sentiment. Oh for a blessed contentment that will make us happy with that which we can with propriety have.

      The trouble begins, but does not end, with the trousseau of the bride. If the means of both parties are moderate, why attempt to copy the style and quantity of those who are not obliged to count their dollars? A simple substantial outfit, with