PREFACE.
THE highest, purest, best and holiest relation in
life is that of
marriage, which ought never to be regarded as a mere
civil contract,
entered into from worldly ends, but as an essential
union of two
minds, by which each gains a new power, and acquires!
new capacities
for enjoyment and usefulness. Much has been said
and written about
the equality of the sexes, and the rights of woman;
but little of
all that has been said or written on this subject
is based upon a
discriminating appreciation of the difference between
man and woman;
a difference provided by the Creator, who made them
for each other,
and stamped upon the spirit of each an irresistible
tendency towards
conjunction.
The many evils resulting from marriage do not arise
from a failure
in our sex to recognise the equality of man and woman,
or the rights
of the latter; but from hasty, ill-judged and discordant
alliances,
entered into in so many cases, from motives of a mere
external
nature, and with no perception of internal qualities
tending to a
true spiritual conjunction. Oppression and wrong
cannot flow from
true affection, for love seeks to bless its object.—If,
therefore,
man and woman are not happy in marriage, the fault
lies in an
improper union, and no remedy can be found in outward
constraints or
appliances. Let each, under such circumstances,
remove from himself
or herself a spirit of selfish opposition; let forbearance,
gentleness, and a humane consideration, the one for
the other, find
its way into the heart, and soon a better and a brighter
day will
dawn upon them; for then will begin that true interior
conjunction
which only can be called marriage. Happily, we
have the intellectual
ability to see what is true, and the power to compel
ourselves to do
what reason shows us to be right. And here lies
the power of all to
rise above those ills of life which flow from causes
in themselves.
To aid in this work, so far as discordant marriage
relations are
concerned, and to bind in closer bonds those whose
union is
internal, is the present volume prepared. That
it will tend to unite
rather than separate, where discord unhappily exists,
and to warn
those about forming alliances against the wrong of
improper ones,
the author is well assured.
This book is the second in the series of “ARTHUR’S
LIBRARY FOR THE
HOUSEHOLD.” The third in the series will
be “THE TWO WIVES; OR, LOST
AND WON,” which is nearly ready for publication.
