OBSERVER ESSAYS.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 124, 27 January 1883, Page 313

OBSERVER ESSAYS.

LOVE, COURTSBXP, AND MARRIAGE.

FIRST ESSAY. HpEx will be readily admitted that few men— if any love a lamp-post or a telegraph-pole ; and much demonstration, most people will admit that man is not able to love a skin con-

taining a few bones and a few anatomical arrangements, _ even allowing that ifc does possesss animation to a slight c. ,-^ree. Will some people admit that a man cannot love matter however beautiful its form ? If my readers will admit it, =then I have to ask them what can a man love ? And here I have to submit to their consideration •(probably they have never considered it before) th^; there are only two classes of things, those v f&- are material and those that are spiritual. "Now if a man can love and yet is incapable of loving what is material he must be . able to love what is spiritual if that is the only thing left for ■Hrn to love. Perhaps someone may feel inclined to take me up here by remarking that many men love money ; without questioning the remark, I ."would ask them, what do such men get for their trouble ? No pure idea of love can be obtained except as of something reciprocal, something for which one requires a quid pro qrco, something for which one requires an equivalent ; love must be thought of as a means to an end ; Talk about disinterested love is all nonsense, a mere delusion. If there were such a thing as disinterested lo\ r e, sui'ely it would be possible for a man to love" a telegraph-pole ; God says to us in the Bible, " you ought to love me hecatise I first loved you." The only return man can make to O-odj for his love, is to receive it (but what return can money make to a man if he loves it) and the more a man receives love from God the more he has, and therefore the more he can love a woman, •or a neighbour, or God. When a man. is said to love money, the expression may bo correct, but only in a similar sense in which a room may be full of darkness, viz : that it is empty of light ; ■ "when a man is spoken of as loA'ing money the real meaning is that he does not love f the absence of light in a room manifests itself to us in what we call darkness, and the absence of love in a man sometimes results in what is called a love of money ; darkness as a thing has no existence, it is the absence of a tiling called light ; a love of money has really no existence, it is the result of the absence of a thing called love. And love is a spiritual thing which cannot be made manifest to s. man's senses, the same as light ; but a woman has a sixth sense to which a husband's love can be made manifest. Man has an organ called the eye, \\j which he can disccern light from darkness, in o^iSf words, man lias what is called the sense ot seeing, but man has no organ for discerning love ; a man has not the sense of discerning between a brother or sister who lo^es or between a brother or sister who does not love, therefore we are cautioned in the Bible to " Judge not," and men ■would do well to abide by the caution ; of course in a world like this correct guesses can often be made, but it is a dangerous practice. COTTKTSHIP. £i I have not much just now here to say on this in a general way, it is simply a preparation for marriage — or ought to he. MARRIAGE. In speaking of marriage, I must begin where I left off about love. There . : are five senses, viz., •seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting, and hearing, but Vflman has a sixth sense by which she can •unerringly discern whether her husband loves her •or not. In proof of this assertion, I would ask people to look round them, and they will soon become convinced that such is the fact, and not ■only so, but, if this fact is held in the mind, it soon enables one to see that neaiiy all matrimonial disturbances, heart burnings, and sorrows hinge upon this very fact. How often one hears the expression, "It is impossible to understand a woman," but, on taking this one fact into consideration, among the other facts already known, many things will become clear respecting matrimony that before were perfect enigmas, perfect puzzles. If my readers require proof of my assertion, I would ask them how it is that in many instances where a man has fervently (sometimes on his knees) professed, and pleaded, and even .■sworn that he loves a woman, and after getting yoked (I cannot say married) to her he has within three months been knocking her about and frequenting any and every place except her company. Are we to believe that there ever has been, ■or could have been, any love in the case at all ? I distinctly answer ISTo. ISTow, ladies, admitting that in all these instances the man is to blame, don't suppose, ladies, that I am going to let you off as — well, angels. ~80 doubt most women will admit that their husbands ought to love them — . have been heard to say that they " expect it," — but, ladies, leb me ask, "" Is it always possible ?" There is a word expressed by the' letters obedience. Ladies have been known to entertain a special antipathy to this word, and, in going through the marriage service, they have been known to entertain a kind of mental reservation : When the parson utters the word obey, they substitute the expression, "no-bey." What a farce ! This is playing a practical joke on one's self with a vengeance. What a strange thing it would be thought if a man were found premeditating and making preparations to torture himself l for fun-H3crewing his big toe in a vice, for inf stance — and how it would heighten the absurdity of sucli a proceeding if this same man were to look very knowing all the time, and appear perfectly confident that he was clever, knowing, "not so green as you might think," etc. But let me tell you, ladies, that you are not a bit less absurd 'than such a man, when you suppose that obedience in a wife is an objectionable thing — not a bit more absurd than a man would be if he thought torture a desirable tiling, or self-torture a clever thing. But what is obedience? Some ladies ■have supposed, if Chaa-les calls to Maria for' his hat and boots, and Maria brings them, 'that Maria is obedient ; but, ladies, this is by no means necessarily the case. John may tell Mary t to bring his hat and boots, and .receive the following reply to his request : — ■ " Fetch them yourself ! you* are old enough and big enough to wait on yourself." Surely ifc is not ■difficult to understand that as a fact Mary may ■be a far more obedient wife than Maria. Surely •some of us have met Marias .who do all that they

are told, and yet as wives a frozen automaton would probably be just as acceptable to a man for a wife — perhaps much better ; and surely some of us have met with Marias who, although they may sometimes be a little pert, yet if one knew what obedience was, and looked into the heart of Mary, one would find a snug little store of it. What lam trying to give my readers a glimpse of is this — that a man cannot love a woman unless she will let him. Allow me to offer a small fragment of philosophy; it may assist in making the subject clearer : — Man is a form of Love ; love operates through the understanding. Woman is a form of the Will ; the will operates by obedience. That man is a form of Love, I think may by some be admitted, because it is said m the Bible, " G-od made man in his own image," and also, " G-od is love." That woman is a form of the Will, I think may also be admitted by some, because it is said in the Bible that " God took the woman out of the man." A wife does well if she does not oppose her will to her husband ; in such case she can help him in many ways — cook his dinner, &c, &c. But a wife does _ infinitely better if she can become truly obedient, i.e., if her will can act in unison with her husband's. It is in reference to this that the beautiful passage in the Bible applies when Martha bothered herself about much serving, but Mary chose the better part, &c. It would require a tolerably large volume to illustrate and demonstrate what has been merely touched on in this essay. That Wibowee.