Gentle lady, my whisper to your husband is ended. From you a moment's attention is now claimed by a widowed wife, whose bridal morning rose as bright as yours; whose youthful heart loved “with all a woman's love;” and who anxiously wishes to secure for her interesting sisters that first and most important of all a wife's pursuits— the confidence and affection of her husband.

You are now become a wife; and sacred and important are the duties you have to fulfil. Your husband has bestowed on you the most flattering distinction: he has selected you from the world; and the chain he has put on can be broken only by death! Be it your care never to let him feel this chain, and by your kindness and gentleness make him even forget he wears it.

A bride, wherever she appears, is ever considered an object of importance and a subject for remark. “Have you seen the bride?” is the eager and general question; and what she does, what she says, what she wears, and how she looks, swell the insignificant chat of every gossip's visit. Let the notice which you thus excite make you particularly observant of your manner and conduct; and give the busy whisperer no food for a new sarcasm in the next importation of tittle-tattle.

A bride is generally (indeed, I think always) proud of the new character she has entered on; and, unless she is a woman of sense, fond of exhibiting the love she has inspired. Pursue a different course; let your manner to your husband be kind and good-humored; but sacred to the hours of retirement be those expressions and that display of endearment, which, used in public, argue, in loud terms, a want of true delicacy, and are ever particularly disagreeable to the spectator.

The first inquiry of a woman after marriage should be, “How shall I continue the love I have inspired? how shall I preserve the heart I have won?” Gentle lady, at the present moment your husband thinks you the loveliest, the gentlest of beings. Destroy not the illusion: be lovely still; be gentle still. The long and dreary road that lies through the wilderness of life is stretched before you; and by a chain, the links of which no human power can break, you are bound to a companion with whom, hand in hand, you must walk through this long, long road. For the sake then of peace, for the sake of happiness, for the sake of self (that most powerful feeling), brighten the way by endeavoring to make yourself amiable and pleasing to him.

The great Dr. Johnson, with his usual strength of expression, laments, in the following words, the contrasted manner which frequently occurs before and after marriage: “One would think the whole endeavor of both parties during the time of courtship is to hinder themselves from being known— to disguise their natural temper and real desires in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued affectation. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but in a mask; and the cheat is often managed on both sides with so much art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the wedding-night, and that by a strange imposture, as in the case of Jacob, one has been courted and another married.

“However discreet your choice has been, time and circumstances alone can sufficiently develop your husband's character: by degrees the discovery will be made that you have married a mortal, and that the object of your affections is not entirely free from the infirmities of human nature. Then it is that, by an impartial survey of your own character, your disappointment may be moderated; and your love, so far from declining, may acquire additional tenderness, from the consciousness that there is room for mutual forbearance.”

After marriage, a man generally takes his wife to his home, where every object is endeared to him by local attachment and interesting remembrances. With pride and pleasure does he walk out with his fair bride, to exhibit to her the beauties of his domain and the scenes of his youth. “Look,” says he, “at that noble view down the river; see that boat, how softly it glides, and that little temple on the hill, where on a fine evening I used to sit with my excellent mother, and say my tasks by her side: she was, in truth, my Emily, an excellent mother; several years have elapsed since I lost her, and yet I cannot think of her but with the strongest feelings of affection and regret.” Endeavor, gentle lady, to enter into his feelings, and to admire, and to feel pleased with everything with which he is pleased. In those bridal moments, your smiles and approbation are delightful to him: and although alterations and improvements may occur to you, let him see it is for the sake of those improvements, not for the sake of finding fault, you point out the defect.

Study your husband's temper and character; and be it your pride and pleasure to conform to his wishes. Check at once the first advances to contradiction, even of the most trivial nature. I repeat the word trivial, for it is really inconceivable the power which the veriest trifles have, at times, over the mind, either in irritating or pleasing. And the woman who, after a few years are gone by, can say, “My husband and I have never yet had a loud or angry debate,” is, in my opinion, better entitled to a chaplet of laurels, than the hero who has fought on the plains of Waterloo.

“There is one simple direction, which, if carefully regarded, might long preserve the tranquillity of the married life, and insure no inconsiderable portion of connubial happiness to the observers of it: it is, to beware of the FIRST dispute.”

An admired writer says, “Let it never be forgotten, that, during the whole of life, beauty must suffer no diminution from inelegance, but every charm must contribute to keep the heart which it has won. Whatever would have been concealed as a defect from the lover, must, with greater diligence, be concealed from the husband. The most intimate and tender familiarity cannot surely be supposed to exclude decorum; and there is naturally a delicacy in every mind, which is disgusted at the breach of it, though every mind is not sufficiently attentive to avoid at all times that mode of conduct which it has often itself found offensive. That unwearied solicitude to please, which was once the effect of choice, is now become a duty, and should be considered as a pleasure.

When once you enter the matrimonial state, gentle lady, prepare for the various trials of temper which each day will produce. Your husband perhaps does, or says, something provoking; your servants do, or say, something provoking; or some valuable article is injured by their negligence; a handsome piece of China or glass is broken; a tiresome visitor comes in at a most mal-apropos moment, and breaks in on some matter of consequence, &c. &c. But remember the great Solomon's words: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” (Prov. xvi. 32.) By the expression ruleth his spirit, the inspired writer's views on the subject are evidently wide and extensive. He alludes to those infirmities of temper and disposition which so often corrode our peace, and make us unamiable and uncomfortable to ourselves and those around us. When the risings of discontent, peevishness, envy, anger, resentment, or any evil passion, disturb or threaten to take possession of our hearts, then is the man that ruleth his spirit superior, in the eyes of the eastern monarch, to the hero returning from the battle or the siege, crowned with laurels, and covered with glory! I cannot dismiss this subject without remarking the very sweet and engaging point of view in which persons appear to me when I see them pliably yielding their own will to the will of another. A late writer makes the following excellent remark: “Great actions are so often performed from little motives of vanity, self-complacency, and the like, that I am apt to think more highly of the person whom I observe checking a reply to a petulant speech, or even submitting to the judgment of another in stirring the fire, than of one who gives away thousands!”

References:
ITEM #4031; January, 1861
Godey's Lady's Book
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Vol LXII Page 27