Part 5 (1/2)
_First._--Such physiological conditions as will insure the improvement of offspring and the perpetuation of the race, for the accomplishment of which object, marriage is primarily established.
_Second._--Amiable Companions.h.i.+p and Congenial a.s.sociation. The married pair must live together, and their mutual interests, as well as the interests of society, demand that the a.s.sociation be pleasant.
_Third._--Mutual helpfulness in financial affairs and the maintainance of the establishment.
It is absolutely necessary that all three of these elements should combine to form the perfect marriage. Many good people imagine that if they can only live together in an amiable way, and have no serious quarrels, that they have reached the beau ideal of happiness. There are others who look only to the financial welfare of the union, and if the conditions seem favorable to the production of wealth, they approve of the marriage; but the fact remains that both of these conditions may be present and the marriage still be most unhappy.
When I was lecturing in the State of Indiana, some years ago, I had occasion to discuss this subject with the Mayor of a certain city, who informed me, with great glee, that he had ”sold out” a Phrenologist, as he expressed it, on the occasion of his marriage. Said he, ”My wife and I were examined the day before we married, by an eminent Phrenologist, who p.r.o.nounced us totally unfitted for each other, and strongly urged us not to marry. Now, sir, I have lived with that good woman for forty years, and we've never had a quarrel, and we've made a good living into the bargain.”
I did not want to hurt the old man's feelings, and I felt that if he could get any comfort out of that marriage, I would be the last one to take it from him, so I kept silent; but when I looked over his family, and I counted five children that were partially idiotic, I thought that the Phrenologist had decidedly the best of the argument.
And suppose you do live with a good woman for forty years and never have a quarrel, is that anything to your credit? Certainly not. The man who couldn't live with a good woman for forty years, and not insult her, ought to be ridden out of town on a rail. And the woman who can't live with a good man, the same length of time, without getting her name on the police court records for smas.h.i.+ng a frying-pan over his head, is not fit to move in good society.
It is desirable that the a.s.sociation of man and woman in marriage should be amiable, but that is not all that is to be desired. Neither is the physiological improvement of offspring the sole thing to be considered.
The married pair may surround themselves with beautiful children, but if the conditions of the marriage have made them poor, if the parents are unable to educate their children, or to give them the necessities and advantages which are prompted by a laudable ambition, life will be shorn of most of its charms. And, on the other hand, if life is spent in one long scramble for riches, and there is in the union nothing but the elements of sordid wealth, the actual standard of that marriage, as to the true richness of life, will be poor indeed.
These three grand consummations of Amiable a.s.sociation, Financial Success, and Physiological Improvement are most devoutly to be wished, but how shall they be attained?
Before I proceed to give you my own theory, I want to tear down one or two others. I am nothing if not combative, and believe that the best way to establish truth is to begin by tearing down error. I wish to attack, in the first place, a theory much taught and too generally practiced, that one should seek, in matrimony, a companion as near like himself as possible. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to see what a hold this theory has upon the public mind, considering the fact that it never has had any good results to support it. A distinguished Physiologist, in a recent work which has been extensively circulated, uses these words in speaking of a proper selection in matrimony:--
”What should be sought for is a congenial companion. A congenial companion is one who, under any given set of circ.u.mstances, will think, feel and act exactly as we would, not for the sake of agreeing with us, but of his own free will, etc.”
We consent that a congenial companion should be sought for, but we differ very much from the learned gentleman, just quoted, as to what const.i.tutes a congenial companion. To comply with the conditions he expresses, presupposes that the persons, who are to be congenial companions, must be alike in character, temperament, disposition; for if they differ in any of these, Phrenology proves that they will, under the same combination of circ.u.mstances, think, feel and act differently also.
We will examine this theory in the light of results and see how it will work.
We will suppose the case of a man of the Bilious Temperament, dark complexion, hair and eyes; Moderate Caution; small Vitativeness, Hope and Self-esteem; large Destructiveness and Acquisitiveness. Such a combination gives a strong tendency to suicide in cases of financial loss. We marry him to a wife exactly like himself, and one day he comes home and informs her that an unlucky speculation has carried away their fortune, and he has resolved upon suicide. His wife, being a person ”who, under any combination of circ.u.mstances, thinks, feels and acts” exactly as he does, raises no objection. ”All right, my love. You take a.r.s.enic, and I'll take strychnine,” and they go to perdition together. There is not enough vitality in such a marriage to last them over one disaster.
Study this theory to its legitimate conclusion in all cases, and you will find that its results are disastrous. Moreover, it is contrary to nature. It is not because a man is like a woman that she admires him. If this were true, the little emasculated dudes, who cannot raise moustaches, would be more in demand. It is not because a woman is like a man that he loves her. If this were true, the bearded lady in the Dime Museum would be at a premium on the matrimonial market. It is because each is unlike the other, and because each recognizes in the other something, without which nature is incomplete, that love exists, and each is attracted to the other by a force as irresistible as gravitation itself.
But another fellow comes along and proposes to remedy the whole matter with another theory. And he tells you to marry somebody who is your opposite in everything; somebody who, under every combination of circ.u.mstances, will think, feel and act differently from your own impulses. And he hopes, by the fact that you will pull one way and your companion another, to establish some sort of an equilibrium that will keep you on your feet. If we follow this theory, like the other, to its legitimate conclusion, we will find the old problem repeating itself, ”When an immovable body meets an irresistible body, what is the result?”
According to this theory, I should step into this audience and select the most delicate, refined and accomplished lady among you and marry her to a South African cannibal, and I would produce correct results.
The Mormon and the Mohammedan advocate polygamy. The Koran says a man must have four wives in order to always be able to find one in a good humor. There is one answer to polygamy which forever settles the question. The highest orders of animals and men are gifted by nature with an instinct prompting the union, in pairs, for life of the male and female. This instinct is located in the occipital region of the brain, and is called, in Phrenological language, Conjugality. It is large in the lion and the eagle, and in all mating birds and animals. Those animals which a.s.sociate promiscuously are devoid of this sense. There is no grander example of conjugal fidelity than the eagle, the monarch of birds, building, with his consort, their rugged home on the breast of some beetling crag, and there rearing their offspring and remaining true to each other for a lifetime, and at last, when disabled by age, nourished and fed by the young birds, no doubt impelled to the filial task by respect for their magnificent virtues.
If the sense of conjugality is omitted from the organization of a man or woman, they cannot be held responsible if they fail to conform to its impulses. But let every man or woman, in the possession of a complete brain, conform to the instincts of nature and emulate the virtue of the eagle. Those who practice polygamy, or who a.s.sociate promiscuously, or are guilty of conjugal infidelity, are, in plain scientific language, _deficient in sense_--the sense of conjugality.
It being, therefore, the law of nature that man and woman should unite in matrimony, what rule of selection may we establish which, in all cases, shall be productive of agreeable a.s.sociation, financial success and such physiological conditions as will result in the improvement of offspring?
It has been stated that Order is Heaven's first law. With equal force it might be added that Harmony is the first law of nature. The law of Harmony pervades all nature, and men and women have long since learned to recognize it in many departments of study, inferior in dignity and importance to the topic of this lecture. As you have long studied harmony in its application to music, and colors, I introduce the study of harmony to you to-night, but it is harmony in its relation to Humanity in the law of matrimonial selection. There is harmony and discord in music; there is harmony and discord in the science of colors; and in the grand symphony of Humanity, the law is just as applicable; its obedience results in the beauty and accord of domestic felicity, its disobedience furnishes the deformity and discord of society.
All ladies recognize the law of harmony in colors; and in the selection of a dress or bonnet, they try to secure colors that will harmonize with their complexions. They do not all understand the law sufficiently to always conform to it, as I frequently see ladies in my audience who have blundered in this respect, and who wear articles hideously unbecoming.
But they all try, and you cannot inflict a greater punishment upon a woman than to compel her to appear in church, or at a lecture, in a costume in which she knows she has violated this law. But, ladies, just think for a moment, if it is a misfortune to have to wear for a season a dress or bonnet which is not becoming to you, what a calamity it is to be compelled to wear a husband who does not harmonize with you, and that for life. And the worst of it is, they never wear out.
Every musician in my audience understands that, in music, if I strike two notes, of the same pitch and quality, I have produced no harmony, I have only intensified the volume of the tone. If I strike a first and third, or a first and fifth, I produce harmony, because the vibrations of those notes, in combination, are such as produce an agreeable sound.
If I strike certain other notes, I produce a discord, and the sound is unpleasant. We cannot have harmony without a difference in pitch and quality, but we can have difference in pitch and quality without harmony. To produce perfect music, we must have soprano, alto, tenor and ba.s.s to carry all the parts. The tenor and soprano would furnish us a very poor concert, and the alto and ba.s.s alone would produce rather monotonous music. But we have studied harmony in music until we have evoked divine results, and our achievements in harmony of colors has beautified the world with transcendent art.
In the Science of Humanity there are certain combinations of const.i.tution which, in matrimonial a.s.sociation, are harmonious. There are certain other combinations which are discordant. The union of harmonious natures results in agreeable a.s.sociation, financial success and perfection of offspring. The attempted union of discordant natures results in domestic misery, divorces by wholesale, pauperism, disease and crime, and worst of all, the perpetuation of all these evils in a deformed, diseased and vicious posterity.
In stating the law of harmonious selection, the general rule is, that the parties should bear a _complementary_ relation to each other. That is to say, there should be such a combination of temperaments, dispositions and appearances, that any departure from the correct ideal of perfect humanity in the one should be supplied by the development of the other, in order that the two organizations, when added together, should const.i.tute a perfect type of Humanity.
The reasonableness of this rule is apparent the moment that its effects upon offspring are comprehended. The child inherits the joint organization of the parents. It can never be better than the sum total of the parental organizations. It may be better or worse than either of these, according to circ.u.mstances. It can never be better than both, except as education may develop possibilities as inherited from both.