XXXI. ABOUT ENGAGEMENTS.

There is no law in the social code at once so stringent and so variable as that relating to the manner of conducting an engagement of marriage. It is a good ideal like the children’s game,

And whether it is this or thus, the players must do exactly as Simon orders.

Sometimes, for instance, Mrs. Grundy has demanded that betrothals should be of the most private, almost surreptitious character; that there should be “an understanding” between the young people, and a few, a very few, of the bride’s family should be let into the secret, but that the world at large should be astonished, and taken altogether by surprise in hearing some fine morning that Colin and Phyllis were married “very quietly” at the bride’s home a few days since.

Then Mrs. Grundy takes a French fit, and the marriage is to be arranged between the two families, and announced by a betrothal party given by the bride’s mother. Just now, I believe, it is the thing for the girl herself to give a tea to her girl friends, and receive their congratulations and some little gifts—heralds, as it were, of the more costly wedding gifts to come—all by herself. In fact, so strict is the idea of “ladies only” on these occasions that everybody was very much scandalized by the presence of the Colin of one of these latter engagement parties.

“So very awkward! So indelicate!” exclaimed one of the guests in my presence, and I could not but suggest that perhaps the fiancée felt that seeing is believing, and wished to prove that her pretensions were not without foundation.

This parading the engagement and the engaged is perhaps one extreme, but certainly a former friend of mine went to the other when she one day invited her own mother into her bedroom and, exhibiting a white silk dress lying upon the couch, remarked: “That’s my wedding dress, mother, and I shall be married to-morrow evening, here at home.”

I always thought if I had been that mother I would have replied as coolly: “Oh, indeed! I’m sorry, but I am going away for two or three days, and shall start in an hour.”

Another New York girl whom I knew walked out of the house one morning, went to the Little Church we all know of, was married, bought a paper of chocolate creams and went home, while her husband took a train West. Some months later he returned to the city, called upon his wife, and the two together announced the marriage to the somewhat astonished parents of the bride, the daughter remarking that she “didn’t want the fuss of an engagement.”

But it seems to me that these secretive people lose one of the very prettiest and most ideal epochs of life, the season of open and privileged betrothal. One feels it in reading history and seeing the pretty pageant of the fiançailles of some fair young princess who returns for a while to her father’s house a maiden, yet bearing somewhat of the sweet dignity of matronhood and the honors of her future state.

In the English marriage service, as used in the mother country, there is provision made for a betrothal service, to be followed weeks, months, or, as is now the use, moments after, by the real marriage ceremony, and at one wedding whereat I assisted in London the man and maid stopped at the entrance of the choir and there “gave their troth” before proceeding to the altar steps, where they were married.

It seems to me that if some pretty daughter of Murray Hill were to set the fashion of going to church and being betrothed, and then having a reception in her father’s house, it would be received as a quaint and original idea, and set a charming fashion.

All pretty ideas, however, may be expanded like bubbles until they burst, and this has been. There was a period when betrothals, especially in Scotland, were looked upon in nearly the same light as marriages and great immoralities sprung from them. One of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, “The Monastery,” I believe, turns upon this idea, the betrothed pair calling themselves “handfast” and openly living together.

The same abuse of betrothal is brought forward in Wilkie Collins’s novel of “The Cloister and the Hearth,” one of the best stories he ever wrote. In fact, the marriage records became so obscure and so vague in consequence of this abuse of betrothal, that the Scottish law was obliged, in defense of the rights of property, to ordain that any couple calling themselves man and wife, or even living together in those relations, were actually to be held as such, although no marriage ceremony had been imposed upon them.

The privileges and rights of betrothed lovers have been, and perhaps are, as vague as the importance of betrothal. We shall all agree that Scott’s hero, and others like him, pushed both rights and privileges to an undue extent, but on the other hand, I heard one lady boast that her husband had no more than kissed her hand before she was married to him, and a man of my acquaintance, bemoaning his unhappy marriage, said that he knew nothing at all of his wife’s character until it was too late, for they had only been alone twice before their wedding day, and at home she was effaced by her clever and managing mamma.

But very few, either of men or maids, would be content with such a cool and formal engagement as these, and however they begin, they generally manage as time goes on to secure some private interviews, and I dare say to indulge in some caresses a little warmer than the kissing of hands.

It is the nature of man to pursue, and it ought to be the nature of woman to fly, and to keep on flying as long as the pursuit continues; and let me tell you in your ear, my dears, that it is the very best way to keep up his interest in the pursuit; but still a loving and confiding young girl does not always copy too closely the manners of Diana, who had Actæon hounded to death for peeping at her in the bath, nor of Atalanta, who expended all the golden apples in diverting her prétendu from the chase; they are not generally mortally offended if the engaged lover claims a kiss or two, and I have heard of dear little creatures who not only accepted but returned these sweet trifles, and were after all none the worse off for it.

Yes, lovers will demonstrate their love, I suppose, and for my part I agree with the old essayist who says: “All men love a lover,” and always feel very indulgent toward any of their sweet follies which come under my notice. Still I do want to say one little word to the dear girls whom I love and admire so heartily, and it is this:

Keep your place. The time of betrothal is the time of your greatest power and authority, at any rate, unless as a wife you earn for yourself a place that many wives never attain. But now, now while you are promised to this man, and not yet in his power, while he still clothes you with the shining robe of an ideal, and familiarity has not as yet betrayed the fact that you are after all only an ordinary woman, now, when he may not be with you at all times, and spends much of his absence in reviewing the last interview, now is the time, if you are wise and hold yourself steadily in band, keeping your own place and keeping him in his, that you may establish yourself in a position with regard to this man which you need never lose.

Don’t be cold, or unsympathetic, or prudish and old maidish, for no real man can endure that and keep his love; but never come down from your throne to sit at his feet; never lay aside your royal robes of maidenly reserve and sensitive purity; never fail to respect yourself and you will never lose his respect, and there is absolutely no foundation for enduring love but respect; believe me, for it is true.

Men talk of liking women whose hearts outrun their heads, who have no will of their own, who are like wax in their hands, etc., etc., but although they may eagerly seek these pretty dolls for an hour, they soon weary of them, and if they ever marry, the wedding day is the end instead of the beginning of the love story. Be wise, my little girl, be wise! Recognize your own strength and your own power and make the most of it; hold yourself back and your lover will pursue; remain queen of your own position, and he will make you queen of his; come down from your own place and lay yourself at his feet, and he will rest his foot upon you, and believe it is the natural and right thing to do.

I have a theory of my own, that if a man breaks off his marriage engagement it is almost always the girl’s fault. She has been either too hard or too soft with him, either chilled him into the conviction that she is heartless and devoid of tenderness, or she has valued herself so lightly that he has learned to hold very cheaply what is so lavishly bestowed.

And yet I condemn very seriously the man who for less than the gravest causes will break off his engagement to the girl he has seriously invited to become his wife. Nothing is more damaging to a girl in a social point of view than to have been jilted, and although she may not be at all to blame in the matter, or at most have only shown errors of judgment and self-management, a sort of stigma attaches to her in almost every circle of society, and another man is less likely to seek her in marriage. The man is not injured, nor are his chances of subsequent marriage affected at all, whether it is he or she who breaks off the engagement, and for that reason it always seems to me that if an engagement must be broken the man should have the chivalry to take the odium of being discarded upon his own shoulders, and declare the young lady to have been the discarder.

I am always so sorry when I see in the papers that some girl, or perhaps some widow, issuing a man for breach of promise of marriage, for I always imagine it to be the suicidal expression of angry pride and wounded love, self-love as well as other love, and that the poor, hot-tempered, desperate creature has only seized upon the weapon nearest at hand wherewith to strike at the man she still loves, and is so bitterly ashamed of herself for loving.

One class of women takes to horsewhips, and one to pistols, and one to the law, and one to resolute defamation, and I am sorry for them all, for I am sure they never would so disgrace themselves except in the extremity of great suffering, for I know that in the very nature of things their revenge, however successful, will entail more suffering in the end. And I am sorry, too, for the more dignified, and patient victims who say not a word and do not a thing, but draw the robe close over the bleeding wound and dance, and sing, and smile in calm defiance of their own breaking hearts and wounded womanhood.

Yes, I pity these, but I hardly know whether I pitied a lady, now dead, whom I used to know. She was engaged to a man whom she not only loved, but respected and admired, and who seemed, as all the world said, the one man in the world whom she should marry. A noble position was offered to him and he went to Spain to make arrangements for accepting it, and to prepare a home for his bride. One of the sudden fevers of the country seized upon his unacclimated system, and in three days he was dead.

His bride-to-be made little open lament, but in the same day she heard the news set off to visit a sister in a distant city. When she came home she was dressed in widow’s weeds, and always wore them until the day of her death, some twenty years later. She was always cheerful, always silent, always gently reserved, tender and loving to those who remained, but never pretending to any other place than that she had assumed—a widow in heart, if not in name.

It was, perhaps, the happiest life she could have chosen.