Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1893 — Sarcastic Epigrams. [ARTICLE]

Sarcastic Epigrams.

Literature fairly bristles with aggressive proverbs on women as sweethearts and wives. To mothers, the epigram makers are kinder; it seems fair to suppose, therefore, that they belong to the class who have found love, before or after marriage, a failure. “A deaf husband and a blind wife are always a happy couple,” writes a sarcastic Dane. Jlut that is hardly more severe on marriage than Shakspeare’s declaration, “A young man married is a man that’s marred,” which may have inspired Bacon’s words, “He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief." And to these sentiments the Dutchman nods sagaciously: “Whoso is tired of happy days let him tako a wife.” Few of the proverb makers believe in the , prudent wife mentioned in the Bible. One says, “All are good maids, but whence come the bad wives?” another declares positively, “A man without a wife is a man without care.” That “Hanging and wiving go by destiny" alt the proverb-makers agree. “In buying horses and taking a wife shut your eyes and commend your soul to God,” says the Italian, piously and resignedly. The pugnacious German, however, is not disposed to submit his fate without a protest, for he urges: “In choosing a wife, two heads are not enough;” while the Portuguese agrees with his Italian neighbor, saying: “Every man sings as he has the gift, and marries as lie has the luck.” Intellect and beauty in women seemed alike undesirable to some of these disappointed gentlemen. “There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a wife so much as her having more sense than himself,” wrote Fielding. Euripides set the fashion when he exclaimed: “I hate a learned woman.” “You have married a beauty; so much the worse for you,” sympathizes an Italian with his brother, and Yorubas, the African, corroborates the truth of the assertion, declaring, “He who marries beauty marries trouble.” “A brilliant daughter makes a brittle wife,” chimes in a Dutchman. “A handsome woman is either vain or silly,” whispers an unknown somebody, while a too indulgent German husband, who evidently has married spoiled beauty and been worsted in many a conjugal controversy, informs us plaintively, “A handsome woman is always right.” There is one comfort in all this for womankind, however; as civilization advances, men’s words become kindlier toward women, and the degree of a country’s civilization may be told by reading its proverbs on this subject.