Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1874 — The Better Side of the Story. [ARTICLE]

The Better Side of the Story.

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle: One cannot take up a paper nowadays without being confronted, in glaring letters, with a “ Divorce,” or “ Matrimonial Quarrel,” or “Wife Beaten,” or what would seem to lie a universal complaint, difficulties between married people. Then turn to the correspondence, and some husband* complains of the extravagance of women, of the leniency of the law in giving women so many privileges of property denied to men, or some poor, subdued wife ventilates her opinion on the tyranny of men in general, or the fearful injustice of the law in regard to wives and their right in their own. children. Perhaps some bachelor or ancient maiden utters a growl at the fetters of matrimony, ana declares how much better and wiser it is to remain single. The newspaper columns are mediums of complaints, grumbles and abuses; but whoever represents to the public that large class—in fact, the majority—of contented married people, who trouble not themselves about the law, except in a general way, because the law of their households is love, which “casteth out fear," and never say “Mine,” and “Thine,” and “What I have done for you and “ What you have done for me.” I am proud to own that I belong to this class, and I audaciously claim to represent at least two-thirds of the households living in the pleasant, shady streets “on the Hill,” or the elegant brown stone rows “on the Heights;” the houses from which the sunny, happy little children come whom you meet going to school in the morning, and from which you get a delightful odor of good dinners, and a glimpse of a warm, shiny dining-room as you pass toward evening. Our young men and maidens, with thoughts of matrimony and each other naturally lurking in their brains, and plenty of newspapers to read at home, conclude that it is all a farce, and the only way to be happy and independent is never to marry,* ana thus escape those dreadful fetters. Not long since I read a letter—in the Graphic, I think—from a “ Bachelor,” who claimed to have solved this whole problem. I can just see him blustering around while he tells how he and another fellow hired a nice house, furnished it comfortably, got a respectable housekeeper who did not see too_ sharp, and who understood her business; how they had their meals faultlessly served, buttons all right, and how they took their nightkeys, came in any hour they chose, and no one said a word. This he called comfort. Brother, let me tell my experience. We—my John and I—are close in the neighborhood of our crystal-wedding day. We have three or four children, all boys, which is a pity. Now, I honestly do not, think John is perfect, and I never heard of his saying that I was. In temperament we are not alike. John is one of your punctual, accurate men, intelligent (or I shouldn’t have married him), kind hearted and loving (or he wouldn’t have married me), not very demonstrative, and no one but his wife, I wmetimes think, knows how much he does feel. Now, I am enthusiastic; if I like a thing, people in the house generally know it, ana, if I want to do anything, there isn't much peace till I accomplish it. I have sometimes wished that John would not be so non-committal, and would not look so horror-stricken when I make a mistake or forget something. And I know he thinks (he’s told me so) that if I would be more moderate and not tear around so, things would be pleasanter. Bit for all that, I wouldn’t . change John’s faults for any other man’s perfections, and I never heard him bewail his lot; at any rate, he doesnot do jt Jn the papers. I shall have to confess

that we did try to make each other over at first, but we gave that up before we reached our wooden wedding. Wahave tried so long to please each other that somehow now we seem to have the same tastes, enjoy the kame Pleasures, and suffer at the same sorrows. do not say that we never differ, and never part in the morning with a shade of something unreconciled between us. But you never saw two such miserable wretches in your life when such is the case, or two such happy beings when the thing is made up. About that night-key. Bless your heart, John don’t want to go out evenings alone. I cannot jget him out. Here is our bright cdal-fire; here are our boys, with their young life and their school projects; here are books, slippers, cigars (he is a little particular about smoke in the curtains himself), and no one to scold him. Really, now, he does not care to be out half the night. Sometimes we take a fancy to hear Nilsson, or something nice at the Academy ; and how do we do? Why, we put Wur night-key in our pocket (pantaloons, of course), go where we like, come home any hour of the night We choose, and who’s afraid? Oh! We have had many a rare treat, John and I, all by ourselves. As to extravagance, if I ever want something extra good, a silk dress or carpet, I take John with me, for men have a way of spending money for a good thing with an abandon which takes a woman’s breath clean away. Doesn’t he want his wife to look as well as the next man’s wife, to be sure? I know the state of John’s affairs as well as he, and, when we have to be economical, it is as much my interest to go without the silk dress as his, and I can do it and still be happy. I could write a book about John and I; but this is enough, I know, for thousands of husbands and wives to say, “ That’s true.” Sad cases there are of unhappiness and uncongeniality, and they always come to the surface. But does any one believe that all we married people are groaning under our bonds and looking about for easy divorces ? To most of us the thought of the time that shall surely come “ when one shall be taken and the other left” makes the heart stand still. Does any one believe that all the little children who go dancing to school every morning come from unhappy homes? No, they go with their mother’s loving kiss still warm on their lips, and the happy, proud glance of their father lingering about them as he straps their books and says good by. After they are gone, do the father and mother sulk and quarrel ? Not a bit of it-. There is a little talk about the morning news, a good-by kiss, very likely a discussion about which it shall be, roast beef or chicken, for dinner, and with injunctions to “ Come home early,” and,‘‘Don’t tire yourself all out sewing,” they each go about their work with a hymn of thank sgivin g in their hearts. You don’t believe all this, Mr. Bachelor? You say it is a fancy sketch. Well, it is true, whether you believe-it or not. I know, and you don’t. I have been there. Now, -when are added to this love and congeniality a true Christian sympathy, a working together in benevolent deeds, a searching after the truth side by side, say, my growling friend, do you know anything this side of Heaven more restful, more to be desired. Such couples are hot as rare, perhaps, as you fancy, but do not search the police records for them. I believe I speak for many." And, in the name of young men and women settling in life, will not some one else testify? Won’t some brother speak ? My dear Mr. Editor, here is a conundrum no one but an editor can solve: Cannot our papers be made profitable unless they are tilled with all the sickening details of these exceptional sorrows, and the record of crimes which decent people do not mention, and of which young people should be totally ig norant ? A Contented Wife.