Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

our License, as well to you as to the parties contracting, as to the Rector, Vicar, or Curate of the said church, where the said marriage is intended to be solemnized, to solemnize the same, in manner and form above specified, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer in that behalf published by authority of Parliament. Provided always, that if hereafter any fraud shall appear to have been committed, at the time of granting this License, either by false suggestions, or concealment of the truth, (now this, Belford, is a little hard upon us; for I cannot say that every one of our suggestions is literally true:⁠—so, in good conscience, I ought not to marry under this License); the License shall be void to all intents and purposes, as if the same had not been granted. And in that case we do inhibit all ministers whatsoever, if anything of the premises shall come to their knowledge, from proceeding to the celebration of the said Marriage; without first consulting Us, or our Vicar-general. Given,” etc.

Then follow the register’s name, and a large pendent seal, with these words round it⁠—Seal of the Vicar-General And Official Principal of the Diocese Of London.

A good whimsical instrument, take it altogether! But what, thinkest thou, are the arms to this matrimonial harbinger?⁠—Why, in the first place, two crossed swords; to show that marriage is a state of offence as well as defence; three lions; to denote that those who enter into the state ought to have a triple proportion of courage. And (couldst thou have imagined that these priestly fellows, in so solemn a case, would cut their jokes upon poor souls who came to have their honest desires put in a way to be gratified); there are three crooked horns, smartly top-knotted with ribands; which being the ladies’ wear, seem to indicate that they may very probably adorn, as well as bestow, the bull’s feather.

To describe it according to heraldry art, if I am not mistaken⁠—gules, two swords, saltire-wise, or; second coat, a chevron sable between three bugle-horns, or (so it ought to be): on a chief of the second, three lions rampant of the first⁠—but the devil take them for their hieroglyphics, should I say, if I were determined in good earnest to marry!

And determined to marry I would be, were it not for this consideration, that once married, and I am married for life.

That’s the plague of it!⁠—Could a man do as the birds do, change every Valentine’s day, (a natural appointment! for birds have not the sense, forsooth, to fetter themselves, as we wiseacre men take great and solemn pains to do), there would be nothing at all in it. And what a glorious time would the lawyers have, on the one hand, with their noverini universi’s, and suits commenceable on restitution of goods and chattels; and the parsons, on the other, with their indulgencies (renewable annually, as other licenses) to the honest desires of their clients?

Then, were a stated mullet, according to rank or fortune, to be paid on every change, towards the exigencies of the state (but none on renewals with the old lives, for the sake of encouraging constancy, especially among the minores) the change would be made sufficiently difficult, and the whole public would be the better for it; while those children, which the parents could not agree about maintaining, might be considered as the children of the public, and provided for like the children of the ancient Spartans; who were (as ours would in this case be) a nation of heroes. How, Jack, could I have improved upon Lycurgus’s institutions had I been a lawgiver!

Did I never show thee a scheme which I drew up on such a notion as this?⁠—In which I demonstrated the conveniencies, and obviated the inconveniencies, of changing the present mode to this? I believe I never did.

I remember I proved to a demonstration, that such a change would be a mean of annihilating, absolutely annihilating, four or five very atrocious and capital sins.⁠—Rapes, vulgarly so called; adultery, and fornication; nor would polygamy be panted after. Frequently would it prevent murders and duelling; hardly any such thing as jealousy (the cause of shocking violences) would be heard of: and hypocrisy between man and wife be banished the bosoms of each. Nor, probably, would the reproach of barrenness rest, as it now too often does, where it is least deserved.⁠—Nor would there possibly be such a person as a barren woman.

Moreover, what a multitude of domestic quarrels would be avoided, where such a scheme carried into execution? Since both sexes would bear with each other, in the view that they could help themselves in a few months.

And then what a charming subject for conversation would be the gallant and generous last partings between man and wife! Each, perhaps, a new mate in eye, and rejoicing secretly in the manumission, could afford to be complaisantly sorrowful in appearance. “He presented her with this jewel, it will be said by the reporter, for example sake: she him with that. How he wept! How she sobb’d! How they looked after one another!” Yet, that’s the jest of it, neither of them wishing to stand another twelvemonth’s trial.

And if giddy fellows, or giddy girls, misbehave in a first marriage, whether from noviceship, having expected to find more in the matter than can be found; or from perverseness on her part, or positiveness on his, each being mistaken in the other (a mighty difference, Jack, in the same person, an inmate or a visitor); what a fine opportunity will each have, by this scheme, of recovering a lost character, and of setting all right in the next adventure?

And, O Jack! with what joy, with what rapture, would the changelings (or changeables, if thou like that word better) number the weeks, the days, the hours, as the annual obligation approached to its desirable period!

As for the spleen or vapours, no such malady would be