The Ten Pleasures of Marriage 21 – Behn · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
The Ten Pleasures of Marriage 21The First Pleasure
18
Literature · Humor
The Ten Pleasures of Marriage 21
The First Pleasure
BehnEnglish
The young Couple begin to keep Shop, and demand their promised Portion.
Till now, O new Married Couple, you have passed through the First part of your Wedlock with feasting and pleasures, and have injoied no smal delights in it. But what is there in this World that we grow not weary of? You have seen that the sumptuosest Feast full of delicate dishes, and the pleasurablest Country Scituations, with al their rich fruits, finally cloggeth, through the continual injoyment of them.
Nevertheless it is the generall desire of all persons, forasmuch as it is possible, to live in the World in pleasure and delights. Amongst the rest the gain of mony is none of the smallest pleasures, and this appears to be the least burthensom, tho it have much trouble in it. Therefore is it very much commendable, O young Couple, though you have a pretty estate of your own, according as your Contract of Marriage testifies, and as we have also seen by the Wedding you kept, your apparel, and the other ap and dependances, that you begin to meditate how to make the best benefit of your stock; and so much the more, because your Predecessors got it with a slavish diligence, reaped it together with sobriety, kept it with care, and finally left it unto you for your great pleasure. It is then also not strange, if you, as true bred children, keep it carefully, and make the best profit of it; to the end, that your Successors, when time shall serve, may find that they have had frugall Parents; and so walk in your footsteps. Verily this is one of the necessariest meditations in the World. If we could but any waies make the dead sensible of it in their grave, undoubtedly the Reliques of your Parents would rejoice at so happy and carefull an intention of you their children.
And truly, what is there, among other cogitations, more pleasurable, then to begin with a handsom Shop-keeping? For this through the daily gain, yeelds every day new pleasures, and by consequence a merry life. 'Tis true, Merchandize bears a greater respect, and yeelds also sometimes great gains; but with these trouble somtimes, it is for the most part subject to great and weighty losses, which is the destruction of young people, and so intangles the merriest part of their lives, that fears and cares deprives them of their night rest. If the wind blow hard, they are presently in a fear that the Ships at sea laden with their Goods and Wares may be Shipwrack'd. If they will assure them, then the Assurer goes away with the profit: and they are also so greedy and cunning, that the least storm or bad tiding makes them very slow and circumspect; or if they be not so, it is to be feared, so there happen many losses, that then the Assurer himself might come to be lost.
But the handsom Shop-keeping is the surest and pleasurablest; for every moment you get new customers as well from abroad as at home, who buy continually with ready mony; or otherwise pay the old score, and trust the new. Yea all the news that goes about the City, is brought home and imparted to you. There's not a man dies, or woman brought to bed, but you have knowledge of it. Well then, what greater pleasure can there be then this?
Also, young Woman, you may, through love and care, herein be assistant to your husband oftentimes, which you cannot do in Merchandize, and so by degrees learn to understand the Shop, and converse neatly with the customers; whereby you can in his absence, also help the customers, and give them pleasing answers, insomuch that you oftentimes attain to as perfect a knowledge of the Trading, as your husband himself.
You are happy, yea ten times over happy, O housewively young Woman in this choice, and that not only for your husband, but principally for your self. For if that mischance might happen to you, that death should bereave you of your husband, you find your self oftentimes setled in a way of Trading, which you can manage your self, and set forward with reputation. Nay though you might happen to have children, you have the opportunity your self to bring them up in the same way, and so get a due, faithfull and carefull assistance from them, which will not so well be done by Men and Maid-servants, and over whom there is seldom so much command, as over ones own children.
And if your husband continue in health, and find that Trading grows quick, he perceives that by the assistance of his wife, something else may be taken by the hand that is also profitable, and then he will alwaies exercise some sort of Merchandise that is secure and advantagious.
It is most certain, sweet Woman, you will be the more tied to your housekeeping, and cannot so often go to visit and take your pleasure with your Gossips as you formerly did, in Coaches or by Water; as if your husband had taken any sort of Merchandice in hand; because that a Woman who is married to a Shopkeeper, is as it were also wedded to the Counter, by reason you dare not trust your Shop to old, much less to new men or Maid-servants, because they do not perfectly understand the Trade, and thereby also find occasion to make one bed serve for both and junket together; which makes no small confusion in the family; but little regard must be taken about that, for the importantest must alwaies be taken care of.
And be assured, if the desire of gain, small Trading, and bad paiment, begin once to take possession of you, the thoughts of all the former pleasures will remove, and you will exchange them for those that are more noble and becoming, viz. in the well governing of your Men and Maid-servants in the Shop and House, and taking inspection that they be obedient unto you; the Family must be wel taken care of; going to Market with the Maid to buy that which is good, and let her dress it to your mind; and every Market day precisely, with the Maid neatly drest, and following you with a hand-basket, go to take a view of Newgate, Cheapside, and the Poultry Markets; and afterwards, when your got a little farther, then to have your Baby carried by you, neatly and finically drest up; and in hearing of it, whilest it is in the standing stool, calling in its own language so prettily Daddy and Mammy. O that is such an extraordinary pleasure, that where ever you go, what soever you delight in, all your delight is, to be at home again in your Shop, by your servants; and most especially (when you have it) to be by your Baby.
And if you do get a fit to be gadding abroad with some of your friends and neighbours (for one cannot alwaies be tied as if they were in Bridewell, nor the Bow ever stiff bent) why then you have Ascen-sion-day, which may as well be used for pleasure as devotion. And if that be too short, presently follows Whitsontide, then you may sing tantarroraara three daies together, and get your fill of it. So that you may find time enough to take your delight and pleasure, tho you be a little tied to a Shop.
This being then in such manner taken into a ripe deliberation by some of the nearest relations, it is concluded on to set up a handsom Shop, and to furnish it with al sorts of necessaries; and by that means make that you may alwaies say Yea and never No to the Customers.
O how glad the good Woman is, now she sees that her husband, who is otherwise somewhat stifnecked, lets himself be perswaded to this, by his friends! and how joyfull is the husband that his Wife, who at first seemed to be high-spirited, is now herewith so absolutely contented.
O happy Match, where the delight and pleasure of both parties, is bent upon one subject. How fast doth this writhe and twist the Bands of Wedlock and love together! Certainly to be of one mind, may very well be said to be happily married, and called a Heaven upon Earth.
Here they are cited to appear who display the married estate too monstrously, as if there were nothing but horrors and terrors to be found in it. Now they would see how that Love in her curious Crusible, melteth two hearts and ten sences together. To this all Chymists vail their Bonnets, though they brag of their making the hardest Minerals as soft as Milk and Butter. This Art surpasseth all others.
Yet here ought to be considered what sort of Trading shall be pitcht upon. The man hath good knowledge in Cloath, Silk stufs, French Manufactures and Galantries, &c. But the Woman thinks it would be much better, if they handled by the gross in Italian Confits, Candied and Musk sugar plums, Raisons of the Sun, Figs, Almonds, Pistaches, Bon Christian Pears, Granad-Apples, and dried fruits; together with Greek and Spanish Wines, delicate Sack, Muskadine, and Frontinyack Wine; which is a Negotiation, pleasing to the ey, delicious for the tast, and beloved by all the World. And by this she thinks she shall procure as many Customers as her husband, because she hath familiar acquaintance with severall brave Gentlewomen, that throw away much mony upon such commodities, and make many invitations, Treats and Feastings. And she her self could alwaies be presently ready, when she received an honourable visit.
O happy man, who hath gotten such an ingenious understanding wife! that takes care and considers with her self for the doing all fit and necessary things to the best advantage. And really she is not one jot out of the way, for this sort of Merchandize is both relishing and delightfull, and must be every foot bought again.
Now the time requires going to market to buy Fir, Oak, and Sackerdijne Wood, and to order that the Shop may be neatly built and set up. And you are happy, that Master Paywell, who is a very neat Joiner and Cabinet-Maker, is of your very good acquaintance, and so near by the hand: He knows how to fit and join the pannels most curiously together, and so inlaies, shaves, and polishes the fine wood, that you would swear it is all of one piece.
Well here again is another new pleasure and delight! If all things go thus forward, certainly the wedding-cloaths will in a short time be, at the least, a span too little. O how glad you'l be, when this trouble is but once over! and that the Shop is neatly built, painted, gilt, furnished, and finely put into a posture.
O how nobly it appears, and how delightfull and pleasing it will be when this new Negotiant sees his Shop full of Customers, and he at one Counter commending, praising and selling, and one servant bringing commodities to him, and another hath his hands full with measuring and weighing! And his beloved at another Counter finds imploiment enough with telling mony, weighing of gold, and discoursing with the Customers. Then it wil not seem strange unto you, how it came to pass that your Predecessors got such fine sums of mony together, and left them unto you to be merry with. Therefore you ought also, even as they did, to provide your selves with a curious and easie to be remembred Sign, because your Customers by mistake might not come to run into your Neighbors Shops.
I have not yet forgotten that your Grandfather, being a Wollen Draper, first hung out the Sign of the Sheep, and his name was James Thomson, but by reason of his great custom, they called him, by the nick name, of James in the Sheep; which remains still as a name to the generation. And in like manner your wives Grandfather, a well customed Shopkeeper in silk-stufs, whose name was William Jackson, hung out the sign of the Silkworm, but his son going to school with another boy whose name was also William Jackson, for the making a distinction between them, they gave him the name of William the Silkworm, which also remains as a name to the Family. This is not common only among the Londoners, but in other Cities and Country Towns, also among Coachmen, Wagoners, and others.
But come we wil take our leaves of these people, and turn again to our new married Couple, who can hardly rest quietly a nights, for the earnest desire they have to see all things accomplished, and their Trading going forward. And in time Tom Thumb got on his doublet, tho he was seven years pulling on the first sleeve. Yet before you come to this great pleasure, you'l meet with a troublesom obstruction in the way, which if you can but turn of bravely, it will be much the pleasanter.
For before the Shop is fully furnisht, you will see what there will be wanting to fill all the corners and places with commodities that must be sold by length of time, and to stand out the trust; and also with patience and meekness expect the coming of mony from slow and bad paymasters: therefore it begins to be time to speak of the promised Portion.
Uds bud, what a racket is here now! For the young mans father had made his full account that he should not already be dun'd for the promised Portion; not doubting but that the young womans lay all totally ready told of in bags; and thought to take it in the best sence, I will pay my son his interest yearly; and afterwards, in peaceable times, when there's little or no impositions, and that my Coffers are better furnisht, will then give him the principal.
And seriously the old man seems to deal herein very cordially, since other mens fathers do not do half so well, and only give this for an answer, With young men must be promised, and with daughters must be given. And others make their sons give them a bond, wherein he, as by example, acknowledgeth to be indebted to his father six hundred pound, whereupon the Father closes the match, and promiseth to give in marriage with his son six hundred pound: which at last comes to nothing at all, and only serves for a perfect cheat to deceive and hood-wink the eys of the pretended Gentlewoman and her Guardians.
It is no wonder where such Matches are made, if, when such things are discovered, there be a great deal of time spent, before they can come to the true pleasure.
But you, O new married man, who have a liberal father on your side, you can get provisionally your interest, and when times mend your principal. Perhaps it will not be half so well with your wives estate, for she it may be in her maiden estate, hath spent and run out more in gaudy apparel, to intice a Lover, then the interest of her estate could bear, insomuch that the principal is diminished, or the revenues thereof received and consumed long before they were due.
's Wounds in what a sweat and fear, with these sort of cogitations, is this approaching new Shop-keeper in! How earnestly he runs to her Guardians, to see if they will unriddle him this doubt that he is in. But to his good fortune, he finds it in a much better condition than he thought he should. For his dearest, hath spent much less in her apparelling and maintenance, then she could have done, so that there's not only mony in stock, but rents of her real estate that are yet to be paid unto her, though there was very much consumed for her Brides apparel and the other accoutrements. Well this is an extraordinary pleasure, and a great comfort for his panting heart. Uds life how many hundred kisses are now offered at the Altar of her sweet lips, that otherwise would not so much as have been thought upon. Therefore one may easily perceive that mony increaseth love very much; and that Lovers in these times are so bent upon mony, and so diligent in search of it, is no admiration; nay they scruple not to inquire of the Guardians, and up and down by unsworn Brokers, who negotiate with a very close intelligence in this sort of Flesh-Trade, and draw ten double salaries (and that ofttimes too from both sides) if they can but help anyone to a good bargain, and that he obtains access; and afterwards wheedle it about so, that it finally comes to be a match. But what sad issue generally such sort of Matches are attended with, is well known to the whole World.
You, O Lovers, who seek to be Livry men of the great Company, and aim to possess the pleasures of Marriage, have a care of the inchanting voices of these crafty Syrens, because they intend to batter you upon the Scylla and Charibdis where the Hellish Furies seem to keep their habitation. These are the only Occasioners of bad Matches, and such as raise a Scandal of that Estate, which at once affoards both Pleasure, Mirth and Joy.
But our new married Couple went clear another way to work, who now to their full contentment, act so many pretty Apish tricks, injoy such multiplicities of kindnesses, and toss each other such quantities of kisses, as if there were a whole Kingdom, or at the least a vast Estate to be gained thereby: So that they find, that in that estate, there are not only Ten, but a thousand Pleasures cemented together in it; whereof in the following shall be demonstrated in some part the imperfect gloss, but never the accomplished Portrait.
