Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, February, 1862.

How to he Happy though Married, was the rather significant title of a quaint little treatise of the seventeenth century, still to be perused in old libraries. “ Le mariage,” says Fénelon, “est un état de tribulation très pénible auquel il faut se préparer en esprit de pénitence quand ons'y croit appelé.” Between these views of holy matrimony and those popularly attributed to Belgravian mothers, there exists so vast a difference that we cannot but suggest (considering the importance of the subject), that the Social Science Association should appoint a special department to examine the matter. Male and female reformers would find topics for many interesting papers in debating the relative benefits to society of “selfish domestic felicity,” and sublimely “disinterested celibacy,” as now inculcated from many quarters. An, able article has lately appeared in a contemporary periodical, entitled “Keeping up Appearances.” It propounds, in brief, the following doctrine:— “That it is not a question of appearances, but of very substantial realities, whether a family in the rank of gentlefolk have to live on three or four hundred a year in England; that where this is the case it is impossible but that Paterfamilias, be he lawyer, doctor, divine, or man of letters, must needs, in all his ways and works, regard, not the pure aim of his profession, but the pecuniary interests involved therein.