Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener.
* * *
The mild little husband was appealing to the court for protection from the large, bony belligerent and baleful female who was his wife.
"Let us begin at the beginning," said the judge. "Where did you first meet this woman who has thus abused you?"
The little man shuddered, and looked everywhere except at his wife as he replied:
"I never did, so to say, meet up with her. She jest naturally overtook me."
* * *
An African newspaper recently carried the following advertisement:
Wanted Small nicely furnished house, nice locality, from August 1st, for nearly married couple.
* * *
The solemn ceremony of marriage was being performed for the blushing young bride and the elderly gentleman who had been thrice widowed. There was a sound of loud sobs from the next room. The guests were startled, but a member of the bridegroom's family explained:
"That's only our Jane. She always cries when Pa is gettin' married."
* * *
The mistress was annoyed by the repeated calls of a certain negro on her colored cook.
"You told me," she protested to the cook, "that you had no man friends. But this fellow is in the kitchen all the time."
"Dat nigger, he hain't no friend o' mine," the cook declared scornfully. "Him, he's jes' my 'usban'."
* * *
Deacon Gibbs explained why he had at last decided to move into town in spite of the fact that he had always declared himself a lover of life in the country. But his explanation was clear and conclusive.
"My third wife, Mirandy, she don't like the country, an' what Mirandy she don't like, I jist nacherly hev to hate."
* * *
The wife suggested to her husband that he should pay back to her the dollar he had borrowed the week before.
"But," the husband protested indignantly, "I've already paid that dollar back to you twice! You can't expect me to pay it again!"
"Oh, very well," the wife retorted with a contemptuous sniff, "never mind, since you are as mean as that."
* * *
The very youthful son of a henpecked father was in a gloomy mood, rebellious against the conditions of his life. He announced a desperate purpose:
"I'm going to get married. I'm bossed by pa an ma, an' teacher, an' I ain't going to stan' for it. I'm going to get married right smack off. A married man ain't bossed by nobody 'cept his wife."
* * *
The woman was six feet tall and broad and brawny in proportion. The man was a short five feet, anemic and wobegone. The woman haled him before the justice of the peace with a demand that he marry her or go to jail.
"Did you promise to marry this lady?" the justice asked.
"Guilty, your honor," was the answer.
The justice turned to the woman: "Are you determined to marry this man?"
"I am!" she snapped.
"Join hands," the justice commended. When they had done so he raised his own right hand impressively and spoke solemnly:
"I pronounce you twain woman and husband."
* * *
A lady received a visit from a former maid three months after the girl had left to be married.
"And how do you like being married?" the lady inquired.
The bride replied with happy enthusiasm:
"Oh, it's fine, ma'am—getting married is! Yes'm, it's fine! but, land's sake, ma'am," she added suddenly, "ain't it tedious!"
* * *
The negro, after obtaining a marriage license, returned a week later to the bureau, and asked to have another name substituted for that of the lady.
"I done changed mah mind," he announced. The clerk remarked that the change would cost him another dollar and a half for a new license.
"Is that the law?" the colored man demanded in distress. The clerk nodded, and the applicant thought hard for a full minute:
"Gee!" he said at last. "Never mind, boss, this ole one will do. There ain't a dollar and a half difference in them niggers no how."
* * *
The New England widower was speaking to a friend confidentially a week after the burial of his deceased helpmate.
"I'm feelin' right pert," he admitted; "pearter'n I've felt afore in years. You see, she was a good wife.
She was a good-lookin' woman, an' smart as they make 'em, an' a fine housekeeper, an' she always done her duty by me an' the children, an' she warn't sickly, an' I never hearn a cross word out o' her in all the thutty year we lived together. But dang it all! Somehow, I never did like Maria.... Yes, I'm feelin' pretty peart."
* * *
There were elaborate preparations in colored society for a certain wedding. The prospective bride had been maid to a lady who met the girl on the street a week after the time set for the ceremony and inquired concerning it:
"Did you have a big wedding, Martha?"
"'Deed ah did, missus, 'deed ah did, de most splendiferous occasion ob de season."
"Did you receive handsome presents?"
"Yes'm, yes'm, de hull house was jes' crowded wiv de gifts."
"And was your house nicely decorated?"
"Yes'm, yes'm. An' everybody done wear der very best, look jes' lak a white-folks' weddin', yes'm."
"And yourself, Martha, how did you look?"
"Ah was sutinly some scrumptious, yes'm. Ah done wore mah white bridal dress an' orange blossoms, yes'm. Ah was some kid."
"And the bridegroom, how did he appear?"
"De bridegroom? Aw, dat triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, jes' de same!"
