BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE -- Charles Lamb

BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE

Charles Lamb

As a confirmed bachelor, Lamb has discovered a number of weaknesses in married people and has therefore found much consolation in his state of bachelor-hood. It is not the quarrels of husbands and wives that console him for having remained unmarried.  What offends him at the houses of married persons is that they are pretending as they are in love. He has found that a husband and a wife constantly try to produce the impression that they are very fond of each other.  This display of married happiness is an insult to a bachelor. If a man enjoys some monopoly, he should keep it as much out of sight as possible so that others may not question his right to the monopoly. But married people go out of their way to make bachelors conscious of the monopoly of marriage, which they enjoy. They air of complete satisfaction which a newly married couple wear on their faces is especially offensive to Lamb.

Married people often put on an expression of exaggerated self-importance. They regard bachelors a ignorant and incompetent persons. A young married lady once mocked at Lamb because he happened to offer an opinion about the most appropriate method of breeding oysters for the London market. She seemed to think that a bachelor could not be expected to have any knowledge of such matters.

Lamb does not understand why married people should be excessively proud of their children. After all, children are not a rarity. In fact, the poorest people have the largest number of children. Besides, children often go wrong and prove to be a cause of much disappointment to their parents. Married people's pride in their children is, therefore, hardly justified.  Married people are still less justified in expecting a bachelor to show a fond attention to their children. Why should a bachelor shower his affection on children? If a bachelor shows too much interest in children, their parents quickly send them out of the room. A bachelor therefore, finds himself on the horns of a dilemma in dealing with towards children. Should he or should he no, adopt a loving attitude towards children? If he should, what is to be the degree of the affection to all their eight, nine or ten children. There is certainly a proverb: "Love me, love my dog". But while it is possible to love a friend's dog or any other article that reminds a man of his friend, it may not be possible always to love a friend's children because children have a separate existence of their individual natures and temperaments. Lamb says that it has never been possible for him to feel affection for women and children indiscriminately.

Very soon after getting married, a man tends to become in different to a bachelor-friend no matter how long was the duration of friendship before the marriage. No wife can tolerate her husband's bachelor-friend if the friendship dates back to her pre-marriage days. No matter how long a man had been friendly with her husband before her marriage, she will so manage that her husband will before long become cool and distant towards him.

Women adopt different ways to bring to an end the friendship between their husbands and the bachelors with whom they may have had intimate relations before marriage.  A wife may laugh with a kind of wonder at everything that her husband's bachelor-friend may say. By her laughter she may produce the impression that her husband's friend is an oddity or a humorist, not fit to be introduced to ladies. Or, a wife may keep exaggerating the particular qualities of her husband's fiend in such a way that the husband's enthusiasm for his friend cools down. There is irony in this kind of exaggeration on the part of a wife. Another technique employed by a wife is to ask with a kind of innocent towards him. And became the basis of the friendship. By this method a wife tries to make her husband feel that he was mistaken in his assessment of his friend's qualities.

Bachelors invariably receive degrading treatment from married ladies. There was the case of a wife who kept Lamb, though he was invited as a guest, waiting several hours for dinner because her husband had been detained somewhere. This lady should have been considerate enough to serve dinner to Lamb if the husband had been detained for two or three hours beyond the usual hour of dinner. Then there was the case of a lady who passed on an excellent dish of morellos to her husband and recommended a less savoury dish of gooseberries to Lamb who was guest at the house. Lamb protests against such discourteous treatment from wives and threatens to disclose their names if they do not amend and improve their manners in future.  A wife ought to be informal with her husband, but she ought to show formal politeness to her husband's bachelor-friend.

Morellos: a type of dark cherry

Savoury: having a taste that is salty not sweet.

****