Last updated 19:51, Thursday, 18 September 2008

I RESOLVE to be very frugal and never to put my husband to any needless expense! And I likewise resolve to lay aside all fondness for dress, but to be always exactly neat and clean!

Needless to say, being a man, I’m not talking about myself. I’m quoting from a rather splendid and ornately illustrated slim volume, 24x18cm, entitled: “The Resolutions of Mary Christian upon the Day of her Marriage.” It was published in London sometime in the 1860s by the firm of Thomas Harrild – Chromo Lithographer, who operated, quite appropriately, from Fleet Street.

So when did Mary Christian get married? And who was she anyway? The second page of this seven page volume explains it all. She was the daughter of John Christian, of Unerigg, or Ewanrigg, Hall and his wife Bridget, who was the daughter of Humphrey Senhouse – of Nether Hall. That explains the local connection.

Mary was born in 1722. In April 1740 she married 37-year-old Edmund Law, then Rector of Greystoke. She was 18 years of age.

She married well, but then she came from one of the more socially prominent local families. As did her husband. He didn’t stay at Greystoke for long, eventually ending up as Bishop of Carlisle. It is enough here to say that he acquired an international reputation for his religious writings. No room here for more detail.

Back to her resolutions. I don’t know if making such resolutions was usual at that, or any other, time. Or was it the individual caprice of a young girl about to “set sail on the stormy seas of life in the frail barque of matrimony.” I’ve lifted this last line from an overlong toast given at a friend’s wedding reception by an elderly clergyman. As I remember, the whole point of his ramblings was to point out that without the guidance of the good book one might veer off course and mistakenly end up in Valparaiso instead of New York.

Mary Christian was most certainly not going to veer off course. She stated her intentions clearly in her resolutions.

She made eight in all. She wrote: Some rules I resolve to observe through the assistance of the Almighty when I am a wife.

I: I resolve never to contradict my dear husband without it be quite necessary and then with the greatest good nature I am Mistress of.

II: To serve God more sincerely than I have done in the state I am now about to leave and to lead a Life suitable to the Blessed calling of my husband.

III: Never to fret or fall into a passion about small matters but to have always a cheerful heart, knowing my blessings much exceed any troubles that can possibly befall me, and in all dangers to commit myself and family to an All-wise Providence, and then to be easy about the event.

Numbers four and six, dress and frugality, I’ve already mentioned

V: I resolve to be very active and never for the sake of saving myself a walk, to neglect anything, though it be never so great a trifle.

VII: I resolve to be very kind to my servants, as well to their souls as their bodies, and always to give exact orders and never to be in a passion if they be not executed.

Finally, VIII: I resolve to treat my friends kindly, but never extravagantly, and to be as full as glad to see his relations as my own.

These resolutions never saw light of day in her lifetime, being subsequently discovered by members of her family when they went through her papers. They were printed by permission of members of the family. Perhaps, being ornately printed and well bound, the book was aimed at the lucrative Victorian wedding present market.

Her resolutions end with what was probably a standard verse.

“Thus would I live

Thus would I die

And when this world I leave

To Heaven I’d fly.”

Alas, Mary was to leave this world at much too early an age. She died, aged only 39, on March 1st 1762. She was, according to one historian, “a Lady, whose character was remembered with tenderness and esteem by all who knew her.”

Perhaps there’s something to be said for marriage resolutions after all.