Washington [70]
Whatever the periodic tensions caused by Jacky’s lax behavior, the marriage of George and Martha Washington proceeded happily, and they seemed united by strong desire and mutual need. Almost all observers found them exceedingly well matched. In later years the British ambassador’s wife found something closer to friendship than romance between them—“Washington was a more respectful than a tender husband certainly”—but even she could identify no quarrels.19 Something about this deep domesticity and respectability pleased Washington, who was never cut out for a gallivanting, footloose life. Martha gave him a secure, happy base for the myriad activities of a busy career. She was his dear companion, trusted adviser, and confidante long after lust faded, and they delighted in each other’s company. When Washington was appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army, he wrote to Martha that “I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be seven times seven years.”20 Neither George nor Martha was tormented by a romantic striving after an impossible perfection, and both understood the compromises that accompanied a successful marriage.
While Washington left no direct comments about his marriage, he discussed marriage in general terms so often—he grew into something of a cracker-barrel philosopher on the subject—that we can readily infer his views about his own. He was an unabashed enthusiast for the institution and issued so many paeans to domestic felicity as to leave no doubt of his contentment with Martha. His advice to young relatives revealed that he had known the storms of passion as a young man but understood that they were fleeting and couldn’t form the foundation of a lasting relationship; one had to enter into a match based upon practical factors, such as personality, character, temperament, and money. This seems to reflect accurately the progression of Washington’s own feelings as he and Martha went from early love (albeit laced with realism about money) to the ripening friendship of later decades.
Many years later, writing to one of Martha’s granddaughters upon her engagement, Washington warned that romantic love cooled in time. This letter may explain Washington’s final preference for Martha Custis over Sally Fairfax.
Do not then, in your contemplation of the marriage state, look for perfect felicity before you consent to wed. Nor conceive, from the fine tales the poets and lovers of old have told us of the transports of mutual love, that heaven has taken its abode on earth. Nor do not deceive yourself in supposing that the only mean[s] by which these are to be obtained is to drink deep of the cup and revel in an ocean of love. Love is a mighty pretty thing, but, like all other delicious things, it is cloying. And when the first transports of the passion begin to subside, which it assuredly will do and yield, oftentimes too late, to more sober reflections, it serves to evince that love is too dainty a food to live upon alone and ought not to be considered farther than as a necessary ingredient for that matrimonial happiness which results from a combination of causes; none of which are of greater importance than that the object on whom it is placed should possess good sense, good dispositions, and the means