The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1854-03-03
Premature .Latrimony.

Marriage is divine and beautiful arrange
ment. 1t was designed by Providence not
solely as the means ofkeeping up population,
or mere social and economical convent
ence, but as the blending of the spirits into
one-ihe masculine representing icisd0m,
and the femenine, affection. When there il
true spiritual aiiinity between e two, then
the design is accomplished. Such an affinity,
we believe, may couiaue in the other life
equally in this.
Premature marriages are among the great
est evils of the times; and il would not be a
bad idea, in these days of reforms, if an anti
neutrality-suspicious. society were instituted.
Now days people leap Into the magic lite
circle, with no more consideration than they
would partake of dinner-little thinking
that when once in, they are there until their
end comes. There is but little, sometimes
no mutual analysis of disposition, and COM
parlson of tastes and affections. They seem
to fancy that, if there are any discrepancies,
the fatal GOrdian knot, which can be seldom
cut, and never united, will harmonic al.
The number who have felt this truth-the
numbers still feeling it TO their hearts core
are incalculable. They recognise it as the
great mistake of their lives. The chain is
not TO them silken one, but a cable of iron,
that tiohtens around them more and more
crushing out all hope and energy, substitute
ing hate for love, and eating out with its rust
the very inner lie of the soul.
Boys and girls now marry TO a greater eX-
tent than ever before, instead of waiting till
they become full-grown and matured men
and women. The young dandy, as soon as
ne gets out Of short jackets, and finds a little
tUr- gathered OH his upper lip-and the |
young Miss, as soon as she emerges from the
nursery and abbreviated lrocks-lhinl they |
are well qualified to assume the most solemn
responsibilities of life. Aud so if"P a" aud
"Ma" won't consent, they pest off to some |
Gretna Green, aud there take obligations !
that, in nnety-nine cases out of a hundred,
they will never cease bitterly to repent.
Marriage should never be the result of fan
cy. The ballroom and the evening party
rarely develop real character. Under the
exhilerating influence o. the dance, the glare
OF lights and the merry quip and joke, the dis
soute young man may appear amiable and
the slatterny scold loveable. Matches made
at each places, or under similar circumstan-
ces, are not of The class that originates i'm
Heaven. They more generally are conceiv-
ed in the opposite place, aud bring forth on
ly lnlquity. The true way to learn each
other is 10 do it at home, in the parlor, in the
Kitchen, and on occasions that test the tenn
per: Wesec the result of ihese unions in
the almost daily divorces that take place-in
The running away of husbands, leaving their
wives and children to starve-and in the
elopoment of wives. Not only this but we wit
ness IN the broken-spirited men, made old in
the prime OF life, struggling on for mere food
and clothing and shelter, and in women, cross
dirty, sluggish and wrinke led
IL would be quite impossible for us to de-
pct faithfully the multitude of physical and
moral evils that result from these sinful al
liances-for sinful they are. They ruin the
body, corrupt the morals, aud stultify the
mind. And the result does not stop With
husband and wife. There are the children.
They partake OF the feebleness and vices of
the parents, both physical and moral, and
go out into the busy world s,unted and
gnarled. God pity them!
We would not be understood as speaking :
against the institution OF marriage. 1t is no.
ly, beautiful and beneficient. But let every
one take his mate, or none. Let not the
brave eagle pair with the stupid owl, nor the
gentle dove with the carrion crow. Like
should have like. 1t as glorious sight to
see two old people, who have weathered the
storms, and baskcd in the sunshines of life :