Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1867-10-12
I Unequal Marriages.
lTFrom the Saturday Reyiew.l

name to make. or both, looks for a
wife, he certainly does not desire per
son Who shall be troublesome and an
impairment to him. He wants a cheer
full, sspsible and decently thrifty per-
son. He probably has no inclination
for ablue-stocking, nor for lady with
aggressive views on points of theology,
nor or one who can beat him in politi-
cal discussion. Strong intellectual
power he can most heartily dispense
with. But then. on the other hand,
he has no fancy fo= sitting day after
day at table with a vapid, flippant,
frivolous, empty sonl, who eau neither
talk nor listen, who takes no interest in
things herself aud cannot under
staad why other people should
tale interest in them, who is penetra
ted with feeble little ogotisms.--
An aggressive woman with opinions
sbont prevenient grace. or the advan-
hges of female emigration, or the func-
ions of the deaconess, would be far
preferable to this. She would irritate,
out she wonld not fill the soul with
everlasting despair, as the pretty vapid
creature does. To discuss predesbiDa-
ion aud election over dinner is not
lice, but still less is it nice to have to
make talk with fool, and to be obliged
% answer her according to her folly.
As the education of modern girls of
ashton chiefly aims at making them
gery fast or very slow, it is not to be
wondered at that men find 1t hard to
,ealize their ideals among their equals
n position. 1t is not merely that SO
many manageable young ladies are
.gnorant. They are this. but they are
more. They are exacting and preten-
ions, and unedueated In the worst sense,
Tor they are ignorant how ignorant
tbey are, or even that they are ignor-
snt at all. Then there is a still more
obvious, palpable and impressive cir
mmstance. A man with ordinary
means looks with alarm on the too-vis-
i)le and too-unbounded extravaganza
Of the ladies from among whom be is
expected to take a partner. The
thought of the apparel. of the luxu-
RES, of the attendants, of the restless
moving about, TO which they have been
accustomed, fills him with deep conster-
nation. He might, perhaps, deceive
himself into thinking that he could get
on very we'll with an empty minded
woman, but he cannot forget the stern
facts of Arithmetic, nor hoodwink him.
self as to what would be left out of his
income after he had paid for dresses,
household charges, carriages,
parties, opera boxes, travelling and all
the rest.
Besides the fippancy of so many wo-
men, and the extravaganza of most
women, arising from their inexperience
of the trouble with which money is
made aud of the importance of keep.
ing it after it has been made, there is
in the characteristics. of
modern social intercourse which makes
men of a certain temper intensely anx-
ious to avoid a sort of marriage which
would, among other things, have the
effect of committing them more deeply
TO this kind of intercourse. Such men
shrink with alright from giving hos
tages to society for more faith.
full compliance with its most dis
NAL exactions. To them there
is nothing more uncomfortable
than the mOnotonous round of general
and .ceremonials, ludic-
rously misnamed pleasure. A detesta-
ton of wearisome formalities does not
imply any clownish or misanthropic
reluctance to remember that those who
EEL it live in a world with other peo-
ole, and that a thoroughly social life is
he only lust and full life. But there
8 all the difference between a really So
,ial life and hollow fantastic imitation
if it. A person may have the pleas
attest possible circle of friends, and
nav like their society above all things.
This is one thing. But to have to mix
much with numbers of thoroughly in
lifferent people, and in superficial
follow way. is very different thing.
The faults of the women of bis own
position, however, are very poor reas.
IN why he should marry woman be-
leath his own position, A man must
De very weak to believe that, because
iue ladies are often inane and extrava-
,ant, therefore women who are not fine
aides must be wise, clever, prudent,
nd everything else that belongs to the
ype o. companionable womanhood,
rae fact of the mistress being blank,
loes not prove that the maid would be
prize. It may be wise to avoid the
me, but it is certain folly to seek the
,ther. Granting that the housemaid
IT the cook, or the daughter of the
,oachman is virtuous,s high minded, re-
ined, thoughtful, thrifty and every
hing else that is desirable under the
,un, all will fail to counter-balance the
drawbacks that flow from the first in
equality of position,
The misguided husband believes that
he is going to 1--we plain, unsophisti-
lated life, according to nature and
common sense, in company with one
whom the hollowness and thickness OF
society has never infected. He is not
ong In finding ont his irreparable
The lady is not received,
People do not visit her, and although
me of his motives in choosing a sort OF
wife whom people do not visit, was the
express desire of avoiding visits, yet he
10 sooner gets what he wished than his
Iuccess makes him miserable. the
oolish man who has married away
rom his class trusts that somehow or
,ther nature will repair this. He as
umes, in a real paroxyism of folly, that
,bscurity is the fostering condition of
richness of character which could not
oe got by culture. He pays the price
# his blindness.
Last Wednesday afternoon, the
asst one of the one hundred columns
the portico of the capitol
t Washington, ID. c., was set in its
lace. The first column on the OK