The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-01-27
zzsasscsnary Marriages..

Talk offoolish fnncies as YOU like
ridicnle romance, sneer at-z"iov
gmatches,s you can never bring thes
fttngs to the level of mercenary mn
riages- Love is neither bread no
honey perhapa; but neither ar
bread and honey love. Now I hav
something to say that makes N,
heart ache, because 1 am a woman
Il 10 woman who marries oftenest TO
other things than love. Woman VIII
goes into the market, adorned IN al
her beauty, saying to those who reaC
her smiles Alright !: "HereI am 70 b
married /; somebody oHer.pr Woman
whose love should be her life.
1t is true that a woman may moi
choose, bat must be chosen but car
i-ibe that q girl can c6olly think Of
marriage in the abstract, forgetting
all individual preference.
never knew a youth who did not
say at least, ",siy wife must be 9
blonde or a brunette; she must be
tailor short, gay or quiet" who had
not some ideal. eng .
But Lhave known girls innumera
bic, who have only said: 81 will
marry" with no more thought of love
or admiration of respect or tender
ness, before marriage could be than
though such feeling were not. To
marry-to- have a marble fronted
house, q carriage, diamonds; TO marry
Cfor ambition has its grades)-to have
q kitchen and make pies in 4; to mar
y-to escape work; to marry-so
that no one may utter the epithet,
cold maid"-when there is such a
thing as love in the world, one who
knows it would rather die.
Once there was a girl who loved
her fathers coachman married him.
People were Mortified /; but, if she
loYed the man. Why the union was a
holier one than that of Miss Belle,
-, with old fGuineabag's son,
who was to her just SO much bank
stock.
Do they hope for happiness. these
women? Do they dream that tncy
can play a part through life, and
and feiga( love amidst all the daily
scenes that bring truth to the surface?
Il is shocking, a terrible thing to talk
Of when a man marries an heiress for
her goldi but every day women do
the same thing, and are applauded as
having tsmade good matches"
Oh, the cold, cherries fresides!
the couples who care not if e roll
between theml the men to whom
home offers no attaction! Amidst
all voman,s wrongs men have theirs,
and this is one-that some men must
have a horrible consciousness that, at
the altar, their wife's one thought
must have been that she had secured
some one to pay her bills for her.
And woman's want of independence
has done this. The shame it is to her
is to labor for her own support the
half-pay vouchsafed to her, In many |
cases, when she does toll /; far be it
from me to deprive the clinging re-
lance upon her husband, which makes
woman's love so beautiful, when she
is true woman. Bnt when daught-
ers are .aught to fill their places in
the world as men are; when women
are all able to win for themselves
home and raiment, the time will come
when the female fortune-hunter will
be as rare as the male. and when the
preference of an earnest, honest heart
will be given where the hand is
at least, only mean and wicked
women will offer themselves to the
highest bidder, and not, rs often hap
pens to-day, girls meant by heaven to
be pure, and good, and noble, to love
and to be loved truly.