Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-12-31
ENGAGEMENTS.
The Long nnd the short of Them.

4
Gail Hamilton Miss Abigail Dodge)
has this to say:
If we were writing a school compost
ton on engagements, we should say
| that there are many different kinds of
engagements. There is the engage
ment between two hostile armies, the
engagement between master and ap-
prentice, and the engagement to marry
between man and woman, which per-
haps partakes somewhat of the nature
of both the preceding forms of engage
ment. This latter, however, so lords it
over all others as to be ''the' engage
ment of the world-the one always
meant unless some other be specified.
If a man or woman is reported zen
gagged" it would be considered mere
jest or witticism if anything else than
marriage engagement were meant.
So much for our title.
There is an almost universal disap-
probation of long engagements, but
there seems to be no prejudice whatev-
er against engagements. In many
communities an engagement seems to
have as much moral force, IS much
binding power. as marriage. This is
surely wrong. There ought to be no
real marriage engagement except the
marriage VOW. Often, the time between
engagement and marriage is the only
time which the high contracting pow
ers have to form any real acquaintance
with each other. This is little enough;
but why should that little be deprived
OF its value by making the engagement
a contract which it is shameful to break,
and from which it is as humiliating to
retreat, as marriage itseh9 The young
man and the young womanare mutual
ly attracted, temporarily fascinated,
specifically engaged. Under the
glamour Of love the chances are very
much against their finding each other
out before it is too late. But why
make the engagement 50 iron-clad that
even if they do find each other out,
they cannot act on their knowledge
without mourning the disgrace and dis
honor that wait ON the broken word?
If they are really adapted to each other,
they need no outward bond to bind
them together. Inward attraction is
stronger than any, than all, outward
force. If they are not adapted to each
other, it is cruel to bring all the stress
and strain of custom AMI character to
keep them together when they have
once begun, never 50 slightly, to draw
apart.
This is a matter that belongs to par
ents rather than to children, to adult
rather than a1olescent society. Moth
ing can exceed the reprobation with
which we Americans behold the heart
less Continental parent selecting the
most eligible available match for his
daughter, without regard for her pref
erences, precisely as he would buy her
a house or a horse. Almost equally
responsible, l sometimes think, is the
laissez taire manner In which the Amer
lean father permits his inexperienced
young daughter to drift, to drop, to
rush into the arms of the man who
happens to be around at the time.
Never" said an energetic mother,
who had been discussing the mesdlIiance
of neighbours child-"never.." and |
she set her teeth and puckered her brow
into an expression that would have sent |
dismay to the breast of an ineligible |
young man-'never shall young man
come into my house that would not |
be willing my daughter should marry"
1t may not be possible, it may not be
necessary, it may not be effective, to |
carry matters withquite so high hand. !
1t may be that if every undesirable
young man Is unceremoniOusly brow /
beaten off the front door step, your
daughter viii meet him in the drawing
room next door, and fall ravenOusly in
love with him. 1t may be, too, that
You have unskilfully taken his measure,
and that the match viii be immediately
and pre-eminently happy, and present
ly brilliant; that the Objectionable
young man viii be the staff of your
old age, and that you viii tell thou
sand times over to his merry children
the tale of your aversion and his
repulsion. So the late Lord
Dexter sent out a car
go of warming-pans to the
West Indies, which warming-pans, be-
ing used by the natives to boil mo-
lasses, came to be in great demand and
made Lord Timothy's fortune. All the
same it remains that he was a silly
Lord, and that successful business is
not ordinarily conducted by carrying
Goals to Newcastle. IN love and in
traffic, in spite of a few occasional ex-
ceptions, effects may be approximately
calculated from causes. A girl, never
50 well trained and guided, may for
and fatuitously make a bad
match, and girl left to herself and the
mere chances of life may stumble into
a good match.
Yet, take society through, the girl is
most likely to marry suitably whose pa
rents are the, head of the family; who
command their society, and do not sim
ply and indiscriminately accept what
comes; who know the history, surround
ings and character of the young men
who. frequent their house, who cause
themselves to be consulted and deferred
to, and do not consider it the whole
duty of the affectionate Christian pa
rent to withdraw into the background
and let the young men and maidens
work out their own salvation and de-
structiOn. 1t is very much to the cred
it of Young America that it bears this
test SO well, but it would be very much
to its benefit if it were not put to 50
severe a test. But fathers and mothers
seem sometime to proceed on the as
that because they do not, and
are not in the slightest degree moved
to fall in love with a young man or
young woman. therefore their sons and
viii not. So they suffer- the
they even themselves invite
the presence of young people out of
kindness or Indifference, or indolent
or for their own convent
ence-young people whose careless oc-
sasional company is not disagreeable
to them, is Perhaps rather agreeable
than otherwise, but aclose alliance with
whom they would not for an instant
and some fine morning
theyawaken and fndin their dismay that
John and Jennie, that Sophie and Sam;
have contracted an irresistible affec-