The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1877-08-25
PET1ICOAT PENSIONERS.


riage is largely matter of business, being
entered into often from practical and selfish
considerations. A certain amount of in
come is considered indispensable to the
state, which is held to be Incompatible with
poverty. Money on one side is not ac-
counted sufficient. A rich man is no more
willing, as rule, to propose to poor girl
than a rich girl is to accept a poor man.
Wealth must mate with wealth, so that
matrimony, which might be written matter
Of money! becames little better than com.
mercial transaction, the partners to which
overlook want of spiritual adaptation in
court to an heiress, hoping to win her be-
cause she is an heress, is regarded over
there as rather creditable than otherwise,
and success in such enterprise is reckoned
fortune hunting is legitimate, and meets
the approval of society.
In the United States the case is quite
different. While there are fortune hunters
known to be such their chances of victory
in connubial campaigns are very slight.
The national notions on the subject of mar
riage are exceedingly romantic, while they
are more delicate and chivalrous, in the
main, than they are in the Old World. We
look at marriage from the sentimental side;
we make passion a valid excuse for its COM
mission, dscarding weightier and more
rational considerations. Ifeither party have
money, we'll and good if neither party have
it, well and good also. The pecuniary aspect
of the question seldom enters into it.. But
when it does, we have a feeling that prop
erty, as well as the capacity of earning,
should lie with the man. Work of some
kind is deemed duty here; the idea of
work may be said to be at the base of the
Republic, and men who have no regular
occupation are subject to certain discs.
TEEN. Women are not expected to have
any employment that brings in money
they often do have such employment though,
and are respected therefor,-the general
opinion being that they should be finan-
cially dependent on their fathers or hus-
bands. But when their fathers or hus-
bands, unless by reason of age or i'll health,
are dependent on them, the natural order
is reversed, and discredit attaches to the
men, who, under ordinary circumstances,
are justly supposed to be able to take care
of themselves, and also of those naturally
belonging to them.
1t is this belief and the feeling that springs
from it which, in this country, make the
position of the husband of rich woman
very awkward and liable to suspicion He
may have force of character, fine sensibil-
ity, high sense of honor; but it can always
be charged that he has been influenced by
mercenary motives; that he has bartered
his individuality for mess of monetary
pottage. And the charge is certain to be
made, and, unhappily, is pretty apt to be
believed, at least in some quarters. 1t
seems hard that man, when he really
loves woman and is loved in return
should be prevented from marrying her for
the reason that she is wealthy and he is not
If he is 50 prevented, the cause is ungen-
erous, for it places her property above her
self, which is the precise thing he is anx-
ious to avoid the appearance of doing. If
a woman be willing to bestow herself on a
man, to trust him with her happiness, to
make him the arbiter of her destiny, it
would seem inexplicable to her that she
should be declined in consequence of her
portion. To urge her possessions as a him
drance to her possession would be very
likely to strike her as shallow subterfuge.
He cares nothing for me, she would say;
he tries to hide his want of affection by a
pretense of chivalry.
But man of delcacy and pride-it might
be morbid delicacy and false pride
would hold different view He would
look at the matter through others eyes;
he would have dread of being misunder-
stood; he would see the inconvenience,
impediments humilations that would fol-
low such a marriage. He would feel that
the material things-and they are many
and most mportant-which enter into we'd
loCh ououlu COulC lIOlu Gue man, not the
woman; and that coming from the woman,
they infringe his dignity and lower his
self-esteem. His associates might laugh at
the notion that pretty and charming girl
should be relinquished because she had the
misfortune to own an income; and he might
detect spice of the ridiculous in the pre-
sentiment; but he would be inclined to cleavc
to his opinion Notwithstanding. He would
remember an ugly word applied to the hus-
band of rich woman, and the mere thought
of being called petticoat pensioner would
redden his cheek with shame. He would
run over in his mind the men of his ac-
quaintance who had welded wealth, and
rejecting on their character or the want of
it, and the ultimate effect Of such weddings
upon them, he would hardly be encouraged
to follow their example.
Some one might say to him that the fact