Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1878-09-26
Mgiseellaneons &eadina
MARRIED DAUGHTERS.

if they could be truly described, interest Eu.
ropean people more than the rude and bois-
ferrous life described by Bret. Harte. 1t would
astonish Frenchman for example, to know
that American fathers rear their daughters in
luxury, smile on their marriages with penni-
less clerks, and make absolutely no provision
of steadfast kind for the future Of these
daughters. The Frenchman might ask in
amazement, not 'whya poor husband is &C.
cepted, but how the daughter of luxury is to
be provided for, and on what resources her
children are to lean? He would probably be
told that the fathers mission ended with the
daughters marriage ;he would see compla.
cent smile on the fathers face as his friends
congratulated him, and would slowly gather
in that this complacency had two factors /:
Il have done nay duty by her, and it is over
at last"
For our part, We have ceased to p'tr poor
girls growing up in scanty homes, and marry
ing penniless young men. These girls are
trained for the life that awaits them. They
must be content with little all their lives /; but
all their youth has been a preparation for
such content. But daughter bred in lux
urious idleness, taught none of the economies
that belong to humble life, aud then married
without dover, deserves more pity than men
usually bestow upon her. And her husband,
full OF enterprise and capacity, takes up a
burden whose weight love may tighten but
cannot carry. Business failures, broken homes,
miseries, and crimes, lie behind this curtain.
Common sense is our boasted American vir.
tue; but there is one subject to which we
rarely apply it. If we did, we should see in
strong light this simple law of duty: it is
fathers solemn duty to secure to bis daughter,
as far as lies in his power that state in life to
which he has bred her. If he is poor, he has
no right to give her the luxuries of wealth
no right as between her and him. If he is
rich, his wealth ought to be taxed, and his fore
thought more seriously taxed, to provide for
her a permanent income, which will procure
for her that degree of luxury to which she
has been accustomed.
The doctrine, that the fathers duty ends
when the husbands begins, is fearful delu-
sion, full of the miseries which sometimes re-
veal themselves in divorce courts. This hus-
band may be more than father in watchful
solicitude but experience warns us from ev'
every page of life, that he may utterly fail in
bis duty. Nature gave the daughter faith
er, and has appointed no hour when his du-
ties cease. 1t is fearful misreading of Scrip.
ture which finds such limit in Gods word.
There is no satire so keen. if we had eyes
to see and ears to hear, as that which is en-.
acted when fond father gives the penniless
youth, to whom he also gives his daughter, a
sum of money to be invested in business. As
though any of US could overlook for moment
the perils of business-the fact that, judged
by experience, failure is the rule and success
the exception. In few years the business will
break down, and the young wife, with chill
dren at her knees, will realize a little what
it is to be poor; and the husband, whose bu-
siness has broken under the strain of living
expenses, will realize little what it is to mar
ry portioness child of luxury. For she
was really portioness. The European system
of dover would have invested her fortune in
the most secure way, would have kept it re-
ligiously secured to her and her children, 80
that whatever vicissitudes attend the business
of her husband, her living would have been
secure. A better and kinder way than the
usual one would be to rear these girls in kitch.
Gil anu SuOp W keep llotn thoin tho oi6ho Va
fine clothes and costly dinners-to train them
for the hard work of life. We have recently
looked in upon one of these tragedies of our
American life-the waste of wife's fortune
by her husband. We saw no shame in the
mans face. "Her father trusted me with it, -
he said when questioned; but there was ab-
solutey no sign that he felt one twinge of dis
honor and yet he had done the one meanest
thing man can do. There is no excuse for
those who devour widows houses, unless it be
that the men unblushingly commit the great
er crime of putting the fortunes of their wives
in peril.
Women have many just causes of complaint; !;
but the cries some of them utter do not touch
their proper woes. If those of them who know
the real evil should speak, they would say :
"Our fathers rear us tenderly but they mar
ry us without giving us practical advice, or
means of independence, or security for the
manner of life into which we were born. Our
husbands take our portion Of goods, and treat