Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1879-04-03

compute the value Of fractions, SEQ that
you employ your capital property. There
must be 90 more flirting, no more nonsense,
under penalty Of perpetual spinsterhood.
Or, do you confess to twenty eight or
thirty Thon there arc ony fifteen chances
rcmoiong, and tho case il growing desper-
ato. How kiud is it not, Young LADY, of
our Eng h friend to make The social
problem 80 simple aud to give to each maid.
en- the power of foreoassing her own fortune.
Suppose that the years pass away, that
tho chances diminish, that tho woman does
not iud mate and journeys on through
life in "maideu meditation fancy Free"
what then3 Why then, say nino readers
out OF ten, Kato becomes an old maid; and
the sentence is pronounced in the tone of
deep commiseration which indicates the
fearful nature of the doom. But the tenth
and the wiscst reader wonders whether or
not poor Kato has need for SO much of pity
and compassion; whether tho chief end and
aim Of woman be matrimony, and whether
oontentcd maidenhood is not preferable to
unhappy wedlock. Tho world has boon
taught for 80 long time to contemn cell
baoy in women that We do not pause to
consider whether or not marriage is as desi
rablo as we would have it appear. Wo do
not consider the many annoyances which
matrimony brings to women-its cares, its
troubles, temptations and privations, its
suffering and despair. We fail to estimate
Alright its dangers. We do not think of
the gentle and delicate woman tied to the
drunkard, tho gambler, tho debauohoe, or
to some coarse and brutal mato, with whose
nature it is impossible for her to have any
thing in common, and, bound to whom by
chains which cannot be burst assunder, she
loads horrible death in life. We forget
the cares of maternity, tho ingratitudo of
children and the bitter pangs which their
misconduct occasions Seriously, do we
not attach too much Importance to matrimo.
ny, and are old maids deserving the sympa.
thy which they so ibcrally receiver It is
all we'll enough to say that marriage is q
necessity, and that without tho institution
VIC would soon experience either chaos or
annihilation. Such declarations arc truo
enough. There is no denying the correct
ness and soundness of the general rule.
But do we not waste good deal of COM
passion upon tho exceptions to its opera
tlonsl When woman does not marry,
from choice of course, for VIC shall not be
so ungallant as to intimate that single lifo
is ever the result of necessity, it by no
means follows that she has missed any
great degree of happiness, or is doomed to
any great measure Of misery. There is
no reason why spiustcrhood should not be
happy as we'll as honorable, and wo protest
that history and individual experience
shows that some of the best, the brightest,
tho happiest women in tho world are those
whom wo snecringly if not scornfully term
sold maids.' Their lives are made up of
good deeds and sacrifices of self, which
bless those who receive and cnnoblc those
who give. If they havo no families of
their own, their hearts, unrestraincd by the
selfihncss which springs up in the home
circle, expand until they take in the whole
human race and overflow with love and
tenderness. What homo is there which
has within its circle maiden sister or aunt
that has not felt tho blessing of her pres
SaapfS o tasy hsjr &assRBnqS9tmSst S9
and, despite tho malice aud slander OF
railers at and contcmnors Of spinstcrhood,
they are usually the most amiable and Iowa
Die of their sex. With the vanity peculiar
to his kind, man has complacoutIy and con-
ceitedIy set down union with himself os
the sum of feminine felicity, not rejecting
how mu h Of unhappiuess sometimes enters
into married life, and that it is quite possible
for woman to bo useful and contcnted
outside of the honorable estate of matrimony.