The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1881-07-21
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..

W. "A popular hotion ~ that sne
who is prudent, conventional, do
nestle, has the best conjugal pros
poets while she who is indiscreet,
obedient to impulse, fond Of pleas
ure has the worst prospects. An
Gent spinsters. noted for primness,
and matrons of the solemn order, in>
cline to tell light hearted, rollicking
girls that they are throwing away
good chances; that marrying men
are deferred by their giddiuess from
serious consideration of the main
subject. These are drawn, it is as
serted, to industrious, demure, un-
worldly girls, who show at glance
that they are matrimonislly foreor,
daiued. Az theory this may be
specious, but facts do not bear it out
the contrary, rather. Men prone
to cooperative housekeeping ap-
prove of the industrious, dem ure,
uuworldly creatures they think
they would make excellent wives,
and wonder why some other man
does not marry them. But they
seldom marry such women them
selves. 81
Why don't they 7 They could
not tell if they should try. They
know, however that they don't, and
that they don't want to. There
seems to be sorts Of girls those that
ought, because specially fit, to be
married, and never are married, and
those that never should and never
will be, and yet invariably get mar
ried. The former are usually the
demure, industrious, unworldly, do
mestic the latter are the easy, care
less, merry, imprudent, froIicsome,
saucy girls, of whom men become
en- ored for no reason at all, and in
spite of themselves. When a man
falls in love aud can't climb out
readily be avails himself of marriage,
and is often extricated thereby with
out intending it. He is no more
logical in matrimony than in celiba'
cy the same thing that makes him
a lover turns him into a husband,
and he is thrice blessed if he does
not discover a sharp and sudden diff
ference between the two. 1t is pas
sion, not reason, and is called the
divine passion because it is so thor
oughly human.
Men generally like one kind of
women and love another kind. The
one kind they are commonly recon.
mended to we'd and don't; the other
kind they are advised not to we'd,
and do. Which is better-to take a
wife because you like her, or to take
wife because you love her? HyN
men alone knows; and he wont tell.
If you do either or neither, you may
re pent. There is no absolute safety
10 wediock or out Of it. No mans
experience is good for another man.
aod our own experience in erratic
affairs is rarely valuable, for every
time a man falls 10 love-and he has
great alscrity in this way-the ac>
cident varies, though TIE effect is
unaltered. No man can say what
scot of a woman will be his wife, and
if he be wise be Won't express any
opinion on the subject. He may
cherish many views and have many
beliefs thereupon, but the more OF
these he has the less likely they are
to be confirmed. He who insists, in
his bachelor days, that bis wife shall
be beauty is apt to find her plain.
He who cannot endure woman
without intellect surrerders to one
ne yer suspected of it. The devotee
of order discovers himself mated
with the embodiment of confusion.
The stickIer for elegance sees, when
the glamour of courstihip has been
removed, that he is joined to dow
dy.
Marriage goes, to a certain extent,
by contrasts, If not by contraries. A
woman, still less than man, gets
the husband she paints to her fancy.
Her connubial ideas are commonly
regulated by her age and experience.
The man she desires at l6 or IL
would be burden at 20, and her
ideal at 20 might prove bore at 20.
She begins with sentimentalism and
ends with soberness vanity impelS
her first, but sympathy holds her
last. She is frequently surprised at
the offers she receives, and still more
surprised at the offers she does not
receive. The love that comes at
first sight rarely remains it is apt
to be born Of the eye, not of the
temperament. The love that grows
generally endures and produces fruit.
Love and marriage are not related
as we think they should be. Love-
matches often turn out i'll, and
matches without love turn out well.
No one can tell what love is; nor
can any one guess what marriage
will bring. We are all, when young,
full of thoughts and theories about
both, and individual experience is
ever contradicting what we have
learned. Marriage is as impenetra-
bic as love. Few of US are prepared
for their disclosures. We may love
and marry again and again, but our
ideal of love or marriage is almost
wholly unlike the thing itself.