The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-05-20
WHEN SHE SHOULD MARRY?

In the current number of the Brook
lyn Magazine several well-known litera-
ry ladies hold a symposium Oh the
question. when should girls marry?"
Among others, Louise Chandler Moul-
ton writes: A certain sense of embar-
rassment attends any attempt to give
my views as to the age at which girls
ought to marry, from the fact that
know of no subject on which it would
seem to be more impossible to lay down
a hard and fixed rule or even to gener-
alize with any degree of satisfaction.
You remember the famous recipe for
hare soup, First catch your hare? I
should be inclined, in answering the
question, to say, First show me your
girl, ;" for there can be no doubt but
that some girls are mentally, morally,
and physically better fitted to marry at
20 than others at 25.
If indeed one must generalize as to
whether early or late marriages are pre-
ferable, | should certainly say that more
girls are capable of a wise choice at %
tnan at 20; and that nine-tenths of our
girls would doubtless be happier should
they wait until the maturer period.
Two considerations would influence me
to a preference for marriage late
rather than early. In the first place is
the certainty that girl of any brains
would know a great deal better what
she really needed. by way of compan-
ionship through life, at 25 than she
could possibly know at 20. In the
second place l would fain secure to girls
the natural, healthful delights of girl
hood; that time when the bud has not
quite opened to the sun and holds at
heart the mornings freshness. And yet
the remembrance of certain girl brides,
full of hope and trust, and entering on
the new life with the fresh enthusiasm
of girlhood, constrains me to wonder
whether something may not be lost from
the glory of love when the glory of
youth is passed.
In the two very happiest marriages |
can just now call to my mind one wife
married at the age of %, the other at
that of 80. And these marriages seem
to me ideally perfect. To these happy
pairs would apply my favorite quota
ton from "Jane Eyre" where Jane
says, after her marriage with Rochester:
For us to be together is to be as free as
in solitude, as gay as in company"
But would be very far from deducing
from these two IDEAL marriages the con-
clusion that a young woman should not
marry under the mature age of %.
The terrible danger is in the early
marriage of people in a transition state,
when, before the wings have sprung
from the shoulders of Pegasus, he may
be mated all unknowingly with the
plodding plow-horse. Unshared aspi-
rations-these are fatal to conjugal hap
piness. | know, for instance, a man in
high official position, educated largely
by contact with the world, by the very
duties that have devolved on him and
the attention of every days experiences,
whose petty, empty-headed wife must
shock him by her very accent every
time she opens her lips. He does his
duty manfully, this man-but does any
one suppose he would not be happier
with different wife.
Louisa NJ Alcott writes as follows:
My reply to the question, "When shall
our young women marryP" is from %
to %, as few girls are ready for the
duties of married life before then, either
physically or mentally. Many are never
fit, owing to the serious defects in our
modern education and inherited ills.
"When shall our young men marryP"
is still more important question to my
mind, because the sins of the father
visited upon the children are too often
the cause of that feebleness which is
usually attributed to the mothers. When
young people are wisely prepared for
marriage and taught its sanctity it will
cease to be the leap in the dark it is
now to both parties, and the beauty and
vigor of youth will make it what
it should be-safe and happy. As
teacher, nurse, author, and confidante
to young and old have had many OPP
portunities of looking behind the cur
tain, and am convinced that books on
the health of our boys are much more
needed than any additions to the libra
ry of advice our poor girls are supplied
with. Begin at the right end, gentle
men, and do not visit upon Ewes
daughters the sins of Adams sons,
making it unsafe to marry at all.