Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-12
CHOOSING A WIFE.
MARION HARLaND'S TALK TO MEN
On THIS SUBJECT.
How Men Are Won-Who Have No
Right to Marry-How Some
Men Choose Wives.

three-yolume tale how Celebs-stufhest of
pen-and-ink prigs-chose wife.
Who in modern and real life initiates
his example?
Fortune hunters seek with smiles and
with soap" the probable possessors of pie
thoric purses; the returned missionary, on
brief furlough, consults the brethren,
and, presumably, the Lord, in the selec-
ton of a fellow-armor bearer with de-
vout inclinations and stout constitution ;
quadruply bereaved widowers, wider awake
than bachelors to a sense of uncertainty of
time and earthly things, make haste to be
wise Tor foolish) ard set forth marriage
feasts with funeral meats still lukewarm.
These are economic and prudential con-
tracts, legal enough, but wanting in all
else that makes the joining together in
wedlock of man and woman an honorable
marriage in the sight of heaven.
Love that sanctifes, faith that elevates,
the hope that is well spring of joy and
comfort in heart and home, are an omnipo-
tent three that bring down to earth the
hllSuODI vi uCdNcI DuL IL NOl1iStH HOl
with observation.
Women oftener choose husbands than
the men wives, paradoxical as the state
ment may sound. The overtures of court
ship, however impetuous, give them the
advantage of perspective in Judging of
suitors' merits. Once in generation
Juliet meets Romeo fully half-way-per-
haps little over-but full tide runs in
the direction of mans approach and
womans waiting. Women are enticed, ar
gued, led by cunningly devised stages into
love. Men "fall" in, how easily and
fatally, Addison narrates in his immortal
list of 'Hlilled and wounded" "T. S.
wounded by Zelinda's scarlet stocking as
she was stepping out of coach. Tim Tat
tie killed by the tap of fan. : = \
Sir Simon Softly murdered at the play
house in Drury Lane by frown. w. w.
killed by an unknown hand that was play
ing, with the glove off upon the side of
the front box. Dick Tastewell
slain with blush Musidorns slain by an
arrow that flew out OF a dimple in Flavia's
left cheek" etc.
Shakespeare shows us his lover inditing
sonnets to his MISTRESS eyebrow, from
WV. VIC may SptI lut Slldll
that brought him down.
Verify, in view of the exceedingly 'Fpro-
miscuous" character of the accidents that
guide Celeb's choice, he has reason to
cling, as for life, to the belief that matches
are made in heaven. Otherwise he has
still "show" in the mighty lottery.
The only hope that the few hints friends
can throw out for his guidance may be
needed, is in the theory that-reversing
the order of the miracle done upon the
blind man-there is a moment in which
the eyes, erst clear and critical, see through
the first folds of Cupid's bandage, women
as trees walking. When the silken tissue
is once firmly adjusted, observation is COM
! plete. After that no experience save his
own can enlighten him. To vary the
fgure-the love fit is durable only IN the
incipient stages. This opportunity lost, it
must run its course.
1t is pity! We know so well what
goes to make up the ideal wife that we
lose patience with him who blindly seizes
upon the opposite type of woman or upon
one who is no type at all. 1t is therefore
with the feeling Of one who beateth the
air that | sit me down 10 the preparation
of this paper.
once knew a man who bore the bur-
den for ten years of hopelessly invalided
wife. He was heroically patient under
the cross, and mourned sincerely when the
racked and wasted body was laid out of his
arms upon the one bed to which pain
never comes. Meeting him two years
afterward, | congratulated him upon his
second betrothal, saying l had heard that
he was singularly fortunate in his choice.
"Thank you," said the honest fellow,
simply. 81 believe she is perfectly
healthy"
Begin where he left off. Health If
body, freedom from so much as a proclivity
to organic disease, is a consideration so i'm
portant to one who anticipates marriage
that the wonder grows in the rightful
minds at the habitual disregard of the
question. 1t may be chivalric to under
take the charge of an ailing woman, and
benevolent to smooth her pathway to the
tomb, but the childless widower who has
| dwelt for the best years of his life in the
valley of the shadow of death, or the
frantic father who sees the development in
the dread malady that cursed their
mothers existence, may well deplore the
early madness that has borne such fruit.
A man has but one life. That spoiled.
there is no redress. Without full acquies-
cence in Darwin's dogma that legislation
should step in here to protect the race, we
can hardly state too forcibly the funda-
mental fact that no diseased man or woman
has moral right to marry
Said young divine in asking advice in
dispassionate and Coelebsian spirit of an
elder teacher of righteousness:
The woman love is intelligent affec-
tionate and pious. Her only defect is an
ungovernable temper, but trust, with the
grace of God, to be able to endure that"
The reverend father raised warning
hand.
''No my son. Let her alone. Leave her
to the grace of God. That can live where
you could not"
Let those who do not dread "Kate the
cursed" or shrink from Petruchio's of
flee, neglect the admonition. The solitary
bright saying $50 far as / know of slow
witted sufferer from a virago's tongue and
temper, was that which recommended a
friend to strike match on a powder key
all day rather than marry vixen"
The counsel of another ghostly father in
PRODUCES the next section of our theme so
aptly that | cannot resist the desire to
quote it. His neophyte regretted that
his beloved, although good, amiable and
comely, was not endowed with practical
wisdom, otherwise known as common sense.
Dismiss all thought of marrying her r'
ordered the senior apostle. "Were she a
heather, she might be converted. 1t is
not in the power of the Almighty himself
to put common sense in head that was
made up without it"
The recklessuess with which the ad-
mirer of pretty face and nimble tongue
elects her to the position of arbiter of his
and his children's destinies is the most
monstrous obstacle in the advance of the
race towards perfectibility. II can only
be explained by reference to the close fit
and many swathings of the bandage al
luded to a little while ago. A man chooses
his dentist with care, he will not engage
a groom who has no credentials beyond a
neat figure and glib utterance; he pays for