Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-05-06
Written for Gazette.

- 81 - est happiness il
]: !:
sYSaSEEs % thas ore coulc
WSI/IY not enter it toC
E2'esAas< early. But those
who may recall the son Matthew in Pill
grim's Progress, who made himself Ill BY
eating green app.es-green apples which
might have been wholesome and dsliciou:
hsd be visited until they we're ripe, car
recall an Illustration quite contradictory
Of such inference.
Fortunate for him, as 1t may seem tc
the mother of son, II her boy shall
marry early, yet his instance is singular
one, If, on reaching something less
than middle age, he has not dropped his
wife Sd far behind him So to leave
himself practically unmarried, having 8
nurse, housekeepsr, 8 humble friend,
possibly slave, but certainly NO com.
p,nion, no wife, ip wide sense Of he
word. His early marriage might have
been specifically considered an ad
vantage to his morality, and SO to bis
health; but when the mother has brought
up her boy, IS it is her duty to do, to IN
derstand that the same personal purity Is
required OF him that Is required of her
girl, and that his passions are to be under
the same control that his SISTERS are, q,
whstever age, then the question of that
morality will not enter into the affair
at all.
But however the mother of q son may
look at the subject Of early marrisges,
ha ~ 10 Ia
seems to me, in rather decided opposi-
ton to them. II, instead of beng great
and hsppy portion OF the school OF life,
marriage constituted the whole Of 1t, or
life existed only for the sake Of marriage,
still those enteri e its portals must be
the better for suitable preparation. l am
unable to suppose that at the age Of eigh-
teen or twenty any preparation has been
sufficient. The age is lovely IN its ten
derness, and enchanting with its illu-
sions; but wisdom wears S.
verer face, and marriage deals
with stern facts. Some girls
there may be, Of rare ability, who are
competent to take upon their Young
shoulders the responsibility of house.
its work, or the direction of. those who
do it's work, the oversight Of z husbands
wardrobe, the bearing and nursing OF
children, the physical attention to them
in health and Sickness, and the daily di-
rection OF their moral and mental educa-
ton, together with all the other indoor
and outdoor cares incidental to the posi-
tion of one who is the head Of family,
and who has the happiness of home and
q husband on her heart AID conscience.
But these cases ere few and exceptional,
and the great multitude of girls under
twenty are not equal to such strain
upon nerve and muscle without an arrest
of development. A few years later they
msy remember themselves at that age as
sill children; they may feel some re-
proach toward those who laid upon them
then 8 burden greater than children
should bear. Even were skill, experience,
discretion, well established, industrious
habits formed, universal belonging Of
the maiden of eighteen or twenty years,
think 1t would be as much ecruelty to de-
maud all this exertion Of her as 1t would
be II she were six or eight years your ger.
Before twenty a girl has hardly had ~
chance to receive the complete instfucc
ton from textbooks to which she h9s
right, to say nothing Of the domestic
education of the kitchen, the needle, the
sick room; she has had little chance to
learn anything of the world Of human
nature; she has intuitione, not expert
ences; she has lived more with dreams
aud ideals than with realities. She may
make charming wife at frs', and ter
der mother always, maternal instinct and
solicifude taking the piace OF sll the su-
periority that added years might.
have given. Bnt she must stop
there, taxed to the utmost; she
has no time, nor strength, and
perhsps-as inclination grows By use
no inclination to read, to study, to keep
pace with q husbands advance, or even
to appreciate it. I will not say thst
when, in 9 few years, she has lost the
appearance of youth, when she has no
more q flesh color and q smooth face,
when pretty toilette no longer becomes
her, thst the husband who continues to
cherish her will take credit to himself for
doing so; but It is evident that she en-
counters the danger of this feeling on his
part. Nor do think it an argument
worth mentioning that the woman early
married is SO moulded and bent to her
husbands will that clsshing and incom-
DdlUlllIy UGCOuC lupO5stoiSS oSSouoS AL
the rights and sacrifices
should be mutual, and l will not 80 insult
the husband as to suppose him unresson-
able enough for this moulding to be nee
ssssry, or selfish enough to wish thus to
suppress Individuality, unable to find
pleasure himself in Remuneration, or neg
igent of civiliz Sd, not to say Christian
1uty.
Charming wife and tender mother asl
The may be, however, it is not to b8
doubted that when her education Is mor&I
and her experience more exs
.ended, she will be nobler wife and
ar, better mother. She will have lost
some soitening tri1e Of the arrogance OF
,outh; vanity, levity, love Of admiration
will have been so chastened as not to
,Isy the part of deaths heads at the
east; she will have learned self-sacrifce
ind forbesrence; she will have acquired
act and discretion and the sacred art OF
Silence; she will have become harmon
Gus; and she will know how to order
ZONE as she did not know how before.
Her knowledge will have opened ave-
lues and outlooks Of which her FAM
ly will have the advantage; her ludnk3
nent will have ripened, her whole NJ ne
she will take life ut b her
blame, and her husband and her childien,
Ter whole world and the generstionAs TO
.ome, will have gained by the delay. u
i were but for the sake OF those generAei