St. Paul daily globe., 1888-07-21
EARLY MARRIAGES.
Reasons Why They Are Not Desir-
able for Girls in Their Teens.

Reasons Why They Are Not Desir-
able for Girls in Their Teens.
1t must be generally conceded that
the married state is that in which the
greatest happiness is possible, and it
might be inferred, then, that one could
not enter it too early. But, says the
Philadelphia Press. those who may call
the son Matthew" in Pilgrims Prog
ress, who made himself ill by eating
green apples-green apples, which
might have been wholesome and de-
licious had he waited until they were
ripe-can recall an illustration quite
contradictory of such inference.
Fortunate for him, as it may seem to
the mother of son, if her boy shall
lar one If, on reaching something less
than middle age, he mas not dropped his
wife so far behind him as to leave him
self practically unmarried, having
nurse. a hOusekeeper: humble
friend, possibly a slave. but GER
talnly no companion, no wife, in the
wide sense of the word. His early
marriage may have been, specifically
considered, all advantage to his moral
ity and so to his health; but when the
mother has brought up her boy, as it is
her duty to do, to understand that the
same personal purity is required OF him
that is required of her girl, at whatever
age, then the question of that morality
will not enter into the affair at all.
But however the mother of a son may
look at the subject of early marriages,
the mother of girl is justified, it seems
to me, in a rather decided opposition to
them. If instead of being a great and
happy portion of the school of life mar
riageS constituted the whole of it, or
life existed only for the sake of mar
riage, still those entering its portals
must be the better fer suitable prepara-
ton. am unable to suppose that at the
age of eighteen OF twenty any prepara-
ton has been sufficient. The age is
lovely in its tenderness and enchanting
with its illusions; but wisdom wears a
severe face and marriage deals with
stern facts. Some>girls there may be of
rare ability who are competent to take
SDOnsibility of house, and the direc-
ton of those who do the work; the
oversight of husbands wardrobe, the
bearing and nursing of children,
the physical attention to them
in health and sickness and
daily direction of their moral and
mental education, together with all the
other indoor and outdoor cares incl
dental to the position Of one who is the
head of the family, and who has the
happiness of home and husband on her
heart and conscience. But these cares
are 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 develop
ment. A few years later they may re-
r,,n l,n,. cn1xy nff hot cff1
mere children; they may feel some re-
proach toward those who laid upon
them burden greater than children
should bear.
Before twenty girl has hardly had
chance to receive the complete instruc-
ton from text books to which she has
right, to say nothing of the domestic ed
ucatiOn of the kitchen, the needle, the
sick room, she has had little chance to
learn anything of the world of human
nature; she has intuitions, not expert
ences; she has lived more with dreams
and ideals than with realities. She
may make charming wife at
first, and a tender mother always,
maternal instinct and sOlicitude
taking the place of all the
superiority that added years might have
given. But she must stop there, taxed
strength, and, perhaps-as inclination
grows by uSe-nO inclination to read, to
study, to keep pace with a husbands
advance, or even to appreciate it. L will
not say that when, in few years, she
has lost the appearance of youth, when
she has no more fresh color and a
smooth face, when a pretty toilet no
longer becomes her, 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 feel
ing on his part. Nor do | think it an
argument worth mentioning that the
woman early married is so nodded
clashing and incompatibility become inn
possible, because in marriage the rights
and sacrifices should be mutual, and [
will not so insult the husband as to sup
pose him unreasonable enough for this
mOlding to be necessary, or selfish
enough to wish thus to suppress indi-
viduality, unable to find pleasure him
self in remuneration, or negligent or civ
ilized, not to say Christian, duty.
Charming wife and tender mother as
she may be, however, it is not to be
doubted that when her education is
more thorough and her experience more
eXtenueQ she Will UG llODl6T WIG anu
far better mother. She will have lost
some softening trifie of the arrogance of
youth; vanity, levity, love and admira-
ton, will have been so chastened as not
TO play the part of deaths heads at the
feast; she will have learned self-sacri-
flee and forbearance; she will have ac-
quired tact and discretion and the
sacred art of silence; she will have be-
come harmonious, and she will know
how to order home as she did not know
how before.
Her knowledge will have opened ave-
nues and outlooks of which her family
will have the advantages; her judgment
will have ripened, her whole nature
deepened; she will take life at higher
plane, and her husband and her chill
dren, and whole generations to come,
will have gained by the delay. If it
were but for the sake of those genera
tions to come, born of mothers full
grown in mind as well as in the body,
the delay would be worth while,
A young mother, with. her children
about her, is often a lovely sight; but
as lovely sight, in a different way, if
not so touching and appealing, is the
mother to whom few added years have
given an immense added leverage in
the task of bringing her children up and
lifting them to a higher level than her
own.