The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-04-25
WIDOWERS.

about widowers. | never had Wldower
for lover in my younger years. | suppose
If had should not now be up next to head
in the Sidney household, for they say
widowers are irresistible. | can't remem-
Der ever seeing a widower in my young
years; women in those days must have
thought best to live on and not let a new
hand have chance to manage their affairs;
at all events they did this, so far as my
observation extended ! would be loath
but one of them has appealed to me, and
wants to know my views about widower
forty years old, in good health and well off,
marrying again while he has a large family.
Should he or should he not?
have been trying to do little thinking
for the widowers since this request reached
me. The marriage ceremony was not in
tended to stand after the pair are sepa-
rated by death, and | can see no reason
why a man who has been so unfortunate az
to lose his wife has not all the liberty to
marry again that he had to marry the first
time. But the children must be considered;
the first wife has this much right in that
home. even after death, that her children
shall be well cared for. She probably lost
her life in bringing large family into the
world, for child-hearing and unceasng
motherly duties, the sleepless nights and
restless days which are hers, have weakened
and undermined the constitution of many
a wife and sent her to a premature grave.
The children belong to the father as well as
to the mother, and when she has gone be-
You'd the reach of ministering to them a
double duty rests upon him. He needs a
wife, and if he can find woman who is
willing to be good mother to his children,
and help him train and instruct them into
honorable usefulness. he would be certainly
justifable in doing so. But there is the
rub-not many women in these days want
to help man to work. 1t is too much
growing to be looked upon as the duty of
the husband and the hired girl to bear the
burdens of the family. If man has
money, he may find no trouble with her
after the knot is tied If there is any man
in the wide world who needs higher than
mortal wisdom to direct his steps, it is the
widower, with large family of children,
in the pursuit of wife.
He dare not marry for love alone for
strange to record, men are so constituted
they fall in love just as readily, if not more
so, with tritling, giddy young creatures as
with substantial, elevating women. He
needs about all the sterling virtues in the
woman who is to restore his broken fireside
to something of its old-time comfort and
cheerfulness. This has been done, and may
be again. Abraham Lincoln attributed
much of his success, if not all, to the good
principles and lessons of usefulness instilled
by his step-mother, and his first earnings
were devoted to lifting her above want as a
reward for her devotion to him in his
young, hayward days.
Stepmothers and second wives generally
are standing on higher plane than for
merly and better understand the duties
that devolve upon them. We do not hear
so many tales of their cruelty to children
and evident dislike of the memory of the
departed whose places they are filling. |
have seen number of houses where the
second wife reigns the picture of the first
wife upon the wall, works of her skill
about the rooms, and heard them speak of
their predecessors in the most natural and
friendly spirit possible. This is as it should
be. There is no faint of disgrace in sec
ond marriage, then why should the name
of the departed be Stunned? A man
should not fear to speak Of the mother Of
his children in the presence OF his new
wife, and if she is the woman she should
be he will not.
1t takes nothing from woman's posi-
tion or happiness to know she was not the
first wife. Indeed second wives have the
reputation Of getting the kindess and most
lover-live attention, and one is almost
tempted to think, If men could have their
second wives first, a great many women
would be having better time Of it than
they are. They take their first wives as a
matter OF course. She often has to work
and drudge increasingly with little sppar-
ent appreciation of her services; but, after
she has gone to her long rest, and the
cherries house tells a tale OF the comfort
and restful Joy her presence and industry
had created, the husband is so forlorl and
tossed about among hired housekeepers and
boarding houses, like ship at sea when
the winds are contrary, that he is glad to
welcome most warmly a second guardian of
his happiness and home. He even doesn't
mind telling her once in while what q
choice morsel she is. He has lived wretched
and lone long enough to know how to act
the fool gracefully. He does not mean his
soft attentions ally disrespect to his first
wife, nor are they; he has simply learned
the value of a good wife by having lost one,
and is so overjoyed at the paradise re-
gained that he cannot conceal his bliss.
A widower of forty is most too young to
finish his journey alone, but let him all the