Year: 1869

derful facets of pure and keenly spark
ling mind, that lay underneath the young
wife's almost babyish manner. He begins
to be astonished by her womanly prudence;
by her fortitude, her forbearance; by the
utterly unselfsh love which she offers him,
as poor gift scarcely worthy of his accept
ance. Perhaps the husband was not so pro-
found an intellectual analyst as he imagn-
ed himself to be, and wholly failed to per-
ceive the worth of his wife when he marri-
ed her; perhaps marriage was the process
necessary TO develop, sustain, and render
permanent and endurable these beautiful
qualities. The effect Of marriage on the
character of woman is very great and it is
this development which would be taken in
TO account if everybody were free to marry
somebody else. Tom, Dick, and Harry
marry three sisters. In their period of
maidenhood, the girls were scarcely distin-
guishable from each other in point of tenn
permanent, inclination and disposition.
Half-a-dozen years afterward a wonderful
change is apparent. 1t is now clear that
Tom, the big, good natured soldier, ought
to have married Dicks wife, who is hand
oV'''St duiCh-ltillpt WOIIluH
fond of gayety, and passionately devoted
to horses whereas Dick, the clergyman,
with his grand idealisms of self-abnega-
ton, with his studious habits and morbid
sensitiveness, instead of having such
wife, should have married her sister, the
pious, charitable, literary little woman
whom Tom, the soldier, finds so preposter-
ously dull. That Harry, the stock kbroker,
should have found suitable mate, makes
the proper proportion of decently success
full marriages-one out of three.


That girls are so uncommonly like each
other is partly due, doubtless, to the mod
esty of the period, which prevents their do
ing or saying anything prononce, and partly
to the formality of their training, the high
est virtue of which is propriety, or the art
of being like other people. Besides, il
must be honestly confessed that most men
marry for some outward personal attraction,
which is either there or imagined to be there.
Whatever character may happen to lie un-
derneath is taken on chance, and discovered
afterward, when the freer atmosphere and
larger opportunities of marriage bring forth





is past the idealizing period of life the talk
of girls is, as rule, insufierably insipid
if you want brightness wit, sarcasm, frank
good nature, or even lofty philanthropic
aspirations, you must seek the society of
married women. Not only, therefore, does
man gain experience of his own wife dur
ing few years of marriage, but he is able
N II IF ha ha # oil
who have married in the same time. He
sees what remarkably cheerful wife his
cousin has got, now that the girl, removed
from the tyrannical gloom of her aunt's
household, has thrown off the oppressive,
frigid drynoss of her old manner. He sees
how another friend has married the girl
whom he, at one time, very much wished
to marry; and how she has fallen into re-
Jigious monomania, and is miserable, and
9Seeps every one around her miserable, be-
cause she is troubled about the doctrine of
election. All these vurious exPeriencoz-
and innumerably more, which every reader
must be aware could be culled from his own
immediate circle-would tell upon such a
general shifting of conditions as that we
mention. The new combinations formed
in this gathered light of experience would
be, without a doubt, a little surer than those
at present existing.


But would they be in the least degree
more satisfactory as social adjustments?
Would they allow the men and women to
marry off more evenly than they do at pres
ent? Quite the reverse. At present we
have two or three men wanting to marry
the same woman; then we should have
twenty. Increased knowledged would so
exhibit this or that woman's qualities that
all the men of her acquaintance would de-
termine to marry her. AT present, as we
say girls are married pretty much on
chance. We do not know what sort of
wives they are likely to make; and it is a
wise provision of nature to throw an ideal
istic glamour over us and them, at this par
ticular period, so that we are encouraged to
take the risk. Nature kindly shuts our
eyes as we leap over the precipice. But if
we could anticipate the experience of the
next dozen years, and see that Clara, whom
we marry, would turn out slovenly and
ill-tempered person, and that Julia, whom
we only think of marrying, would turn out
brilliant and fascinating woman, an ad-
mirable mother, generous friend, witty
and pleasant companion, ofcOurse we should
marry Julia. Something of the same kind
would ensue from sudden concession of
freedom of choice. BY that time Julia's
wifely qualities would be developed, patent,
admired of everybody; and on the very
morning of the new era you would find her
with twenty or thirty suitors. Now, for
| TO ;SI 10
involves disturbance OF the numerical
marrying relations of the sexes and this
disturbance, indefinitely extended, would,
under such condition of affairs, precipi-
tate the most terrible catastrophes.


We limited that one in three might be tax
en- as the proportion of wholly successful
marriages-in which both parties are pleas
ed with their choice, remain through lf,
the fastest friends, and preserve intact the
love that first drew them together. Ano
yet, If absolute freedom to form new com.
bnations were granted, we believe that &
large majority of married couples would
remain as they are. Use and want have al
immense deal to do with ones comfort
Sheer habit would keep together man and
| Noiidu VIM iohS 'SC Ae'N AOS' 'h"' Sl'SNi"
tenderness for each other which marked
their lover period. Perhaps neither is Sc
sensitively anxious for affection as to care
much about its absence, and is quite will


ing to regard quiet comfort and friendly in


terchange of obliging offices as all that il
necessary TO render married life happy


But, in any case, the majority of married
people would rather remain as they are, /


only through the dread of the'bother of sepa


rating How do they know that they woulC


better their condition. Besides the though


of parting would suddenly bring into relic


thousand excellences of mind and char


acter in their partner which they had quit
overlooked. A schoolboy recognizes tn
value of his penknife only at two periods
when he gets it, and when, after more o