Year: 1871

"When girl marries why do people
talk of her choice? In ninety-nine cases
out of huadred, has she any choice
Does not the man (probably the last she
would have ch ,aen) select her ?"


very clev, correspondent has sent
us letter containing this query and she
makes out her case ably. She says: i
have been married many years the match
was considered very good one, suitable
in all respects-age, position and fortune.
Every one said had made good choice.
Why. my dear Mr.. Editor, loved my
husband when married him because he
had by unwearied assiduity succeeded in
gaining my affections but had choice been
my privilege | certainly should not have
chosen him. As look at him in his easy
chair huge dog at his feet, pipe peep
ing out Of one of the many pock cts of his
shooting coat, can but think how differ
ent he is from what | would have chosen.
My first penchant was for fashionable
clergyman, perfect Adonis; he was a
fatterer, and cared but little for me,
though have not yet forgotten the pang
of his desertion. My next was barrister;
young man of immense talent, smooth,
ipsinuating manners but he, too, after
talking, walking, dancing and flirting, left
me in the lurch. Either of these would
have been my ''choice" had so chosen
but my present husband chose me, and
therefore [ married him and this, can
not help thinking, must be the way with
half the married folks of my acquaintance"


There is both sound sense and truth in
this; but is it not better that men should
choose than that they should be chosen?
And is not our correspondent probably
much happier with her present husband,
shooting jacket, pipe and dog inclusive
than she would have been with either the
fashionable clergyman CT the clever barris-
ter? Men are proverbially inconstant, and
after marriage, when the trouble and in
constant, and after marriage, when the
trouble and inconvenience Of children are
beginning to be felt, and when (the most
trying time of alD the wife begins to ne
glect her husband for her children, unless
there was originally very strong attach
ment on the husbands side, there is little
chance of happiness. A wife's affection,
on the contrary, always increases after
marriage; and even if she were inditfer-
ent before, no well-disposed woman can
help loving the father of her children.
Children, on her side, are bond of union,
| and though she may appear, for them, to
neglect some of those little attentions
which men naturally seem to expect, it is
onl,, baoou-o tbo ob;ld iS tho r,ora halnlaes
OF the two, and the true woman always
takes the side of the weaker


1t is strange but melancholy fact that
when young girls fancy themselves in love,
they are seldom if ever happy if they
marry the object of their choice. The
fact is, in most cases, they have chosen
quite different person as an individual
from the imagination object he had appear
ed as lover. The imagination in most
girls is stronger than the judgment; and
as soon as the first idea of love is awaken
ed in the female heart, the Imagination is
set at work to fancy lover, and all pos
sible and impossible perfections are as
sembled together in the young girls mind
to endow the object of her secret ido.atry
The first man whose appearance and man.
ners attract girl on her entrance into
society is generally invested by her with
the halo of these secret thoughts and she
fancies herself violently in love without
the least real knowledge of the man she
supposes herself in love with No wonder,
then, that if she marries she is miserable
The object of her love has vanished, never
to return and she finds herself chained
for life to man she detests because she
fancies she has been deceived in him.


On the other hand the man who, with
very pardonable vanity, fancied himself
loved for himself alone, and who was per-
fectly unconscious of the secret delusions
of the girl, becomes, when he finds her
changed after marriage, quite indignant at
her caprice. The friends and relations on
both sides share in the same feelings
''what would she have," they cry-"she
married for love, aud see the consequence.


The consequences are, indeed, in such
cases, generally sad enough. When the
first delusion is dissipated, and the truth
in all its hard and stern reality, comes
forth from the veil that has been thrown
around it, both parties feel indignant at
the false position in which they find them
selves. Mutual recriminations take place,
each accusing the other of ingratitude and
deceit; while the apparent injustice Of
these accusations, which is felt by each
party alternately, first wounds the feelings,
and then, il repeated, rankles in the wound
until it becomes incurable.
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