THE MARRIAGEABLE AGE

 

THERE are so many sides to the question at what age people should marry and so many things to be considered, that whatever one writes on the subject must appear full of inconsistencies. All, therefore, that we shall attempt is to indicate a few points of view.

People rush into matrimony as they rush to catch a train, and in their hurry they sometimes catch the wrong train. The rush in reference to marriage generally comes either from the desperation of advancing years or from the inexperience of youth.

When two very young people marry it is as if one sweet pea should be put as a prop to another. An Irish peasant who found that his marriage when only nineteen years old was a mistake, said : ” I’ll never marry again so young if I want  to live to the age of Methuselah ! ”

I asked a lady lately what was the springtime of love. She replied, ” From seventeen years of age to twenty-five ; after that time illusion goes.” We should be sorry to think that the average duration of romance is only eight years.

A woman who marries a cub of a boy generally regrets doing so. Few men under thirty years of age are fit to have the care of a wife. There are hearts all the better for keeping ; they become mellower and more worthy a woman’s acceptance than the crude unripe things that are sometimes gathered.

Much depends upon the man. Some men are more capable of taking upon themselves the duties of marriage at twenty-five than others are at thirty-five. Between these two ages is the usual time, and if men put off much after the last mentioned age they are likely to get into the habit of celibacy, which, like all other bad habits, is difficult to break away from. In this habit they will continue till they are about sixty years of age, when a terrible desire to know for themselves what matrimony is like will seize them, and they will propose right and left to everybody, until at last they are picked up, not for themselves, but for their money or their position, or because someone is tired of being a miss and wants the novel sensation of putting “Mrs.” before her name.

A man about sixty years of age remarked to a friend of his that he really must get married.” You see,” he said, ” when I die there is no one to close my eyes.” ” Oh, but,” objected the friend, ” you may get someone who will open them for you.”

” When it is time for you to marry,” said a father to his daughter, ” I won’t allow you to throw yourself away upon one of the frivolous young fellows I see about. I’ll select for you a staid, sensible, middle-aged man. What do you say to one about fifty years of age?”

“Well, father,” replied the girl, ” If it is just the same to you I would prefer two of twenty-five.”

Celibacy is the unnatural state of many men who never intended it, but who, having too long postponed a change of their condition, find at length that it is too late to think of doing so.

 

As to the age at which women should marry.  I do not like to burn my fingers with that question. All I shall say is that if there are some of them not worth looking at after thirty years of age, there are quite as many not worth speaking to before that.

We do not advise girls to put off matrimony until they are 30 years old, which was, it is said, the age of the daughter of Enoch when she entered holy matrimony; but we think that they do not consult their best interests when they allow thoughts of love and marriage to occupy their minds before they have come to years of discretion.

 

In ancient Rome men sixty years of age and women of fifty were prohibited from marrying. Aristotle, in his ” Politics,” says that eighteen is the best age for a woman to marry, and twenty five for a man. An eminent British medical authority fixes the physiological age for the marriage of the male at from twenty-two to twenty-five, and from seventeen to twenty-one for that of the female. This may be true physiologically, but other considerations suggest an age more advanced.

 

How can the calf-love of seventeen or twenty-two know its own mind? There is a diffident shyness about boy lovers that is attractive to some girls and women, but others like the impertinent impetuosity of men.

 

An important consideration in reference to the marriageable age is the children. Those born to parents who have not attained to or who have outlived their vigour are likely to be difficult to rear.” Children born too late are orphans too early, “says a Spanish proverb. Early marriages have this advantage, that parents can settle their families in life and renew their youth in their children’s children.

Shakespeare says, in reference to a husband’s age:—

“Let the woman still take

An elder than herself, so wears she to him,

So sways she level to her husband’s heart.”

It may be better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave ; but if a wife begin married life by insisting, as she ought, upon getting proper respect, she will never experience slavery.

 

The following is a summary of my thoughts as to the right age to marry. A man should wait marriage until he is so much in love that he cannot wait longer. A woman should marry when she comfortably can, after childhood and before old womanhood. The age to marry differs with the individual. Some men can make a wise choice at twenty-five; others do not know what they are pleased to call their minds at fifty.

Some girls are fit to be wife and mothers before they leave their teens; others never. No woman should marry until she can manage money and a house, can take care of a baby, understands what marriage means, and has make a sufficient number of men to enable her to make a proper choice. And surely it is better for both man and woman to wait until a sufficient enjoyment of fun disposes them for the equally happy but less exciting routine of married wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11.  Things Every Woman Should Know About Her Man

 

1. The man who declares he understands women, declares his folly

 

2. If woman were not such a mystery, she would not be such an attraction.

 

3. Every true woman’s orbit is deter- mined by two forces : Love and Duty. Which is another way of saying that Women, like the lark, are “true to the kindred points of heaven and home.” But, It is only when the two foci are coin- cident and identical that her orbit becomes the perfect circle and her home becomes her heaven.

 

4. Women, apparently, were made for men; men for themselves. Certainly Men seem to carry out this design of Nature, that they should be ministered to by women.

 

5. A woman asks a woman questions in order to discover something. She asks a man questions in order to discover the man.

 

6. The last thing that a woman will risk is her personal appearance. Which is saying a good deal, for A woman will risk an interview at an unseasonable hour, but not in an unseasonable frock.

 

7. Woman’s rights are — to be loved.

Woman’s duties are — to love.

 

8. There is always something sovereign and monarchical about a woman : like a queen’s, her wishes are commands. And In matrimony, woman’s sovereignty is not abdicated. By no means ; it is only trans- formed from an absolute into a constitutional monarchy : she acts then by and with the ad- vice of her First Lord. — This is the ideal State.

 

9. Woman’s true function, as a citizen, in this world is — to spur men on to high and noble action. And this, quite unconsciously, she does. Woman’s true function, as a woman, in this world is — to evoke man’s most fervid emotions, and at the same time to keep them at their highest level. And this she also does — perhaps not quite so unconsciously.

 

10. They err who call women illogical. Feminine logic is inexorable. But it proceeds per saltum. It is man who has laboriously to reason step by step.

 

11. The most wayward woman craves con- trol : To let a woman have her own way is interpreted by her as indifference. And The surest way to fail to please a woman is to let her do what she pleases.

 

 

 

11 . Hints for Men to Treat their Girls Properly

 

1. It is curious, but it is true, that proud man becomes prouder (and — more curious still — at the same time humbler) when weak woman gives him something — a look, a smile, a locket, her hair, a kiss, herself.

 

2. The greater a man’s faith in himself, the greater his mistress hers in him. And perhaps, the greater his mistress her faith in a man, the greater his in himself

 

3. A man to whom a woman cannot look up, she cannot love. Yet, It is marvellous how a woman contrives to find something to look up to in a man.

 

4. Many men forget the artistic tendency of the feminine temperament, a tendency which shows itself in many ways — their love of pretty things, of pretty ways, and of pretty words. From which three alone we may deduce the rule that When with the woman he admires and whose admiration he seeks, a man cannot be too careful of his dress, his speech, and his manners.

 

5. A believer in Woman is a believer in Good. And vice versa, and mutatis mutandis.

 

6. Man’s standard of value of a woman is usually determined by the scale of his own emotions. That is to say. The pedestal upon which a man places a woman (and a man always puts a woman upon a pedestal) is a pedestal erected solely by the effect upon himself of her charms.

 

7. A man may boast himself invincible by men ; never by woman.

 

8. The lady-killer is always an object of attraction to ladies, even to those whom he makes no attempt to slay.

 

9. It may perhaps be a thing as unreasonable as certainly it is indisputable, that however much wild oats a man may himself sow, he invariably entertains a very peculiar objection to any woman near or dear to him entering upon this particular branch of agriculture.

 

10. He is a fool who does not bear himself before his lady-love as a prince among men.

 

11. Some men are so gallant that they will never be out-done by the woman who encourages them. But this often leads to strange embarrassments and entanglements.

 

 

27   Ways To Woo Your Fiancee  While Giving her Engagement Ring

1. A . Loving wife . A . Happy life.
2. A loving wife prolongeth life
3. A – token sent with true . Intent
4. A virtuous wife . A . Happy life .
5. A virtuous wife . Doth banish strife .
6. A . Woman . Kind . All . Joy . Of mind .
7. Accept . Of . This . My . Heart with all my . Love . Is . Great . Though this . Be . Small .
8. After . Consent . Ever . Content .
9. All I refuse . But . These . I chose
10. All myne . Shall . Be . Dyne .
11. All perfect love is from . Above the . Sight . Of . This deserves a . Kisse .
12. All . Thine . Is . Mine .
13. And as this round is nowhere found to flaw or else to sever so may our love as endless prove as pure as gold for ever
14. As . God hath . Knit . Our hearts in . One let nothing . Part . But . Death alone as god . Had . Made . My choice in these so . Move . The . Heart to comfort . Me .
15. As god saw . Fitt our . Knott is knitt .
16. As gold is . Pure . Let . Love indure .
17. As . Gold . Is . Pure . So  love is sure .
18. As heaven . Our . Love . Decreed in . Heavenly . Love . Let . Us proceed .
19. As . I . Expect . So . Let me . Find a faithfull . Heart . A . Constant . Mind
20. As . I . In . Thee . Haue . Made my . Choice so . In the . Lord . Let . Us rejoice .
21. As long as life . Your. Loving wife .
22. As love hath . Joined . Our harts together so none . But . Death . Our harts . Shall . Sever .
23. As . True to love . As . Turtle dove .
24. As . True . To these as though . To . Me .
25. As . Trust bee . Just .
26. As you find . Me . Mind . Me
27. As . You now . Find . So . Judge me . Kind