On the other hand, it cannot be questioned, that young ladies are often engaged, and sometimes married too early, before their school education is completed, or their judgment matured. The mother is, perhaps, anxious to marry her daughters "off her hands," and, moved by a miserable ambition, she and they, lest she be later in her engagement than some companion, consent to her being sacrificed on the first offer, be it what it may. Hence come those fatal alliances, in which "a six month's acquaintance after marriage, transforms the beau ideal into a fool, or a coxcomb; and the happy couple, to use an expression of Lady Blessington's, have to 'pay for a month of honey, with a life of vinegar.'" Circumstances should affect a predetermination on this point, yet where they are balanced, she is the wiser, who postpones a matrimonial connection, until her age, and her preparation for it, indicate its propriety.
Importance of right views on this point. We cannot banish all thoughts of love. The opposite extreme. Regard not every one as a lover. Two errors in the society of gentlemen. Forwardness. The poet's caution. Undue reserve. The happy medium attainable. Should know a variety of gentlemen. The acquaintances of Brothers.
No period of life is more decisive of a female's character, than that at which she enters the society of the opposite sex, as a woman. Her manners and conversation at that time usually do much to determine her condition for life. The IDEAL which she carries with her into the world, becomes the presiding star of her destiny. On her general estimate of man, and the views she entertains of his sex, every thing now depends. If she can penetrate character, and has resolution to form high purposes, blessed is her lot.
First, then, I cannot join with those who advise a young lady to banish entirely from her mind every thought of love, until she receives overtures for particular attention. Providence designed her for the exercise of her affections; why then seek wholly to suppress them, or to expend no thought whatever upon them? "Nature," says a recent writer, "will assert her rights over the beings she has made: she avenges all attempts to force or shackle her operations. We ought long ago to have been convinced that the only power allowed to us, is the power of direction." Yet "to girls have been denied the very thoughts of love,--even in its noblest and purest form."--They "know nothing at all of it, or nothing but what they have clandestinely gathered from corrupt sources." Is not this evidently doing violence to one of the strongest, and I will add, the holiest, impulses of their nature? If it be true, as some affirm, that the marriage service is the first part of the Liturgy perused by a young lady, I do not regard it as matter for surprise, derision, or censure. She, who forces her mind wholly off this subject, will be ill qualified, when the occasion demands it, to listen to proposals of marriage. Ignorance and blindness can do little to give her that sound judgment, and true discrimination, which alone should dictate her reply. No, let this rather be done. Let her teachers and parents speak frankly on this topic, treat it as a serious concern, and aid her to form in her mind, a model of moral and intellectual excellence, such as would render one a desirable companion, and yet let this model be not a creature of romance, but of real life. Is it not better thus to guide the affections and regulate the views on this subject, than to stifle all feeling, and blindfold the mind to love? In what province should reason be exercised, if not in that, which affects our condition through life, for weal, or for woe?