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BY LADY COOK, nee TENNESSEE CLAFLIN.

Marriage is like a voyage by peait reveals character. It showi others what manner of men and women we are. So Corydon may be the gentlest of swains, and Phyllis the sweetest shepherdess that ever carried a crook, so long as they meet to woo and to be wooed ; but when they exchange their pastoral pursuits for homely housekeeping, the defects of each are for the firsft time exposed to the other. It is all very well to sit on a mossy bank beneath some ancient tree in the leafy month of June, surrounded by flowers and frisking lambs, and to babble of love and eternal fidelity ; but to sit by a smoky fire in winter when the larder is empty and the purso is low, and flowers and lambs and June are dead, and love itself fast dying, will test the strongest vows and unloosa the most latent discords. Each is surprised to find that the character |of the other was misunderstood. Each I feels deceived and aggrieved, and reproaches and tears take the place of billings and cooings. But the glittering mansion is not exempt from the evils of the thatched cottage. There may be wealth and rank and a full measure of worldly prosperity, yet discord will enter in. Lady Clara Yere de Yere is as frail and unstable as her humbler sisters. Her lordly spouse is in his way i&s selfish and as exacting as simple Cordon. Ennui and friction are as fatal to the happiness of the great as cold and want are to the poor. Discontent is the cause with both. And why? Because neitherreaily knew each other. Because both masked their failings and displayed their most agreeable qualities and abilities. Because the role of the man was to win, and of the woman to be wen. It was his to pursue boldly and hers to coyly retreat. Thus he displayed a f rictitious courage, and she an artificial modesty, with two wrecked lives as a result.

\ These methods may have been suitable for a barbarous age when men wooed like the birds and beasts of the field, and lived scarcely better lives than they. Bttt nt. this period of human evolution, we require more rational processes of mating, processes which will promote truth and honesty ; between seises prior' to marriage, and thus prevent unpleasant after developments. And in order to accomplish , this we must first sweep away the cobwebs of superstition, particularly those 1 which render it immodest for a woman to make the first advances in affection. Women are far shrewder than men in the matter of sexual choice, and are less governed by blind passion. If they had the same freedom to propose as men have, there would be fewer unhappy marriages. It is true a woman has many ways of letting a man know that he is pleasing to her without saying so in so may words. But men have the same. And any such indication on her part, would, as things are, be liable to serious misconstruction. She might be accused of levity or even of wantonness unless she could bet^ permitted to make her intentions clear by a definite proposal. It might sound a little strange at first for a modest and pretty girl to say : ' Dear Mr Smith, I have had the pleasure of knowing you for some time, amd have the highest esteem for your character. I am sure you would make a good and affectionate husband to a suitable wife. Our views and feelings have often been mutually exchanged in ' the most friendly and unreserved manner, and I have learnt to entertain a tender regard for you. If you, as I flatter myself you do, feel similarly towards me, and think I could make you a wife after your own heart, I should feel myself the happiest woman alive by your accepting me. Should you consent to my proposal, I shall be delighted to mention it at once to your Mother.' This, we say, might sound strange at first, but not stranger than now when at a tenants' ball the ladies of the great house invite the men to dance with them; and alter a few courageous maidens had essayed and succeeded, it would quickly become the fashion. Young men, we hear, are shy of proposing now-a-day, and so cultivate bachelorhood. This is not only an evil to the commonwealth, but is also a wrong to its fairer members, and a tacit reproach to their character. As men are not generally given to excessive modesty as to their own qualifications, it cannot be supposed that they think themselves not good enough for the women. It would be a great slur on our marriageable young women, however, to suppose that they are not good enough for the men, and still -worse if it nould be said that] neither are fit for marriage. If the i young men will not do as their fathers before them, and what has hitherto been considered their duty, let our girls inaugurate a better state of things by proposing on their own account. After the first novelty has worn off, no one will accuse them of impropriety or forwardness. In truth it seems most fitting, if there should bo any preference in proposing, that woman should possess it. At present marriage is of more importance to her than to a man. Our opponents are never tired of telling us that it is her avocation. We will take them at their word. A good woman's hapj)iness centres in her home. There she Is mistress, mother and queen. It is her delight to make all within its influence the happier and better for f her rule, and to convert it into an earthly Paradise. But to do this she must have the map •■ 1 <• ' -■ vim love most truly, and must, thweiore, have the right of choosing, One of the

most accomplished and beautiful Eng. lishwomen of her day, Lady M. Wortley Montague, daughter of a duke and wife of an ambassador, and an associate of the most intellectual men in Europe, an unromantic, clear-headed fashionable lady who saw more of life,, perhaps, than any other woman, wrote in reply to Rochefoucault's cynical | maxim, ' That marriage is sometimes convenient, but never delightful,' and said : ' It is impossible to taste the delights of love in perfection, but in a well-assorted marriage. .A fond couple attached to each other by mutual affection, are two lovers who ]ive happily together. Though the priest pronounces certain words, though the lawyers draw up certain instruments ; yet I look on theso preparatives in the same light as a lover considers a rope-ladder which he fastens to his mistress's window : If they can but live together, what does it signify by what means the union is accomplished. Two married lovers lead very different lives : they have the pleasure to pass their time in a successive intercourse of mutual obligations and marks of benevolence, and they have the delight to find that each forms the entire happiness of the beloved object. Herein consists perfect felicity. The most trivial concerns of economy become noble and elegant when they are; exalted by sentiments of affection : to furnish an apartment is not barely to furnish an apartment ; it is a place where I expect my lover ; to prepare a supper is not merely giving orders to my cook ; it is an amusement to regale the object I dote on. In this light a woman considers these necessary occupations as more lively and affecting pleasures than those gaudy sights which amuse the greater part of the sex, who are incapable of true enjoyment.' The husband's feelings in his duties correspond to the wife's: he works for her, and both are prepared, by calm reflection, for mutual infirmities and the ravages of time. 'When a pair,' she adds, 'Who entertain such rational sentiments, are united by indissoluble bonds, all nature smiles upon them, and the most common appear deligfcful. In my opinion, such a life is infinitely more happy and more voluptuous tnan the most ravishing and best regulated gallantry^ ; Another reason wily a woman should have the privilege of proposing la, that it is she who will bear the fruits of marriage. Ilers will bethe pain, tH& years of weariness, the intense anxief^ and affection for her offspring. If site, endure the cross, should she not ajso Wear "the"' crown ? If in suffering and i sorrow she bring forth children, should she not have the selection of her partner, so that she may be indemnified for all by the joy of knowing that they spring from one whom she is proud to call their father ? WomepL are growing wiser, and if free to propose wduld select the worthiest they could obtain. The wiser they prove the more select will be their choice. Rakes and ipj^t ) fligates of all descriptions they will reject. They will refuse to join themselves to any unless sound in body, i mind, and mor/ils. Maternity will be revered as a sacred function demanding every just precaution ; as an obli- . gation to reproduce man as in the Biblical beginning — in the likeness , and image of God. o;

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18941214.2.25.1

Bibliographic details

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXII, Issue 3207, 14 December 1894, Page 6

Word Count
1,540

BY LADY COOK, nee TENNESSEE CLAFLIN. Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXII, Issue 3207, 14 December 1894, Page 6

BY LADY COOK, nee TENNESSEE CLAFLIN. Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXII, Issue 3207, 14 December 1894, Page 6