ON SOME OF THE IMPEDIMENTS TO MARRIAGEE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1401, 14 May 1868, Page 5

ON SOME OF THE IMPEDIMENTS TO MARRIAGEE.

Oks reason—and it may be discussed in the first place—is thnt the matrimonial market is conducted on radically f"»lse principles- An immense amount of ingenuity 13 fruitlessly expended by that noblest of martyrs, " a mother with a dau-rhter to marry ;" noblest, or only to be rivalled by the mother whoso quiver is full of such. lam not much addicted to sentiment (I don't think I have actually wept since I read " The Bride of Lammermoor " in my boyhood), but the angels themselves might regard the spectacle of one who is a good woman at bottom (though over fertile, perhaps), stuck up like a scarecrow against the wall of a crowded ball-room from 10 p.m. till 4 a.m., with compassionate pity. She sits there like a Turkey merchant with her merchandise about her. Some of the wares, it may be, are rather the worse tor wear; even the newest was fresher last winter than this. "O, public dear, will you not come and buy ? This is Milly, my eldest born; she is not bright; but she is good, which is far better." And bo till dawn the weary auction goes on; a comedy surely, not quite destitute of pathos to the contemplative beholder! She is a good woman, I say, and yet sore necessity has driven her to this. She is fain to dress her daughters like ballet-dancers, to trot them out like young fillie3 that possible purchasers may become acquainted with their paces, to offer them without remorse or shame in the public market. And y=t it is all in vain. Buyers are shy. This is not the sort of juxtaposition which begets love. In the crowd of a ball-room one girl looks exactly like another— white muslin and false flowers being wonderful levellers —and even a clever girl cannot show that she ha« either heart or brains when going at the rate of an express train. My dear madam, be off to your nice old place in the midland countie», dress your daughters like decent women, ask down half-a-dozen honest young fello'irs to the house; let them see that the girls are sensible, kindly, clever, good-humoured, •well-disposed, making their own home bright and cheerful, and able to carry the same pleasant light into another, and I am ready to answer for the result. Men are willing enough to marry, but they like to maTry with their eyes open and knowing what they are about; and, under the present system, a man about town who ventures to ask bis partner at a waltz to become his partner for life knowi about as much of her as he knows about Columbine in the pantomime and often a good deal less. Here, indeed, as elsewhere, one great difficulty is to bring the right people together. In tbe country we have no pleasant habitual unambitious social intercourse like that which I have seen in some foreign cities. There when a man meets a girl who attracts hirn, he has no difficulty in meeting her next day or the next, under circumstances which make it posii- I ble for him to ascertain what kiud of girl she it. If the lady be worth nothing this sort of intercourse is undoubtedly dangerous, for the glamour wears »ff; but upon the whole it is better that disenchantment should precede rather than follow marriage. In this country a young fellow seldom enjoys such opportunities, except with his cousinß, and your cousin* are awfully nice, no doubt, but you don't marry them. He meet 3 a charming girl at dinner to-day—he finds her clever, unaffected, pretty —he vows that phe is the very woman he is seeking for, and then he bids her " good night," and does not see her again for six month?) or if be does it is at fome awful "crush," where they are as much apait as if the Atlantic divided them. But even the man who meets a pleasant comely girl in a ball-room every night of the seaso™ may well pause before he commits himself irretrievably. He sees that she weara a preposterously long drefs which costs over 60 much a ynrd, that she carries a bouquet of rare exotics, ? f hat her jew els are worth a ransom. Prudence Inevitably suggests— " Bow can a plain man afford to keep such a brilliant creature ? T might maintain a chimpanzse or a. boa-constrictor; but a bird of paradise who spends £1000 a-year on feathers would very speedily drive me into the Gazette." Nor is this the worst view of the position of the unfortunate mail who is willing, on reasonable terms to enter into the holy alliance. A man could never be sure that the mental and spiritual graces of hi-- future wife, corresponded, in all r6spects with the ideal which he had formed. There was always a risk that he had deceived himojlf, or been deceived, about such matters as truthfulness, honesty, integrity, kindness, tenderness, lovp, But he might feel sure at least that he had mado no mistake about the face—that if, for instance, he bargained for a brunette, a brunette he would get, and that the luxuriant tresses of his Jumeie, were by nature of that golden tinge about which he had raved ever since—he full in love with the mistress of Paul Veronese. But all these, securities have been sw«pt away—like the securities against the household suffrage. Dye and enamel, and powder and rouge, work stranger metamorphoses than the enchantments of Circe. The infatuated swain weds his brunette, and next morning an undeniable blonde appears at the breakfast table. The golden curls have vanished, and ]o! Evelyn's pale cheeks and pensive eyes are set in a sombre frame of blue-black hair—a raven's wing.— Fraser't Magazine.