OLD MAIDS AND WIVES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1862, 29 July 1887, Page 32

OLD MAIDS AND WIVES.

(Continued.)

You may tell me that a woman with a brain and sufficient perception to know how to use it, and will power strong enough to carry her along life's road, is freer, happier, and more independent than a wife whose will must be subservient to her husband's, whose liberty is restricted by the restraints of wifehood, and that the study of a painted cherub is very much more interesting than the contemplation of a tired live baby with its mouth wide open in an emphatic squeal and its little knuckles digging away at its tear-stained eyes. True, you can hang your picture in your quiet room and be undisturbed, but it is some recompense to the tired mother when her baby falls asleep on her breast with its little hand laid trustingly on her neck.

I very much doubt if the happiest of unmarried women have n.ot had hours when they would part with their projects and plans, their theories and industries, for the natural joys of a wife and mother, even with their attendant anxieties and sorrows. Every thorn has a rose ; yet in spite of the many finger pricks the rose is still loved. Marriage has its perils, its risks, and griefs ; yet so long as true love — always young and fresh in hope and faith — so long as this exists in the world men and women will marry. Sad records there are in which lives have been blighted and hearts broken and disastrous consequences ensued from marriage ; but this does not prove that the unmarried state is the best. It only proves that marriage was unwise through some disparity or unsuitability of temperament, and that matches made thoughtlessly, ignorantly, avariciously, or for any reason whatsoever but for reasonable and true love are sure, sooner or later, one way or another, to bring forth ill. Hundreds of happy wedded lives can testify to the fact that marriage is a state of great

happiness— not from the silly boy and girl lover point of view, in which it is pictured as one round of eternal sunshine and roses ; but from thoughtful men and women's standpoint, from which the world with its labour is clearly seen and understood — not as in a fairy tale, but accepted with its vast capabilities and responsibilities, and joy compared with joy and. pleasure with pleasure. If girls fill their minds with silly ideas of love and marriage they are not making preparations for their destiny, but by a quiet earnest fulfilment of the duties now nearest to them they are preparing themselves for their future life whatever it may be.

It is right for every one to have some aim in life, bub some aims are so high that the enthusiast keeps the eyes so intently fixed upon the height desired to be attained that a thousand duties are passed by on the way — a thousand blessings that have never been seen; and when the height is at length reached — if ever — it is found barren and cold. So many a woman &o\ild say, who, with some high ideal life in view, has passed by, doubtless, with self-sacrifice the lowlier joys of life, blind till too late to the fact that the hii/Jiest duty is the marest duty. I am not saying that girls should have marriage in their mind as the only sphere of usefulness and happiness, I am rather advocating that every sphere of usefulness is fitting a girl for wife and motherhood. The girl who indulges in love dreams to the neglect of her brothers and father and the little ones at home is scarcely the girl that will make a good wife. For wifehood is not all pleasure. So many are the demands on patience, faithfulness, and goodness that a woman who can reign through along wedded life as queen of her husband and children's home has won a crown no scholarship can give her. Marriage where two are really wedded heart arid mind is capable of fulfilling a woman's highest hopes, no matter howambitious she may be to shine. Her name may never be heard outside her own social sphere, but within that circle there is ample room for a display of all the womanly graces. By her influence she can guide and consolecheer and encourage ; and it seems to me no woman can desire a loftier occupation than in training lver children to noble man and womanhood.

Providence never made a mistake in any of its works, and marriage was designed. The blunder is hot in marriage, but in the choice of partners. Before one can fully learn the attributes that constitute a fitting mate, the tastes must be formed and the disposition decided. This fact seems an argument against very early marriages, for the reason that although there is a chance of the two minds growing together there is also a chance of their verging apart. Love is a great teacher — a great strengthener ; and those whom God has blessed with the gift should be able to do and accomplish more than those to whom it has not been vouchsafed. Yet we often see cases in which the happiest lives are the weakest and most selfish lives.

Be worthy a good man's love, and to be worthy thus, girls, you must be good daughters, sisters, and friends. Make no plan for the future that necessitates the neglect of the little duties of to-day, for, as I cannot too often repeat, that which you should do lies closest to you. No girl can neglect the mother whose love she does know to fit herself for the man whose love she does not know. The son whose heart is not moved by his mother's feebleness and old age will soon cease to respond to the beauty and sweetness of his bride's youth.