Part 40

6. THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY AND THE LAW GOVERNING MARRIAGE are for the protection of the individual, yet a man and woman may be married by law and yet unmarried in spirit. The law may tie together, and no marriage be consummated. Marriage therefore is Divine, and "whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." A right marriage means a right state of the heart. A careful study of this work will be a great help to both the unmarried and the married.

7. DESERTION AND DIVORCE.--For a young man to court a young woman, and excite her love till her affections are riveted, and then (from sinister motives, such as, to marry one richer, or more handsome), to leave her, and try elsewhere, is the very same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth--to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. First love is always constant. The second love brings uncertainty--too often desertions before marriage and divorces after marriage.

8. THE COQUET.--The young woman to play the coquet, and sport with the sincere affections of an honest and devoted young man, is one of the highest crimes that human nature can commit. Better murder him in body too, as she does in soul and morals, and it is the result of previous disappointment, never the outcome of a sincere first love.

9. ONE MARRIAGE. One evidence that second marriages are contrary to the laws of our social nature, is the fact that almost all step-parents and step-children disagree. Now, what law has been broken, to induce this penalty? The law of marriage; and this is one of the ways in which the breach punishes itself. It is much more in accordance with our natural feelings, especially those of mothers, that children should be brought up by their own parent.

10. SECOND MARRIAGE.--Another proof of this point is, that second marriage is more a matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children." "It's a bargain," is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, as to second marriage.

11. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.--Let this portion be read and pondered, and also the one entitled, "Marry your First Love if possible," which assigns the cause, and points out the only remedy, of licentiousness. As long as the main cause of this vice exists, and is aggravated by purse-proud, high-born, aristocratic parents and friends, and even by the virtuous and religious, just so long, and exactly in the same ratio will this blighting Sirocco blast the fairest flowers of female innocence and lovliness, and blight our noblest specimens of manliness. No sin of our land is greater.

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FLIRTING AND ITS DANGERS.

1. NO EXCUSE.--In this country there is no excuse for the young man who seeks the society of the loose and the dissolute. There is at all times and everywhere open to him a society of persons of the opposite sex of his own age and of pure thoughts and lives, whose conversation will refine him and drive from his bosom ignoble and impure thoughts.

2. THE DANGERS.--The young man who may take pleasure in the fact that he is the hero of half a dozen or more engagements and love episodes, little realizes that such constant excitement often causes not only dangerously frequent and long-continued nocturnal emissions, but most painful affections of the testicles. Those who show too great familiarity with the other sex, who entertain lascivious thoughts, continually exciting the sexual desires, always suffer a weakening of power and sometimes the actual diseases of degeneration, chronic inflammation of the gland, spermatorrhoea, impotence, and the like.--Young man, beware; your punishment for trifling with the affections of others may cost you a life of affliction.

3. REMEDY.--Do not violate the social laws. Do not trifle with the affections of your nature. Do not give others countless anguish, and also do not run the chances of injuring yourself and others for life. The society of refined and pure women is one of the strongest safeguards a young man can have, and he who seeks it will not only find satisfaction, but happiness. Simple friendship and kind affections for each other will ennoble and benefit.

4. THE TIME FOR MARRIAGE.--When a young man's means permit him to marry, he should then look intelligently for her with whom he expects to pass the remainder of his life in perfect loyalty, and in sincerity and singleness of heart. Seek her to whom he is ready to swear to be ever true.

5. BREACH OF CONFIDENCE.--Nothing is more certain, says Dr. Naphey, to undermine domestic felicity, and sap the foundation of marital happiness, than marital infidelity. The risks of disease which a married man runs in impure intercourse are far more serious, because they not only involve himself, but his wife and his children. He should know that there is nothing which a woman will not forgive sooner than such a breach of confidence. He is exposed to the plots and is pretty certain sooner or later to fall into the snares of those atrocious parties who subsist on black-mail. And should he escape these complications, he still must lose self-respect, and carry about with him the burden of a guilty conscience and a broken vow.

6. SOCIETY RULES AND CUSTOMS.--A young man can enjoy the society of ladies without being a "flirt." He can escort ladies to parties, public places of interest, social gatherings, etc., without showing special devotion to any one special young lady. When he finds the choice of his heart, then he will be justified to manifest it, and publicly proclaim it by paying her the compliment, exclusive attention. To keep a lady's company six months is a public announcement of an engagement.

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A WORD TO MAIDENS.

1. NO YOUNG LADY who is not willing to assume the responsibility of a true wife, and be crowned with the sacred diadem of motherhood, should ever think of getting married. We have too many young ladies to-day who despise maternity, who openly vow that they will never be burdened with children, and yet enter matrimony at the first opportunity. What is the result? Let echo answer, What? Unless a young lady believes that motherhood is noble, is honorable, is divine, and she is willing to carry out that sacred function of her nature, she had a thousand times better refuse every proposal, and enter some honorable occupation and wisely die an old maid by choice.

2. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOUNG LADY, never enter into the physical relations of marriage with a man until you have conversed with him freely and fully on these relations. Learn distinctly his views and feelings and expectations in regard to that purest and most ennobling of all the functions of your nature, and the most sacred of all intimacies of conjugal love. Your self-respect, your beauty, your glory, your heaven, as a wife, will be more directly involved in his feelings and views and practices, in regard to that relation, than in all other things. As you would not become a weak, miserable, imbecile, unlovable and degraded wife and mother, in the very prime of your life, come to a perfect understanding with your chosen one, ere you commit your person to his keeping in the sacred intimacies of home. Beware of that man who, under pretence of delicacy, modesty, and propriety, shuns conversation with you on this relation, and on the hallowed function of maternity.

3. TALK WITH YOUR INTENDED frankly and openly. Remember, concealment and mystery in him, towards you, on all other subjects pertaining to conjugal union might be overlooked, but if he conceals his views here, rest assured it bodes no good to your purity and happiness as a wife and mother. You can have no more certain assurance that you are to be victimized, your soul and body offered up, slain on the altar of his sensualism, than his unwillingness to converse with you on subjects so vital to your happiness. Unless he is willing to hold his manhood in abeyance to the calls of your nature and to your conditions, and consecrate its passions and its powers to the elevation and happiness of his wife and children, your maiden soul had better return to God unadorned with the diadem of conjugal and maternal love than that you should become the wife of such man and the mother of his children.

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POPPING THE QUESTION.

1. MAKING THE DECLARATION.--There are few emergencies in business and few events in life that bring to man the trying ordeal of "proposing to a lady." We should be glad to help the bashful lover in his hours of perplexity, embarrassment and hesitation, but unfortunately we cannot pop the question for him, nor give him a formula by which he may do it. Different circumstances and different surroundings compel every lover to be original in his form or mode of proposing.

2. BASHFULNESS.--If a young man is very bashful, he should write his sentiments in a clear, frank manner on a neat white sheet of note paper, enclose it in a plain white envelope and find some way to convey it to the lady's hand.

3. THE ANSWER.--If the beloved one's heart is touched and she is in sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue friendly but not familiar.

4. SAYING "NO" FOR "YES."-If girls are foolish enough to say "No" when they mean "Yes," they must suffer the consequences which often follow. A man of intelligence and self-respect will not ask a lady twice. It is begging for recognition and lowers his dignity, should he do so. A lady is supposed to know her heart sufficiently to consider the question to her satisfaction before giving an answer.

5. CONFUSION OF WORDS AND MISUNDERSTANDING.--Sometimes a man's happiness, has depended on his manner of popping the question. Many a time the girl has said "No" because the question was so worded that the affirmative did not come from the mouth naturally; and two lives that gravitated toward each other with all their inward force have been thrown suddenly apart, because the electric keys were not carefully touched.

6. SCRIPTURAL DECLARATION.--The church is not the proper place to conduct a courtship, yet the following is suggestive and ingenious.

A young gentleman, familiar with the Scriptures, happening to sit in a pew adjoining a young lady for whom he conceived a violent attachment, made his proposal in this way. He politely handed his neighbor a Bible open, with a pin stuck in the following text: Second Epistle of John, verse 5: