Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/171

Rh in that most important of all the acts of a woman’s life—marriage? There is none, and the fact that the saddest possible mistakes are made almost every day, ought to warn, if proper reflection will not, a young lady against the error of permitting her affections to be drawn out before at least two years have passed from the time of her leaving school as a young woman. Usually, she has it in her power to do this.

Marriage from the age of twenty to twenty-two or three, we think an early marriage for a woman, and believe that evils almost always arise from an earlier consummation of a marriage contract. Mr. Combe is of opinion, “that many young people of both sexes fall sacrifices to early marriages, who might have withstood the ordinary risks of life, and lived together in happiness, if they had delayed their union for a few years, and allowed time for the consolidation of their constitutions.” And this must strike every reflecting mind as true, without the necessity of looking round to see the hundreds of young mothers with shattered constitutions, lingering over the grave, or sinking down into its chilling precincts. Neither physical nor mental health can follow a marriage that takes place too early. It is almost impossible to make a right choice, and the