Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/173

Rh alluded to here, are productive of much unhappiness. From their bewildering dream, a young couple, who have unwisely rushed into marriage before either of them was old enough really to understand what love meant, not unfrequently awake, in the course of a very short time, to the painful consciousness that they have wedded unwisely. If in the mind of each is a groundwork of good sense and good feeling, the consequences may not be so very bad, although through life there will be times when each will deeply and sadly regret their early act of folly. But in numerous cases, either in one or the other, there exists a peculiarity of temperament that entirely mars the happiness of both. Open disagreements or secret bickerings turn the holy and happy state of marriage into a condition of inexpressible misery, the larger share of which usually falls upon the head of the one least able to bear it—the wife. Or actual hatred of one towards the other is engendered, and they are driven asunder, and stand in society as the disfigured and disfiguring mementoes of the folly of a too percipitateprecipitate [sic] marriage.

When, however, a young lady has reached the age we have named, and a man, known to be virtuous and honorable, has formally offered her his hand, and been accepted, the marriage