" No; and, while there comes a
curse upon her union--whilst in the long, long evenings, in the cold
Spring mornings, and in the still Summer days, she feels that all worth
living for is gone, while she is surrounded by all her body wants--her
example is corrupting others. The scorned lover, who was rejected
because he was poor, goes away to curse woman's fickleness and to marry
some one whom he can not love; and the thoughtless girls, by whom the
glitter of fortune is taken for the real gold of happiness, follow the
venal example, and flirt and jilt till they fancy that they have secured
a good match.
Many women, after they have permanently attached a husband of this sort,
sit down, with all the heroism of martyrs, to try to love the man they
have accepted, but not chosen. They find it a hard, almost an impossible
task. Then comes the moment so bitterly predicted by Milton, who no
doubt drew from his own feeling and experience, when he put into the
mouths of our first parents the prophecy that either man should never
find the true partner of his choice, or that, having found her, she
should be in possession of another. This is far too often true, and can
not fail to be the source of a misery almost too bitter to be long
endured.
It says much for our Anglo-Saxon wives that their constancy has passed
into many proverbs. When a woman really loves the man who marries her,
the match is generally a happy one; but, even where it is not, the
constancy of the wife's affection is something to be wondered at and
admired.
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