eople did all the
courting there was done, which was not much. When a young man desired
a wife, a helpmeet was selected for him by casting lots among the
marriageable young ladies of the community, and the young man was
obliged to abide by the decision, it being supposed that Providence
controlled the selection. We are not prepared to say that the young
man ran any greater risk of getting an uncongenial or undesirable life
companion by this mode of selection than by the more modern modes in
vogue among us.

As before remarked, we do not present these customs as illustrations
of what might be considered a proper mode of conducting the preliminary
steps of matrimonial alliances. On the contrary, we unhesitatingly
pronounce them decidedly objectionable on moral grounds if not on
others, and we can readily see that such unions must have been in many
cases exceedingly unsatisfactory.

In various other countries, marriage customs quite the opposite from
those described have been in vogue. In Irving's "Knickerbocker's
History of New York," a somewhat humorous account is given of a custom
which has prevailed in some parts of this country as well as others,
even within the memory of persons living at the present day, and is,
indeed, said to be not yet altogether obsolete in Finland. The author,
in dwelling upon the social customs of the early Dutch settlers of New
York, describes "a singular custom prevalent among them, commonly known
by the name of _bundling_,--a superstitious rite observed by the young
people of both sexes, with which they usually terminated their
festivities, and which was kept up with religious strictness by the
more bigoted part of the community. This ceremony was likewise, in those
primitive times, considered as an indispensable preliminary to
matrimony, their courtships commencing where ours usually finish,--by
which means they acquired that intimate acquaintance with each other's
good qualities before marriage, which has been pronounced by
philosophers the sure basis of a happy union. Thus early did this
cunning and ingenious people display a shrewdness of making a bargain,
which has ever since distinguished them."

"To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the
unparalleled increase of the Yanokie or Yankee race; for it is a certain
fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that,
wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing
number of sturd