XII. On Engagements and on Being Engaged

Chalepon to mae philaesai
Chalepon de kai philaesai
--Anacreon.

Perhaps the pleasantest and most satisfactory period in a girl's life is
the time of her first youthful engagement:

Never is a girl more jubilant, never more buoyant, never so charming, so
blithesome, or so debonair, as when she is the gazetted about-to-be bride
of the man of her girlish choice. For

During her engagement, a girl is owned and petted; and
Ownership and petting are dear to women--whether young or old:

Ownership is proof, at all events, that she is of value to the man--else
the man would not sought to make her his; and

Petting is proof that the man properly appreciates the value. Yet
meanwhile, anomalous as it may sound,

The engaged girl is still her own property, and is practically free.
Besides,

What more delectable to a girl than to have captured and kept a real man?
This flatters her, uplifts her, makes of her a woman at once: she holds
her head higher she carries herself with an air; she shows off her
capture. Besides, also,

The engaged girl is looked up to by her compeers, is congratulated y her
elders. Even if she keeps the engagement secret, these compeers and
congratulatresses do not (sometimes, alas! To her detriment).--In
addition to all this,

What delight so unique as the preparation of the trousseau! 239
Trousseau!--'T is a name of mystical import to man.

A woman's trousseau is symbol of two things--and perhaps dimly indicative
of a third:

(i) it proves--what needs no proof--that, such is the unselfish nature
of Love, never can it give enough, never enhance too much the gifts it
gives. Accordingly the bride goes to the man appareled and bedecked to
the best of her ability;

(ii) It is a subtle tribute to the sensibility of man, of the man in
love, who is stimulated and pleased by dainty, it may be diaphanous,
raiment. Lastly, since even that supernal thing Love is not unconcerned
with matters practical,

(iii) It bespeaks as prophetic suspicion of the little fact that perhaps
it is well to go to her husband's home abundantly provided with dainty
raiment, inasmuch as the man not in love is not always so delicately
sensible of their need.

* * *

A girl's first engagement is peculiarly sweet: long does she remember,
long meditatively dwell upon, its pettiest incidents. For, if any man
dared give utterance to so outrageous an assumption,

Th