s established, to raise
portions, and procure comfortable matches for young maidens who are
destitute. In their favor, is the circumstance that the habits are then
less established, and the parties may more easily conform to one
another, than afterward. Nor is prejudice then so strong, nor opinion so
inflexible, as in later manhood. The husband and wife can hence educate
one another better, than if their marriage had occurred late in life. It
was for these, and for prudential reasons, that Dr. Franklin recommended
early marriages.

On the other hand, it cannot be questioned, that young ladies are often
engaged, and sometimes married too early, before their school education
is completed, or their judgment matured. The mother is, perhaps, anxious
to marry her daughters "off her hands," and, moved by a miserable
ambition, she and they, lest she be later in her engagement than some
companion, consent to her being sacrificed on the first offer, be it
what it may. Hence come those fatal alliances, in which "a six month's
acquaintance after marriage, transforms the beau ideal into a fool, or a
coxcomb; and the happy couple, to use an expression of Lady
Blessington's, have to 'pay for a month of honey, with a life of
vinegar.'" Circumstances should affect a predetermination on this point,
yet where they are balanced, she is the wiser, who postpones a
matrimonial connection, until her age, and her preparation for it,
indicate its propriety.

Chapter X.

THE SOCIETY OF YOUNG MEN.

Importance of right views on this point. We cannot banish all
thoughts of love. The opposite extreme. Regard not every one as a
lover. Two errors in the society of gentlemen. Forwardness. The
poet's caution. Undue reserve. The happy medium attainable. Should
know a variety of gentlemen. The acquaintances of Brothers.

No period of life is more decisive of a female's character, than that at
which she enters the society of the opposite sex, as a woman. Her
manners and conversation at that time usually do much to determine her
condition for life. The IDEAL which she carries with her into the world,
becomes the presiding star of her destiny. On her general estimate of
man, and the views she entertains of his sex, every thing now depends.
If she can penetrate character, and has resolution to form high
purposes, blessed is her lot.

First, then, I cannot join with those who advise a young lady to banish
entirely from her mind every t