Further, do not unite in marriage with a man of bad habits in the idea
of reforming him. If now, under the restraint of your present
acquaintance, he will not give up his bad habits, after he has won the
prize you cannot expect him to do so. You might as well plant a violet
in the face of a northeast storm with the idea of appeasing it. You
might as well run a schooner alongside of a burning ship with the idea
of saving the ship. The consequence will be, schooner and ship will be
destroyed together.
The almshouse could tell the story of a hundred women who married men
to reform them. If by twenty-five years of age a man has been grappled
by intoxicants, he is under such headway that your attempt to stop him
would be very much like running up the track with a wheelbarrow to
stop a Hudson River express train. What you call an inebriate nowadays
is not a victim to wine or whiskey, but to logwood and strychnine and
nux vomica. All these poisons have kindled their fires in his tongue
and brain, and all the tears of a wife weeping cannot extinguish the
flames. Instead of marrying a man to reform him, let him reform first,
and then give him time to see whether the reform is to be permanent.
Let him understand that if he cannot do without his bad habits for two
years he must do without you forever.