In entering upon this most important and delightful relation, we men
are expected to take the overt initiative. You are perplexed and
grieved that so many of us hold back, and wander about, homeless
bachelors all our lives, leaving you to die old maids.
Let me whisper in your ear.
We are afraid of you!
As I am out of the matrimonial market, I will let my friend Robert,
who is in said market, explain.
Robert is a splendid fellow, and dying to have a home of his own. He
declared in my parlor the other evening, that he would prefer ten
years of happy married life to fifty years of this nothing and
nowhere.
My wife said, "Well, Robert, if you cannot find a wife, you had
better give a commission to somebody who can." With a flushed face;
he replied:--
"Now see here, Mrs. Lewis, I am a banker; my salary is two thousand
dollars. I cannot marry a scrub. I must marry a wife with manners,
one who knows what's what. My mother and sisters, to say nothing of
myself, would break their hearts if my choice were below their idea.
Just tell me how, with such a wife, I could pull through on two
thousand a year? Why, her dress alone would cost half of it. Board
for the two would cost at least fifty dollars a week, and even with
that, you know, we should not get first-class board.
"And then there are the extras,--the little trips, the lectures,
the concerts, the operas, etc.; one cannot live in society without a
little of such things.
"Oh no, unless I first make up my mind to rob the bank, I cannot
think of matrimony. If I had five thousand a year I would venture;
but with two thousand,--well, I am not quite a madman, and so I
stay where I can pay my debts.
"My lady friends think I am so much in love with the--Club that I
have no time for them. One of them said to me the other day, when we
were discussing this matter,--
"'Why, what you spend in that miserable club, would support a wife,
easy.'
"'It wouldn't pay for her bonnets,' I replied."
Now ladies, Robert is getting extravagant, so we will let him
retire, and I will go on with my little sermon. I do not often
preach, but in this case, nothing but a sermon will do.