Early marriages are, in my opinion, a stop to improvement. If we were
born only “to draw nutrition, propagate and rot,” the sooner the end of
creation was answered the better: but as women are here allowed to have
souls, the soul ought to be attended to. In youth a woman endeavours to
please the other sex, in order, generally speaking, to get married, and
this endeavour calls forth all her powers. If she has had a tolerable
education, the foundation only is laid, for the mind does not soon
arrive at maturity, and should not be engrossed by domestic cares before
any habits are fixed. The passions also have too much influence over the
judgment to suffer it to direct her in this most important affair; and
many women, I am persuaded, marry a man before they are twenty, whom
they would have rejected some years after. Very frequently, when the
education has been neglected, the mind improves itself, if it has
leisure for reflection, and experience to reflect on; but how can this
happen when they are forced to act before they have had time to think,
or find that they are unhappily married? Nay, should they be so
fortunate as to get a good husband, they will not set a proper value on
him; he will be found much inferior to the lovers described in novels,
and their want of knowledge makes them frequently disgusted with the
man, when the fault is in human nature.
When a woman’s mind has gained some strength, she will in all
probability pay more attention to her actions than a girl can be
expected to do; and if she thinks seriously, she will chuse for a
companion a man of principle; and this perhaps young people do not
sufficiently attend to, or see the necessity of doing. A woman of
feeling must be very much hurt if she is obliged to keep her children
out of their father’s company, that their morals may not be injured by
his conversation; and besides, the whole arduous task of education
devolves on her, and in such a case it is not very practicable.
Attention to the education of children must be irksome, when life
appears to have so many charms, and its pleasures are not found
fallacious. Many are but just returned from a boarding-school, when they
are placed at the head of a family, and how fit they are to manage it, I
leave the judicious to judge. Can they improve a child’s understanding,
when they are scarcely out of the state of childhood themselves?
Dignity of manners, too, and proper reserve are often wanting. The
constant attendant on too much familiarity is contempt. Women are often
before marriage prudish, and afterwards they think they may innocently
give way to fondness, and overwhelm the poor man with it. They think
they have a legal right to his affections, and grow remiss in their
endeavours to please. There are a thousand nameless decencies which good
sense gives rise to, and artless proofs of regard which flow from the
heart, and will reach it, if it is not depraved. It has ever occurred to
me, that it was sufficient for a woman to receive caresses, and not
bestow them. She ought to distinguish between fondness and tenderness.
The latter is the sweetest cordial of life; but, like all other
cordials, should be reserved for particular occasions; to exhilarate the
spirits, when depressed by sickness, or lost in sorrow. Sensibility will
best instruct. Some delicacies can never be pointed out or described,
though they sink deep into the heart, and render the hours of distress
supportable.
A woman should have so proper a pride, as not easily to forget a
deliberate affront; though she must not too hastily resent any little
coolness. We cannot always feel alike, and all are subject to changes of
temper without an adequate cause.
Reason must often be called in to fill up the vacuums of life; but too
many of our sex suffer theirs to lie dormant. A little ridicule and
smart turn of expression, often confutes without convincing; and tricks
are played off to raise tenderness, even while they are forfeiting
esteem.
Women are said to be the weaker vessel, and many are the miseries which
this weakness brings on them. Men have in some respects very much the
advantage. If they have a tolerable understanding, it has a chance to be
cultivated. They are forced to see human nature as it is, and are not
left to dwell on the pictures of their own imaginations. Nothing, I am
sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle
with the world; and this is not a woman’s province in a married state.
Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into
her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little
arts engross and narrow her mind! “Cunning fills up the mighty void of
sense,” and cares, which do not improve the heart or understanding, take
up her attention. Of course, she falls a prey to childish anger, and
silly capricious humors, which render her rather insignificant than
vicious.
In a comfortable situation, a cultivated mind is necessary to render a
woman contented; and in a miserable one, it is her only consolation. A
sensible, delicate woman, who by some strange accident, or mistake, is
joined to a fool or a brute, must be wretched beyond all names of
wretchedness, if her views are confined to the present scene. Of what
importance, then, is intellectual improvement, when our comfort here,
and happiness hereafter, depends upon it.
Principles of religion should be fixed, and the mind not left to
fluctuate in the time of distress, when it can receive succour from no
other quarter. The conviction that every thing is working for our good
will scarcely produce resignation, when we are deprived of our dearest
hopes. How they can be satisfied, who have not this conviction, I cannot
conceive; I rather think they will turn to some worldly support, and
fall into folly, if not vice. For a little refinement only leads a woman
into the wilds of romance, if she is not religious; nay, more, there is
no true sentiment without it, nor perhaps any other effectual check to
the passions.