We may well grant that marriage must hold a more controlling share in a woman's life than in a man's, because she is anchored by her children as a man is not. Yet when we look round us and see the enormous number of cases where a woman either is never married, or is childless, or is left widowed, it is quite evident that there are for her in life other opportunities and duties, and therefore “chances,” besides those determined by marriage alone. And as to the risk involved in marriage, the more we reduce it to a minimum by care and judgment and good sense, the better. There is no surer preparation for misery, one would think, than to accustom a young girl to think of every offer of marriage as a “chance,” to be eagerly seized as a fish swallows the bait, without knowing who or what is at the other end of the fishing-rod.
So long as it is the custom of society for men to ask the momentous question and for women only to answer it-and this custom will probably last, in spite of certain philosophers, forever-so long there will be a little more clement of chance in the marriage relations of women than of men. A ballroom is in this respect a mimic world, and it is perfectly clear that the young lady who must sit still behind her bouquet and be asked has less control of
