Occupations > Frugal housewife

154 HINTS TO PERSONS OF
would abandon the false and dangerous
theory. What a lesson is taught a girl in
that sentence, “Let her enjoy herself all she
can, while she is single!” Instead of repre¬
senting domestic life as the gathering-place
of the deepest and purest affections ; as the
sphere of woman’s enjoyments as well as of
her duties; as, indeed, the whole world to
her; that one pernicious sentence teaches
a girl to consider matrimony desirable, be¬
cause a “ good match ” is a triumph of
vanity, and it is deemed respectable to be
“ well settled in the world but that it is
a necessary sacrifice of her freedom and her
gaiety. And then how many affectionate
dispositions have been trsETned into heart¬
lessness, by being taught that the indulgence
of indolence and vanity were necessary to
their happiness; and that to have this in¬
dulgence, they must marry money! But who
that marries for money, in this land of pre¬
carious fortunes, can tell how soon they will
lose the glittering temptation, to which they
have been willing to sacrifice so much ?
And even if riches last as long as life, the
evil is not remedied. Education has given
a wrong end and aim to their whole exist¬
ence ; they have been taught to look for
happiness where it never can be found, viz.
in the absence of all occupation, or the
unsatisfactory and ruinous excitement of
fashionable competition.