Titcomb's Letters to Young People Single and Married

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...on these, for they are the only reliable things. Misfortune may deal harshly with these, but that is the business of Providence. I fancy one reply that may be made to all this wise talk. Women practically have comparatively little choice in the matter. They grow up from the cradle with the idea that it is a horrible thing to live and die an old maid. That, in the minds of half the girls, is the most terrible thing in all the world. They can abide anything better than that. So they feel a kind of obligation to jump at the first offer, they are so much afraid they shall never have another. Let them remember that a mismated match is much worse than an unmated life. I believe that marriage is the true condition, and that no man or woman can fully enjoy life unmarried; but I know they will be more unhappy if they are badly matched than if not matched at all. But women have more choice than they think, and would have still more than they do, if their intercourse with young men were placed upon the basis indicated in my last letter. Most young women study the character of men but little, because they have but little opportunity. They see comparatively few, and, through the character of their intercourse, know them very incompletely. It is a sin and a shame that young women enjoy such inferior opportunities of learning the character of young men, --of weighing, comparing, and judging them. It is a shame that they have no more opportunities for a choice. My own wife very fortunately got an excellent husband, but it is something for which she is to be grateful to an overruling Providence, for her own knowledge had very little to do with it. I could have cheated her beyond all account. I tell you, men want studyiny for some years, before you find them out, .