The Southerner (Tarboro', Edgecombe Co.,

CLIPPINGS.

WHOM MEN SHOULD MARRY.

By MRS. PEARSON.

If you are a mechanic, a farmer, or a follower of any profession by which you expect to support yourself and family, and get rich if you can, surely it is of the utmost importance that you should marry a woman capable of assisting you in your efforts. She should, therefore, be possessed of sense, goodness and industrious and frugal habits. Do not, therefore, suffer yourself to be dazzled by a tasty dress, or fall in love with a pretty face, or run crazy after accomplishments, though none of these are to be despised when accompanied with solid sense and useful acquirements. Suppose now, as you are just beginning life, you marry a young, pretty creature, who knows nothing of housekeeping or plain sewing. You must immediately hire one or more servants, and your wife will not be able to direct them, or even decide whether they are prudent and capable. Whereas, if you have the right kind of a woman, she will take pleasure in doing the little work which is required by two persons, and will always be neat and cheerful at the same time. Thus you will save the wages and board, and the waste of a hireling who in so small a family is a useless and troublesome supernumerary. Your wife will be more healthy and cheerful for the light labor and care of her little household, and depend upon it an experienced wife does better than an inexperienced servant. So take a woman's advice every man of you who earns his living by the labor of his head or hands, and expect of your wife the performance of the little labors of your household. It will not injure her health or impair her beauty, but it will save her from a thousand evil imaginings; it will prevent her polluting her soul with the vile trash of novelists, with which idleness is fain to kill the precious hours of existence; it will prevent her becoming a gadler and a scandal monger; it will keep disorder and waste from your kitchen, and sorrow and shame from your soul. Meantime it will be your duty to make her your confidant in all things. Tell her of your success. Her joy will make it doubly precious to you. Tell her of your trials, rebuffs and disappointments; her sweet sympathy and gentle words of hope and cheer will take all pain and bitterness from your heart. Every sorrow thus shared will strengthen the bond of love, and knit your hearts more intimately together, and in the perfect confidence of such a blessed union, you lean upon each other, and know no fear, no bitter grief. Suffer no ridiculous pride to induce you to assume the appearance of wealth, which you do not possess. Prove your independence and true nobility by living within your means, and letting the world know it. If you know a girl who will be to you such a wife as I have been recommending, you need not fear to marry at once. You will find the expenses of your household less than you now pay for the cold and solitary comforts of bachelorship. And there are plenty of girls, who notwithstanding false educational theories, will feel happy and honored to fill this true woman's sphere at your side. Active duty is ever agreeable, when it has a worthy object. We enjoy self-respect, a sense of our own importance in the world, an inward approbation in the discharge of our duty, which when crowned by the loving approval of our dearest friends, constitutes the most perfect happiness. Therefore if you would desire to have your wife good and happy, make her your confidant and assistant, and be assured you will soon find yourself prosperous and possessing a fullness of content, which is far better than passionate and fluctuating happiness.

Can there be anything more deplorable, more contemptible, than the too common hypocritical misery of keeping up appearance? And how many are condemned to this constant struggle, deception and fear, by assuming a false position at the commencement. And what did these persons ever gain by their abject slavery to caste. Merely the passing notice of a few fashionables, who, doubtless, sneered at the pretensions which they tolerated. By daring to appear what you really are, you may command the respect of all classes. By assuming to be what you are not, will bring upon yourself the hatred of those whom you look down upon, and the contempt of those whose society you affect. Is it not the extreme of folly to sacrifice independence, self-respect and home comfort that you may be called on by fashionably dressed persons, and by such recognized in the street, when by this course you forfeit the respect of every sensible person. It is really distressing to see a care-worn man toiling all day and deep into night, that his wife and daughters may be fashionably attired and live in genteel idleness. This kind of conjugal happiness is confined exclusively to cities and little upstart villages. In the country, people live rationally. When a girl becomes a wife, she expects to keep her husband's house and assist him in getting a living. And country parents are in no haste to have their girls married, because they are the beauty, the sunshine of their home and, valuable assistants in all the labors of life.

Now boys, I am not a going to say do not marry out of your sphere or class. Classes do not make people, though they form habits. If you know an agreeable, a sensible, and amiable girl, who is willing to take you for what you are, and accommodate herself to such a mode of life as your income warrants, take her and be happy; but beware how you deceive her. If you woo her under false colors, if you permit her to deem you that which you are not, and promise what you are not able to perform, and so win her deceitfully you will richly deserve all the miseries that follow. When you see your wife disappointed and weeping; when you hear her complaints and upbraidings and feel that she despises you as a foul deceiver, what can you reply? A woman will forgive a man almost any sin but deception. A deceiver she can neither honor, trust, or love. Therefore use no concealments. If a young lady refuse to marry you on account of your pecuniary circumstances, let her go; she does not love you. Surely you would not deceive such a one into becoming your wife? If you do, and live miserably, or drudge yourself to death to maintain the appearance of her accustomed rank, why you are a poor poltroon, a slave, a very fool. And it is your own fault. Never marry a girl who is ashamed to be seen engaged in any useful and suitable employment. Flee from the girl who sits toying in the parlor, while her mother drudges in the kitchen as you would from the leprosy. She has neither heart nor soul. She will never care how hard you toil to support her selfish idleness. Once more I conjure you, if you must make your own fortune by mental or manual labor, to seek a wife who will assist you by cheerful labor, her gentle sympathy and judicious advice. If you cannot find such an one live an old bachelor, and be as sour and surly as you please. Better so than be burdened with a proud, silly, and unreasonable wife and children of her training.

So says a woman.