The Wilmingtonian, And Delaware Advertiser

THE LADIES' FRIEND.

CHANCES OF FEMALE HAPPINESS.

Let us suppose the happier case of a young woman, who from beauty and fortune, is sure to receive offers—that is to say, who will attract fools or sharpers, and be taken as a necessary appendage of her face or her purse. Even here how little selection is allowed to her,—she may reject one; perhaps two; but if the third be merely free from positive objections, prudence urges his acceptance, relations second prudence, and she marries a man because he affords her no good excuse for hating him. The Circassians of Europe have little more choice than their namesakes of Asia. "The happy pair" begin by committing a great mistake; they withdraw themselves from the world to spend the honey moon together; familiarity produces its usual effects; they see too much of one another at first. and the results are exhaustion and ennui.

She who marries an idler who will hang upon her society till he is wearied, and then seek recreation elsewhere, has not so many chances of happiness as the woman whose husband is compelled to tear himself from her company for his duties, and gladly returns to it for his enjoyments.

A man's love generally diminishes after marriage, while a woman's increases: both of which results might have been anticipated.—We hear of rosy fetters, the silken chains of love, the soft yoke of Hymen; but who is to bear the soul-grinding bondage of dislike, contempt, hatred? How is a woman to avoid these feelings if she be maltreated and insulted? and who has she to redress her wrongs? The laws, made by the men, and therefore flagrantly in their own favor, provide no remedy; if she use her sole weapon, the tongue, she is proclaimed a scold, shrew, and reminded of the ducking-stool: if she makes his own house uncomfortable to her husband, every body's else is open to receive him: and his friends exclaim—“Poor man he has been driven to this by a bad wife!” if the deserted and injured woman. in the meantime. seeks relief from her sorrows in the most innocent recreation, Spite, with its argus eyes, keeps watch upon her door, and Calumny dogs her footsteps, hissing at her with its thousand tongues, and spitting out lies and poison from every one. Let no man choose me for umpire in a conjugal dispute. I need not ask who is the delinquent—my heart has decided against him by anticipation.

Let us imagine, not a patient stockfish, like Griselda, but an accomplished woman, "paired, not matched," with a drone or a dunce who lounges all day long before the fire, spitting into it like a great roasted apple, or submitted to the caprices of a man who keeps his good temper for company, and his bad for his wife; abroad, as smiling and promising as a Siberian crab, while at home his heart's core is sour; or tormented with a profligate, who—But I must have done, although I have not half finished, for I have stretched the line to the crack of doom. When I consider all the hardships and trials to which the fair sex are subject by those unjust institutions of society, which exact the greatest strength from the weakest vessel, and reflect, moreover, that nature has unkindly imposed upon it all the pains and penalties of continuing the race, I can only say once more, that I thank Heaven for not having made me a woman.