The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

The M O N I T O R.

MARRIAGE is an admirable institution, divinely calculated to promote love among individuals, and give permanency to the strength of a nation.--It may justly be called the band of society, without which all worthy affection would be loosened, refinement unknown, and virtue entirely exiled.

Preparatory to our entrance into other stations of honor, certain mental and virtuous qualifications are deemed indispensable; but into this, the most honourable and consequential of any, we enter without regard to integrity of heart, or equanimity of temper.

Hence the origin of that impurity, which pollutes the chief fountain of our happiness; and which, for the sake of method, I shall consider under the heads of avarice and dissimulation.

Against the influence of avarice in the determination of our choice, we cannot too carefully guard, as it always impairs, & frequently destroys esteem. It is a concentration of our affections to the object of our union only, that can produce the pure, fervent, and lasting flame of love.

The expectation of mutual amity should be the primary motive of this passion. Was this a settled rule, marriages would be truly honorable, infidelity would cease, and industry be powerfully promoted; mankind would then be stimulated by a noble motive to obtain wealth, and would esteem it, only, because it gave them the means to act disinterestedly.

Good temper is the vital principle of happy unions; so essential to the conciliating esteem, that even those who possess it not, deceitfully assume its appearance; and, by the gilded poison of dissimulation, allure artless sincerity into the snare that proves destructive to its peace--Strange! that mankind will embrace the appearance, and shun the reality; but they will not discontinue a practice that proclaims their minds impotent, inconstant and wicked: and entails a lasting disquiet on themselves, and the unhappy objects of their choice.