The New Hampshire Gazette

OF MARRIAGE.

THERE is one step more to make your life
comfortable, and to advance your fortune,
and that is, well to dispose of yourself in marriage! certainly a business which requireth grave
consideration.
Ride not post for your match, if you do you
may in the period of your journey, take sorrow
for your inn, and make repentance your host.
If you marry, espouse a virtuous person; a
celebrated beauty, like a fair, draweth chapmen
from all parts.
Make choice of a wife by the ears, not the
eyes.
He that in the choice of a wife doth believe
the report of his sight, is like him, who, telling
out the portion in his thoughts: takes the woman
upon content not examining her condition,
or whether he be fit for him.
I would not advise you to marry a woman
for her beauty; for beauty is like summer fruits
which are apt to corrupt and not lasting.
Never marry so much for a great living as a
good life; yet a fair wife without a portion, is
like a brave house without furniture; you may
please yourself with the prospect, but there's
nothing within to keep you warm.
Si vis nubere, pare; those weddings are the
happiest, where the parties are first matched before
they marry. If a man marries a woman
much superior to himself, he is not so truly
husband to his wife, as he is unawares made
slave to their portion.
Be sure you love her person better than her
estate: for he who marrieth where he doth not
love, will be sure to love where he doth not
marry, and love without ends hath no end.