COURTSHIP AND MATRIMONY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4352, 2 March 1875, Page 3

COURTSHIP AND MATRIMONY.

(From the London Queen.) To young men honestly in love and respecting the woman - they sue, there is no limit to the homage.they will pay in the courting time. Their patience with girlish caprice is as boundless as their humility under girlish disdain. They stand cap in hand at the door of my lady’s bower, asking only the privilege of serving her, of making themselves her slave, her sacrifice; and they are repaid if their service is accepted end they are allowed to humiliate themselves with sufficient abasement. , No seamy side of imperious temper, of lordly will, of absolutism, jealousy, selfishness,, is allowed to show itself in the courtier’s triple-, pile velvet cloak. Everything is graceful, glad, contented, humble, and the suppleness of a devotion that apparently has no rugged places to conceal. All this is very delightful to women, and most believe it permanent. Very few accept it for what it is worth, as the natural and unintentional deception of the courting time, when the man, wishing to gain something, instinctively, puts on the appearance that will be the most effective, and holds out the lures that’ will bd the most attractive. Almost all believe it to be a, thing,that will lost, because it is a 'thing that is personal; homage paid, on .account , of . herself . and... her own exceeding virtues, not as the natural consequence of a state of feeling, and what would be the same to every one from every one—-love-making conditional not individual But the waking has to come, breaking in on the dreams of this courted and petted mistress, as it has to come, breaking. in on the golden glory of all dreams. Tire lover becomes the husband, the mistress finds her master, and the courtier’s cloak begins to show its seams. Human nature cannot live long at high pres-

sure, and the pressure of the courting time has been very high. Marriage brings things down to a lower level, and the natural temper and disposition, so long restrained, begin to reassert themselves, much to the girl’s terror and bewilderment when she sees her sceptre slipping from her hand, and is compelled to descend from heaven and earth.

Perhaps there is no more painful time in a woman’s life than this time of transition, when the assiduous lover is passing into the matter-of-fact husband, and the wooer is gradually changing into the master. Women, who are so much more sensitive than men, more sentimental too, and less content to trust in silence to an undemonstrative affection, are for the most part only happy while they are being; made to love to. It is not enough for them to be loved ; they want to be told so twenty times a day, and to have the harmonies of life enriched by a crowd of “oecasional notes,” embroidering the solid substance by which they live. Men, on the contrary, get tired of making love. When they have wooed and won, they are content to be quiet, and to take all the rest for granted. They are not cold, however, because they are secure ; and to most, and those the best, practical kindness is better than flattery, security ranks before excitement and hysteria, and life passed in serene friendship, fearing no evil, knowing no break, and needing no phrasing, is better than life passed in a perpetual turmoil of passion, where there are scenes and tears, and doubts and broken hearts, if there is not endless courtship and fatiguing demonstration. Now, the quiet trust is just the lesson women have to learn, and in learning which they make or mar the happiness of life. It has to come to all, save in those very few exceptional cases where the man is as much a woman as his wife,'and enjoys the parade of emotion. Fight against it as they will, the day has to dawn when the husband, preoccupied with certain grave; affairs in the office, forgets the little caress, passes by the lovebird name, ignores the small attention usually given or received—is, in fact, the man of business preoccupied and bothered, not the lover-like husband living only in the smiles of his darling. This day is the woman’s touchstone of trust and common sense. If she bears her disappointment tranquilly, she is safe ; if she weeps, sulks, remonstrates, obtrudes her caresses, though she makes good her position for the moment, she has lost ground for the future. She is no longer the placid, restful wife, whose presence soothes without a word, and whose love rejoices in its silent trust; she is the exigidnte mistress whose fancies have to bo attended to, no matter at what cost of mental suffering, and who cannot forego her usual offering of attention and adoration, even for the sake of the man she says she loves. He, on “his part, thinks that if she really loved him, she’ would take him as he is—she would not find it so difficult to efface herself in his hour of trial—and, rather than add to his burden by her demands, she would help him to bear that with which he is already weighted by her unselfishness and sympathy. Caresses and attentions, 1 and all the pretty follies of love, are for the idle hours and the cloudless sunshine, but the silent sweetness of married friendship is that for which men look in darl? days, and the treasure on which they rest. Why cannot women learn reliance ? they think. Why must they always need to be told again and again that which they already know, and begin to doubt so soon as they cease to hear ? This iis the first contest of nature in married life ; but it is one wherein, it the woman is wise, she will yield ’ without a murmur, and hide her disappointment as carefully as the Spartan boy hid his fox. Love-making is only an episode in the lives of men, if love is as much to men as to women, and friendship perhaps more. Women, on the contrary, would gladly prolong that love-making to the end of their days, and keep 1 the husband the wooer to the last. Married to ah undemonstrative temper, however warm and true a heart, they hold themselves aggrieved because they are only loved and not courted, only trusted and hot flattered. They look back with tearful regret to the time when it was their privilege to grant and he was content to sue, and they do not see why there should be so much difference between insecurity and certainty, the fervor of beseeching and the calmness of content. If. they are sillier‘than general, they try to spur him into the old fond demonstration by jealousy—to show him that if he despises, others honor, and that even marriage may have its broken fences and its dangerous issues. Sometimes the ruse succeeds, but at a cost far outweighing the gain ; sometimes it fails, maybe from the man’s simple trust and loyal faith ; when it has been before now that the foolish moth has drawn nearer and nearer to the candle, and has at last burnt her wings for ever, ruining her own life and his, because she liked the excitement of being made love to, and could not accept the quietness of marriage in lieu of the romance of courtship.