providing
for himself. Even the barbarous natives of Patagonia show an equal
degree of good sense, the chief of each tribe requiring that every young
man who wishes to marry shall first prove himself competent to provide
for a family, having attained the requisite degree of proficiency in
hunting and fishing, and having possessed himself of at least two horses
and the necessary equipments.

In this country,--a civilized, so-called Christian country, blessed
with all the enlightenment of the nineteenth century, what do we see?
Instead of any regulation of the sort, the utmost indifference to such
clearly important considerations. If young people profess to love each
other and wish to marry, no one of their friends thinks of asking, "How
are they going to live after they are married? Has the young man a trade?
Has the young lady been so educated as to be self-sustaining if
necessary? Has the young man a home or the wherewithal to obtain one?
Has he a good situation, with prospects of being able to support his
wife comfortably and provide for a family?" These, or similar questions
are sometimes asked, but little respect is paid to them by any one,
least of all by the young people themselves, who ought to be most
interested. The minister never inquires respecting the propriety of
the wedding at which he is to officiate, and invokes the blessings of
Heaven upon a union which, for aught he knows, may be the grossest
violation of immutable laws, Heaven-implanted in the constitution of
the human race. The friends tender their congratulations and wishes
of "much joy," when in three cases out of four the conditions are such
that a preponderance of grief is an inevitable certainty, and "much
joy" an utter impossibility.

There are exceptions to all general rules; but it is a fact of which
almost any one may convince himself that a man or a woman seldom rises
much higher than the level reached at marriage. If a young man has no
trade then, it is more than probable that he will never be master of
one. If he has not fitted himself for a profession, he will most likely
never attain to such a rank in society. He will, in all probability,
be a common laborer, living "from hand to mouth," with nothing laid
by for a rainy day.

A wag says that a young couple just married, and for the first time
awakened to the full consciousness of the fact that they must provide
for themselves or starve, held the following dialogue: Husband. "Well,
w