eminent in
the political world, or as an author and scholar, or in military fame,
or for skill and success in his calling; or he shines in fashionable
society. The origin of this practice may sometimes be found in early
education. The parents are ambitious of elevating their daughter by
marriage. They awaken in her hopes and expectations above her condition
in life. They teach her, by their conversation and deportment, if not
directly, that her "being's end and aim" is to rise in the world.

The cases are frequent, in which a girl is encouraged to receive the
addresses of one, who is deficient in almost every quality requisite in
a good husband, merely because he is "a great man." A writer observes
that "love is our first toy, our second, display." But here this is
completely reversed. Display is the first toy; as for love, that is an
inferior consideration. You shall see a young woman led to barter
herself to a man who is ignorant, proud, selfish, and unkind. "Let the
person," says one, "be blind, lame, deformed, diseased, severe, morose,
vicious, old, or good for nothing, if the parents can but a little
advance their daughter above the quality or condition themselves have
lived in, the poor child must be made a living sacrifice, and probably
know no more happy days after the solemnization of her nuptials." We are
told that in Naples, it is not uncommon for a nobleman of decayed
fortune, to send his daughters to a nunnery, because his means will not
enable him to educate them for marriage in the highest circles of
society. The recent tragedy enacted in the city of Philadelphia, was a
mournful illustration of the dangers of parental ambition. A father had
toiled for years, to amass wealth for the purpose of introducing his
daughter to society in England, and elevating her to a high station in
that land. She married contrary to his wishes, and in his fiend-like
disappointment, wrought up to insanity, he actually murdered the victim
of his rage, his own child. Why will parents thus attempt to coerce the
chainless affections? Why should so many females consent to marry the
objects of their aversion, nay, sometimes, of their disgust, for the
sake of a name?

Woman has been known to marry from the love of Conquest, and the desire
to rule. The female heart is susceptible of the love of power, and one
may seek, or consent to join herself to, a husband, for the sake of
having a subject, over whom continually to reign. We are