The relative age of man and wife has another influence, and quite a curious one. It influences the sex of the children. But this point we reserve for discussion on a later page.
The folly of joining a young girl to an old man is happily not so common in America as in Europe. It would be hard to devise any step more certain to bring the laws of nature and morality into conflict.
'What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?'
What advice can we give to a woman who barters her youthful charms for the fortune of an aged husband? Shall we be cynical enough to agree with 'auld Auntie Katie?'
'My auld Auntie Katie upon me takes pity;
I'll do my endeavor to follow her plan:
I'll cross him, and rack him, until I heart-break him,
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.'
No! She has willingly accepted a responsibility. It is her duty to bear it loyally, faithfully, uncomplainingly to the end.
Let us sum up with the maxim, that the husband should be the senior, but that the difference of age should not be more than ten years.
WHAT SHOULD BE HIS TEMPERAMENT?
It is often hard to make out what doctors mean by temperaments. It is supposed that our mental and physical characters depend somehow on the predominance of some organ or system which controls the rest. Thus a person who is nervous, quick, sensitive to impressions, is said to have a nervous temperament; one who is stout, full-blooded, red-faced, has a sanguine temperament; a thin, dark-featured, reticent person, is of a bilious temperament; while a pale, fat, sluggish nature, is called phlegmatic, or lymphatic.
In a general way these distinctions are valuable, but they will not bear very exact applications. They reveal in outline the constitution of mind and body; and what is to our present purpose, they are of more than usual importance in the question of selecting a husband.