If we are asked to be definite, and give figures, we should say that a period not longer than a year, nor shorter than three months, should intervene between the engagement and the marriage.
THE RIGHT TIME OF YEAR TO MARRY.
Woman, when she marries, enters upon a new life, and a trying one. Every advantage should be in her favour. The season is one of those advantages. Extreme heat and extreme cold both wear severely on the human frame. Mid-winter and mid-summer are, therefore, alike objectionable, especially the latter.
Spring and fall are usually chosen, as statistics show, and the preference is just. On the whole, the spring is rather to be recommended than the autumn. In case of a birth within the year, the child will have attained sufficient age to weather its period of teething more easily ere the next summer.
THE RIGHT TIME IN THE MONTH TO MARRY.
We mean the woman's own month, that which spans the time between her periodical sicknesses, be it two or five weeks. Let her choose a day about equidistant from two periods. The reasons for this we shall specify hereafter.
THE WEDDING TOUR.
Custom prescribes a journey immediately after marriage, of a week or a month or two. It is an unwise provision. The event itself is disturbance enough for the system; and to be hurried hither and thither, stowed in narrow berths and inconvenient carriages, troubled with baggage, and annoyed by the importunities of cabmen, waiters, and hangers-on of every description, is enough, in ordinary times, to test the temper of a saint.
The foundation of many an unhappy future is laid on the wedding tour. Not only is the young wife tried beyond all her experience, and her nervous system harassed, but the husband, too, partakes of her weakness. Many men, who really love the women they marry, are subject to a slight revulsion of feeling for a few days after marriage. 'When the veil falls, and the girdle is loosened,' says the German poet Schiller, 'the fair illusion vanishes.' A half regret crosses their minds for the jolly bachelorhood they have renounced. The mysterious charms which gave their loved one the air of something more than human, disappear in the prosaic sunlight of familiarity.
Let neither be alarmed, nor lose their self-control. Each requires indulgence, and management, from the other; both should demand from themselves patience and self-command. A few weeks, and this danger is over; but a mistake now is the mistake of a lifetime. More than one woman has confessed to us that her unhappiness commenced from her wedding tour; and when we inquired more minutely, we have found that it arose from an ignorance and disregard of just such little precautions as we have been referring to.