Do marry a man that you can look up to, and see that he can do likewise. There are plenty of farmers, mechanics, merchants, conductors, doctors, lawyers, and men of general business, who are worthy, trusty, generous, noble, and will make excellent husbands.
Seek them out from their character, their conduct at home, their treatment of sisters and mothers, their devotion to business and adherence to principle. Show them that you trust them. Be ready to marry. Become accomplished and useful. Make yourself worthy of a home, and know how to manage it with skill and kindness. Loving natures are not long neglected. The worn-out belles and women who fade and wither, and die snappish and single, were insincere, or lacked some quality of winning manners.
Do marry a President. That is the correct form now. It’s so romantic. Waive all the hints of other objections,—age, love, spite, money, and the like. Get a President,—just for the position, you know!
Then all the little jewels and diamonds and presents will come rolling in like flowers to a favorite singer. All little objections vanish in the presence of a President. He must be suited to any condition of beauty, genius, or intellect. Don’t refuse a President’s offer; you may never get but one such in a lifetime.
Do marry a plain man. Just a plain, common-sense man; be he banker, lawyer, doctor, farmer, builder, merchant, so he is a man; for manhood is at a premium to-day in home life! The world is full to overflowing with brilliant men. Public offices are public trusts, and all that such responsibility implies, and there are women in stations where the word home has very little meaning, and other women who long for the quiet and comfort of true domestic life away from the cares of office and the demands of lofty stations.
Two of the things that lead to greatest misery of the masses to-day are over-ambition and reckless marriages.
Don’t coax a woman to love you. If you wish to win, that is certainly the wrong way. If they have any notion of it, you are in the opposite direction of success.
Women despise a fawning, cringing nature. “Fortune and women, born to be controlled, stoop to the forward and the bold.”
A far more sensible way to win will be by indifference. Show enough willingness to reassure her, and enough courage to act manly.