“I have seen wimmen that was willin’ to marry, but the men wasn’t forthcomin’, what are they to do? What are the wimmen to do whose faces are as humbly as a plate of cold greens?” Says I, in stern tones, “Are men to be pursued like stricken dears by a mad mob of humbly wimmen? Is a woman to go out into the street and collar a man and order him to marry her? I am sick of this talk about its bein’ a woman’s only speah to marry. If it is a woman’s only speah to marry, the Lord will provide her with a man, it stands to reason he will. One that will suit her too, one that will come jest as nateral for her to leave all of the rest of the world and foller, as for a sunflower to foller on after the sun. One that she seems to belong to, jest like North and South America, joined by nature unbeknown to them ever sense creation. She’ll know him if she ever sees him, for their two hearts will suit each other jest like the two halves of a pair of shears. These are the marriages that Heaven signs the certificates of, and this marryin’ for a home, or for fear of bein’ called a old maid, is no more marriage in the sight of God, no more true marriage, than the blush of a fashionable woman that is bought for ten cents an ounce and carried home in her pocket, is true modesty.”
Here was a pause, durin’ which Betsey quailed some, and I then resumed again, in the same lofty tones and I don’t know but a little loftier, “There is but one thing that makes marriage pure and holy in the sight of God.”
“And what is that?” says Betsey in an enquirin’ tone.
“Love,” says I, in a full clear tone, “Love, such as angels feel for one another, love, such as Samantha Smith felt for Josiah Allen, though why I loved him, Heaven knows, I don’t. But I couldn’t help it, and I would have lived single till them days we read of, if I hadn’t. Though for what reason I loved him—” I continued mewsin’ly, and almost lost in deep retrospectin’,—“I don’t know. I don’t believe in rehearsin’ privacies and braggin’ about such things, but in the name of principle I speak. A richer man wanted me at the same time, a man that knew half as much agin, at least, as Josiah. I no need to have wet the ends of my fingers in dishwater if I had married the other one, but I couldn’t do it, I loved Josiah, though why”—and agin I plunged down into deep abstraction as I murmured to myself,—“though why I did, I don’t know.”
“In them days,” says I, risin’ up agin out of my revery, “In them days to come, when men and wimmen are independent of each other, marriage will be what it ought to be, for folks won’t marry unless God unites their hearts so close they can’t get ’em apart nohow. They won’t be tackled together by any old rotton ropes of interest and accomidation, that are liable to break in to pieces any minute, and in them days, the hands of divorce writers won’t be so lame as they be now.”
“I cannot comprehend,” says Betsey “how wimmen’s votin’, will change the reprehensible ideah of marryin’ for a home, or for fear of being ridiculed about, if it will, I cannot see.”
“Can’t you see daylight Betsey Bobbet, when the sun is mountin’ up into the clear horizeon?” Says I in a eloquent voice, “it stands to reason that a woman won’t marry a man she don’t love, for a home, if she is capable of makin’ one for herself. Where’s the disgrace of bein’ a old maid, only wimmen are kinder dependent on men, kinder waitin’ to have him ask her to marry him, so as to be supported by him? Give a woman as many fields to work in as men have, and as good wages, and let it be thought jest as respectable for ’em to earn thier livin’ as for a man to, and that is enough. It riles me to hear ’em talk about wimmen’s wantin’ to wear the breeches; they don’t want to; they like calico better than broadcloth for stiddy wear, they like muslin better than kersey mear for handsome, and they have a nateral hankerin’ after the good opinion and admiration of the other sect, but they can do better without that admiration than they can without vittles.”
“Yes,” says Betsey “men do admire to have wimmen clingin’ to ’em, like a vine to a stately tree, and it is indeed a sweet view.”
“So ’tis, so ’tis,” says I, “I never was much of a clinger myself. Still if females want to cling, I haint no objection. But,” says I, in reasonable tones, “as I have said more’n a hundred times, if men think that wimmen are obleeged to be vines, they ought to feel obleeged to make trees of themselves, for ’em to run up on. But they won’t; some of ’em, they will not be trees, they seem to be sot against it. And as I have said what if a vine haint no tree convenient to cling to? or if she has, what if the tree she clings to happens to fall through inherient rotteness at the core, thunder and lightnin’ or etcetery? If the string breaks what is to become of the creeper if it can’t do nothin’ but creep? Says I, “it is all well enough for a rich woman to set in a velvet gown with her feet on the warm hearth and wonder what makes the poor drunkard’s wife down in the street, shiver. Let her be out once with her bare feet in the snow, and she’d find out. It haint the rich, happy, comfortable clingers I am talkin’ in behalf of, but the poor shiverers outside who haint nothin’ to cling to.”