Make your inquiries about your possible future partners, about their antecedents, their family, their social and financial position. If your partner is healthy (make sure of that), make up your mind quickly. Marriage is a lottery; go in for it at once and take your chance.
A woman should avoid accepting a man who has been particularly successful with women. At the same time, she should look for one to whom woman is not an enigma, and who is a man of the world and of strong character, so that she may feel sure that when he chose her, he said to himself: 'I know my mind; happiness for me lies there.' On that man she will be able to depend and lean safely.
As peace and security are the guarantees of happiness in matrimony, a man should not choose a lovely rose who will attract the attention of all the men, but look for a modest violet in some retired, shady spot. The violet is the emblem of peaceful and lasting love.
A woman should avoid marrying a man who at home is the favourite of many sisters who constantly dance attendance on him. That man is spoiled for matrimony. He will require his wife to bestow on him all the attentions he received from his sisters, besides those which he has a right to expect from a wife.
I should advise woman to shun a dragon of virtue like fire: she should prefer a dragoon rather. A man may be good, but he must not overdo it. He that has no wickedness is too good for this world; not even a nun could endure him. Fancy, my dear lady, a man being shocked by you! The male prig is the abomination of the earth, and should be the pet aversion of women.
Let a man avoid marrying a woman who has won the applause of the public. The life of a successful woman unfits her for matrimony and its peaceful joys. Of course there are, and I have known, many exceptions. If you marry a well-known singer, you will soon discover yourself in the act of carrying her roll of music. Ah, if you are a great singer yourself, well and good! But then, take care that if you both appear at the same concert, one does not get more encores than the other, or peace will be destroyed.
Don't marry women who have big bouquets of roses and orchids sent to them, or your daily little bunch of violets or lilies-of-the-valley will soon run the risk of being despised.
CHAPTER VI
MAXIMS FOR THE MARRIED MAN