LXIV.

Don’t Marry him to save him.

If any young woman who reads this is contemplating marriage with a wild and wayward man, hoping to reform him, I want her to stop right here and decide to give up the contract.  As well might she go out and smile down a northwest wind or expostulate with a cyclone to its own undoing.  If a man drinks to excess before he marries, there is no reason to hope he will learn moderation afterward.  If you become his wife with the full knowledge of his habits, you will have no right to leave him or forsake him after marriage because of his unfortunate addictions and predilections.  Once having taken the vows you have no right to refuse to pay them to the uttermost.  And the life you will lead will be perhaps a trifle less pleasant than the life of a parlor boarder in sheol.

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