So long as Romance exists and Lochinvar remains young manhood’s ideal, love at first sight and marriage in a week is within the boundaries of possibility. But usually (and certainly more wisely) a young man is for some time attentive to a young woman before dreaming of marriage. Thus not only have her parents plenty of time to find out what manner of man he is, and either accept or take means to prevent a serious situation; but the modern young woman herself is not likely to be “carried away” by the personality of anyone whose character and temperament she does not pretty thoroughly understand and weigh.
In nothing does the present time more greatly differ from the close of the last century, than in the unreserved frankness of young women and men towards each other. Those who speak of the domination of sex in this day are either too young to remember, or else have not stopped to consider, that mystery played a far greater and more dangerous role when sex, like a woman’s ankle, was carefully hidden from view, and therefore far more alluring than to-day when both are commonplace matters.
In cities twenty-five years ago, a young girl had beaux who came to see her one at a time; they in formal clothes and manners, she in her “company best” to “receive” them, sat stiffly in the “front parlor” and made politely formal conversation. Invariably they addressed each other as Miss Smith and Mr. Jones, and they “talked off the top” with about the same lack of reservation as the ambassador of one country may be supposed to talk to him of another. A young man was said to be “devoted” to this young girl or that, but as a matter of fact each was acting a role, he of an admirer and she of a siren, and each was actually an utter stranger to the other.
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