WE Robert M‘Nair and Jean Holmes having taken into consideration the way and manner our daughter Jean acted in her Marriage, that she took none of our advice, nor advised us before she married, for which reason we discharged her from our Family, for more than Twelve Months; and being afraid that some or other of our Family may also presume to marry without duly advising us thereof, We, taking the affair into our serious consideration, hereby discharge all and every one of our Children from offering to marry without our special advice and consent first had and obtained; and if any of our Children should propose or presume to offer Marriage to any, without as aforesaid our advice and consent, they in that case shall be banished from our Family Twelve Months, and if they should go so far as to marry without our advice and consent, in that case they are to be banished from the Family Seven Years; but whoever advises us of their intention to marry and obtains our consent, shall not only remain Children of the Family, but also shall have a due proportion of our Goods, Gear, and Estate, as we shall think convenient, and as the bargain requires; and further if any one of our Children shall marry clandestinely, they, by so doing, shall lose all claim or title to our Effects, Goods, Gear or Estate; and we intimate this to all concerned, that none may pretend ignorance. There is something original about discharging a member of one’s family for twelve months or seven years, and then taking her back again; and so there is in the idea that all members of this same house are not only over-anxious to marry, but that they are unduly sought after. The family must have been, indeed, a large one to necessitate notification through the public press; and though our ignorance may be lamentable, we must confess to not knowing why Mrs M‘Nair declined to call herself by her husband’s name. We presume--nay, we hope--that Robert and Jean did not upon principle object to wedlock, though the advertisement, coupled with the fact of the dissimilarity of names, might lead any one to suppose so. Marriage was much thought of in 1758, so far as advertisers are concerned, as the following, culled from many of the same kind, which now began to appear in the _Daily Advertiser_, will show:--