Romantic Love and Personal Beauty: Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiaritiesFinck, Henry T.
Science
Romantic Love and Personal Beauty: Their development, causal relations, historic and national peculiarities
Finck, Henry T.
Beauty, Personal; Love
That marriage, and not miscellaneous employment, is woman’s true
destiny, is shown by the way in which Cupid influences statistics. Thus
there are in England about 29,000 school-mistresses aged 15-20, and
28,500 aged 25-45; but the time from 20-25, the period of courtship and
marriage, has only 21,000. In the case of dressmakers this fact is
brought out still more strikingly: 15-20—84,000; 20-25—76,000;
25-45—129,000, in round numbers.
Although, therefore, as Emerson remarks, “the circumstances may be
easily imagined in which woman may speak, vote, argue cases, legislate,
and drive coaches, if only it comes by degrees,” facts show that there
is more philosophy of the future in Mrs. Hawthorne’s remark that “Home,
I think, is the great arena for women, and there, I am sure, she can
wield a power which no king or emperor can cope with.”
A consideration of all the foregoing facts shows that Love may be safely
accepted as a guiding-star in making a proper division of the world’s
labour between men and women. And the reason why England and America
have made so much more progress than other nations in ascertaining
woman’s true capacity and sphere, is because she has been educated to a
point where she can assert her independence, and where she can inspire
as well as feel Love—thus making man humble, gallant, gentle, ready to
make concessions and remove restrictions. It is in England and America
alone that Love plays a more important _rôle_ in marriage than money and
social position; that the young are generally permitted to consult their
own heart instead of parental command; and that the opportunities for
courtship are so liberal and numerous that the young are enabled to fall
in love with one another not only for dazzling qualities of Personal
Beauty, viewed for a moment, but for traits of character, emotional
refinement, and a cultured intellect.
These two nations alone have fully taken to heart and heeded Addison’s
maxim that “Those marriages generally abound most with love and
constancy that are _preceded by a long courtship_. The passion should
strike root and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long
course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and
habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account