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DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST [AUGUSTA, GA], June 30, 1864, p. 1, c. 4
Good Definition.
Some sensible person says “an old maid is a lady who has attained the age of twenty-four or five without having married a fool, a knave, a gambler or a drunkard.”
Misses in their teens cannot appreciate this, but their elder maiden sisters can, and it is for their benefit that we take the text. It is not our intention to write a lecture on matrimony, but only to drop a few “crumbs of comfort” where they may be needed. At the risk of being considered old fogyish in our notions, we will express a long entertained belief that the most loveable age of an unmarried woman’s life commences at about twenty-five, and lasts as long as she shows no diminution of sensibility and no ravages of time. She has floated into the calm of her years, and is capable of making a sensible man happy.
Girls of sweet sixteen may have such multiplicity of arts and accomplishments that nothing which can add to the graces of mind or manner seems omitted or forgotten, but older heads know that there is still something lacking. They have not thoroughly learned, because they are too young, to apply their accomplishments and exhibit their graces advantageously—that is, profitably to themselves and those around them. Every sensible, well-bred old maid can do this, but who can expect so much of every sweet sixteen? One in a hundred may be fitted for those important duties which alone can render a woman useful, and consequently happy, but the remaining ninety-nine may not.
The aim of female education ought to be to make her more capable of performing the part which the laws of society and the nature of things allot as her peculiar province. In this we have everything to place to the credit of the old maid, for she is educated, while the young girl is not, for want of time and experience. It is no reproach to her that she is not married at twenty-five or thirty. She should rejoice that she did not fall into foolish romances or shallow wits when in her teens and unite her destiny with any one of the characters mentioned in the definition we have quoted. Let no girl be in a hurry to marry—let her never marry until she feels sure that her lover will make a good husband, and that she can make a good wife. “She looketh well to the ways of her household,” is a commendation which every lady who is mistress of a family should be ambitious to merit, and should she possess genius and talent, let her still remember that to make a home for her husband and children is the most praiseworthy success with which she can ever be crowned in this world.
Vicki Betts
Good Definition.
Some sensible person says “an old maid is a lady who has attained the age of twenty-four or five without having married a fool, a knave, a gambler or a drunkard.”
Misses in their teens cannot appreciate this, but their elder maiden sisters can, and it is for their benefit that we take the text. It is not our intention to write a lecture on matrimony, but only to drop a few “crumbs of comfort” where they may be needed. At the risk of being considered old fogyish in our notions, we will express a long entertained belief that the most loveable age of an unmarried woman’s life commences at about twenty-five, and lasts as long as she shows no diminution of sensibility and no ravages of time. She has floated into the calm of her years, and is capable of making a sensible man happy.
Girls of sweet sixteen may have such multiplicity of arts and accomplishments that nothing which can add to the graces of mind or manner seems omitted or forgotten, but older heads know that there is still something lacking. They have not thoroughly learned, because they are too young, to apply their accomplishments and exhibit their graces advantageously—that is, profitably to themselves and those around them. Every sensible, well-bred old maid can do this, but who can expect so much of every sweet sixteen? One in a hundred may be fitted for those important duties which alone can render a woman useful, and consequently happy, but the remaining ninety-nine may not.
The aim of female education ought to be to make her more capable of performing the part which the laws of society and the nature of things allot as her peculiar province. In this we have everything to place to the credit of the old maid, for she is educated, while the young girl is not, for want of time and experience. It is no reproach to her that she is not married at twenty-five or thirty. She should rejoice that she did not fall into foolish romances or shallow wits when in her teens and unite her destiny with any one of the characters mentioned in the definition we have quoted. Let no girl be in a hurry to marry—let her never marry until she feels sure that her lover will make a good husband, and that she can make a good wife. “She looketh well to the ways of her household,” is a commendation which every lady who is mistress of a family should be ambitious to merit, and should she possess genius and talent, let her still remember that to make a home for her husband and children is the most praiseworthy success with which she can ever be crowned in this world.
Vicki Betts