necessary? Has the young man a home or the wherewithal to obtain one? 

Has he a good situation, with prospects of being able to support his 

wife comfortably and provide for a family?" These, or similar questions 

are sometimes asked, but little respect is paid to them by any one, 

least of all by the young people themselves, who ought to be most 

interested. The minister never inquires respecting the propriety of 

the wedding at which he is to officiate, and invokes the blessings of 

Heaven upon a union which, for aught he knows, may be the grossest 

violation of immutable laws, Heaven-implanted in the constitution of 

the human race. The friends tender their congratulations and wishes 

of "much joy," when in three cases out of four the conditions are such 

that a preponderance of grief is an inevitable certainty, and "much 

joy" an utter impossibility. 

There are exceptions to all general rules; but it is a fact of which 

almost any one may convince himself that a man or a woman seldom rises 

much higher than the level reached at marriage. If a young man has no 

trade then, it is more than probable that he will never be master of 

one. If he has not fitted himself for a profession, he will most likely 

never attain to such a rank in society. He will, in all probability, 

be a common laborer, living "from hand to mouth," with nothing laid 

by for a rainy day. 

A wag says that a young couple just married, and for the first time 

awakened to the full consciousness of the fact that they must provide 

for themselves or starve, held the following dialogue: Husband. "Well, 

wife, what are we going to do? How shall we live?" Wife. "Oh, my dear, 

we shall get along very well, I am sure; you love me, don't you?" H. 

"Certainly, dear, but we cannot live on love." W. "We can live on bread 

and water; so long as we have each other, it doesn't matter much what 

we have to eat." "That's so, my dear; well, you furnish the bread, and 

I will skirmish around after the water." This exact dialogue may never 

have taken place; but the circumstances which might have called it out 

have occurred thousands of times. How many times has a dependent woman 

who had hastily married an improvident husband awakened at the end of 

a short honeymoon to find that she had only a limber stick or a broken 

reed to lean upon, instead of a self-reliant, independent, 

self-sustaining man, able to provide for her the comforts of a home 

and to protect her from the rudeness and suffering of privation and 

want. 

In our estimation it is as much a sin for a man to assume the obligation 

of caring for a wife and family when he has no reasonable grounds for 

believing himself able to do so, as for a man to go in debt a few hundreds 

or thousands of dollars, and agree to pay the same when required, though 

perfectly well aware that he will probably be unable to do so. Hence 

we say again, with emphasis, the improvident should not marry; and we 

shall insist upon urging this truth, notwithstanding the fact that the 

very class of persons referred to are usually of all classes the most