Think for a
minute, and you will see that it must be so; unless, of course, you
believe in "affinities." In which case you had better not read this
tale. How can a man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to
pick up at sight a moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and
upset with visions of domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a
wife? He cannot see straight or think straight if he tries; and the
same disadvantages exist in the case of a girl's fancies. But when
mature, married and discreet people arrange a match between a boy
and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, and the
young couple live happily ever afterwards. As everybody knows.
Properly speaking, Government should establish a Matrimonial
Department, efficiently officered, with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge
of the Chief Court, a Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the
shape of a love-match that has gone wrong, chained to the trees in
the courtyard. All marriages should be made through the Department,
which might be subordinate to the Educational Department, under the
same penalty as that attaching to the transfer of land without a
stamped document.
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