It is hardly possible to over-calculate the evils accruing to individuals and to society in general from this custom, gradually increasing, of late and ultra-prudent marriages. Parents bring up their daughters in luxurious homes, expecting and exacting that the home to which they transfer them should be of almost equal ease; forgetting how next to impossible it is for such a home to be offered by any young man of the present generation, who has to work his way like his father before him. Daughters, accustomed to a life of ease and laziness, are early taught to check every tendency towards 'a romantic attachment' - the insane folly of loving a man for what he is, rather than for what he has got; of being content to fight the worldly battle hand-in-hand - with a hand that is worth clasping, rather than settle down in comfortable sloth, protected and provided for in all external things. Young men ... But words fail to trace the lot of enforced bachelorhood, hardest when its hardship ceases to be consciously felt. ~ Ch. 10

Society·Class·Gender roles·Marriage·Morals·Wealth