In England and Scotland there were formerly customs less barbarous perhaps, but scarcely less objectionablethat for example of drinking toasts to all the beauties admired by the members of a convivial party, when she, whose lover drank the most, was the reigning toast. These, however, are the eccentricities of the tender passion.

Courtship in Italy, as in Spain, has much of the romance of a deep passion, and it is often protracted to a great length, that its pleasures may be enjoyed the longer.

In France true love is so commonly a distinct thing from marriage, that love-making in that country comes more properly under another head, and belongs to a different branch of our subject.

name.

But it is only in Freedom, that Courtship can develope its most charming characteristics. Where women are the slaves of brutal masters, or imperious lords; where they are considered the property of their parents or brothers, to be bestowed according to their interest or pleasure; or where, as in a great portion of the world, wives are purchasable commodities, up in the market, for sale to the highest bidder, there can be no courtship worthy of the But in countries like our own, where a large measure of freedom is enjoyed by the female sex; where, as a general rule, a woman's wishes are consulted, and where in many, perhaps most cases, she is left perfectly free to choose or reject at pleasure, courtship is the most charming period of existence is filled with the most vivid pleasures and captivating enjoyments, and forms the subject of a thousand delicious romances, which begin with a hero and heroine falling in love with each other, and end at the close. of the third volume, in their being happily married in spite of a thousand seemingly insuperable obstacles, which only render the affair, whether in romance or reality, a thousand times more interesting.

As human nature is always the same, under the same circumstances, we shall find that the relations of the sexes are much alike in all countries of similar institutions and laws. The customs of the United States, with a greater degree of freedom than elsewhere exists, correspond to those of England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Germany -the countries from which we chiefly draw our origin.

An American girl considers herself as having the liberty, under all circumstances, of indulging in a flirtation, of permitting a courtship, or of entering into a matrimonial engagement, without consulting any one. She mav. or may not think proper to inform her parents. nerally no avowal, and no concealment.

There is

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In a courtship, among the middle classes of American society, when the parties have become a little acquainted, the young gentleman proposes in form-not for the lady's hand in marriage, but for the privilege of her private society. This, unless the lady has another beau, is generally accorded. The suitor comes in the evening. The best parlor is devoted to the interesting couple, while all the family scrupulously avoid giving them the least disturbance. The couple, thus left alone, pass often the whole night tetea-tete, with an absolute freedom from scandal, and we believe, in a vast majority of cases, from impropriety of conduct.

Fifty years ago, there were many sections of the country, and those among the most moral and puritanical, where the young couples, thus left alone, went to bed together, or at least laid down, and courted more comfortably in each other's arms. This custom of "bundling" prevailed, not many years ago, and may still be practised, in many parts of New England, in Pennsylvania, and probably other sections of the country; and the writer has known many charming women, of the most unsullied reputation, who permitted this form of courtship, not only to those who became their husbands, but to unsuccessful candidates.

This custom, which appears to have come from both Germany and Wales, is, however, by no means usual at this period; yet where it was commonly practised, a few years ago, we never heard of any complaint of its disadvantages. The present prevailing custom, is the courtship of long nocturnal conferences, which is a proof at once of the freedom and the virtue of American women.

The higher classes of America conform, as nearly as they can, to the manners of the aristocracy everywhere. There is a greater show of prudence and propriety, but in the same proportion often, less of the reality. Courtship, always a series of delicate attentions to the fair object of

a man's affections, is with the fashionable, a more showy ceremony, with much less of that intimate study of character and adaptiveness, which a courtship ought to be, and is, among the less pretentious of our citizens. Morning calls, evening dances, a few presents, and a declaration, with reference to the parent or guardian, and the necessary enquiries and settlements, form the routine of fashionable courtship. The love-making comes after all this-it may be with the husband-it is perhaps, quite as likely to be with somebody else.

The whole subject of love, though it should be always connected with courtship and the marriage contract, so unfortunately is not, in many cases, that we shall be forced to leave many things relating to the tender passion for another portion of our work in which we shall treat more fully of Love, as developed in the female heart, and describe its influences upon the female character.

It is impossible to describe the various phases of courtship, where it is sincere and unconstrained. It varies infinitely with character and circumstance. Sometimes it is extremely brief, and the parties are joined for life, after a few interviews; in other cases, the "linked sweetness long drawn out," is protracted for years, and sometimes a courtship of such duration is followed by desertion, and all the bitterness of injury and neglect; with an occasional appeal to the laws for redress in an action for breach of marriage promise.

The liberty of the sex in this country has so many advantages, there is so much that is noble, pure, virtuous and self-reliant in the female character, that we are pointed very plainly to a still higher state of freedom and independence, where woman would become the equal of man, in her own sexual sphere, enjoying the fullest liberty of affection and action, where no considerations of position or interest could prevent the perfect union of mutual love, and where the slavery of legalized abuses would be no more known for ever.

We see how pure and beautiful such a state might be, and how much it would tend to the happiness of the human race, by such an approach to that state as we enjoy, compared with the degraded condition of the greater part of

the human family; and as the world is growing wiser faster than ever before, with the advantage of maintaining all its advances in wisdom, and so working a steady pro gression, we may reasonably hope that sound views in regard to the relations of the sexes may soon become universally entertained, and everywhere practically applied to the improvement of the condition of mankind.

Social science, rapidly becoming developed, and widely studied, gives us the promise of a condition of human society, in which the obstacles of inequality of fortune, position, and other artificial distinctions shall be done away within which both sexes, with superior facilities for forming acquaintance with each other, will be freed from all restraint upon that liberty of choice, so essential to every condition of happiness in the marriage relation. Such a social reform, so far from promoting licentiousness, would do much to put an end to it, by removing the temptations and excuses, which grow out of the inharmonious arrangements of even our best and purest social conditions.

WOMAN.

PART FIFTH.

MARRIAGE.

THIS, as it will by many be considered, the most important portion of our subject, will require our most earnest and serious attention; and it is difficult to conceive of anything connected with the female sex, which can be of higher or more universal interest. Man has a historical interest entirely disconnected with the other sex, but woman has very little, if any, in our present social organizations, apart from her connection with man.

Marriage, in its legal sense, is a contract between a man and woman to live together in the connubial relation. In a higher sense, marriage is the union of mutual love, attended with the highest perfection of human existence and happiness. As the real marriage of mutual love does not always exist with, and may often be found separate from, the contract recognised by law, it is of the latter we shall principally treat in the following pages.

The existence of two sexes, and the manner of the re-production of the species, suppose a marriage relation. The protection of the weaker sex, and the care of helpless infancy, require it. But nature, in the attraction of the sexes for each other, has provided for these necessities. Either sex is lonely and imperfect without the other. Marriage is the natural condition of adult humanity; and celibacy is the artificial and imperfect exception to the general law.

The relation of the sexes, which corresponds to marriage in man, extends far down the chain of animal creation, and is variously developed in the vegetable; and, what