People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be much thought of in advance, and marrying people are cautioned that there are many who marry in haste and repent at leisure. I am not sure, however, that marriage may not be pondered over too much; nor do I feel certain that the leisurely repentance does not as often follow the leisurely marriages as it does the rapid ones. That some repent no one can doubt; but I am inclined to believe that most men and women take their lots as they find them, marrying as the birds do by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general, though not perhaps an undisturbed satisfaction, feeling inwardly assured that Providence, if it have not done the very best for them, has done for them as well as they could do for themselves with all the thought in the world. I do not know that a woman can assure to herself, by her own prudence and taste, a good husband any more than she can add two cubits to her stature; but husbands have been made to be decently good,--and wives too, for the most part, in our country,--so that the thing does not require quite so much thinking as some people say.

People often say that marriage is an important thing, and should be deeply considered. However, I feel that marriage may be pondered over too much. I am inclined to believe that most men and women take their lots as they find them, marrying by force of nature, and going on with their mates with a general if not an undisturbed satisfaction.
