IS MARRIAGE REFORMATORY?
To no other estate are there so many varieties of phases as to that of matrimony.

Like the music of Saint Caecilia and old Timotheus combined, it is capable of raising "a mortal to the skies," or of bringing "an angel down" to the lowest depths of misery.

At the best the betrothed couple can never say with absolute certainty--"After marriage we shall be happy." The experience of wedded life is alarmingly like that of dying--each man and woman must know it for himself and herself, and no other human being can share its trials or its joys.
The mistake the prospective wife makes is in obstinately closing her eyes to the fact that married life has any trials which are not far outbalanced by its pleasures.

Marriage does not change man or woman.
The impressive ceremony over, the bridal finery laid aside, the last strain of the wedding-march wafted into space, and the orange-flowers dead and scentless,--John becomes once more plain, everyday John, with the same good traits which first won his Mary's heart, and the many disagreeable characteristics that exasperated his mother and sisters.
And Mary, being a woman, and no more of a saint than is her life-partner, will also be exasperated.

If John is an honest gentleman who loves Mary, the chances for her happiness depend upon her common-sense and her love for John.