The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question, "How do you like the bridegroom ?" she replies, "How should I know?
There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him." Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale.

To rear a family of children was to serve God.

Every Jewish man and woman had a part in the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed should be abundantly scattered over the earth.

Parenthood, therefore, was the great career.

But while men, in addition to begetting, might busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was motherhood.