How To Handle Engagement Objections from Family!

It may happen that both the lady and her suitor are willing; but that the parents or guardians of the former, on being referred to, deem the connection unfitting, and refuse their consent.

In this state of matters, the first thing a man of sense, proper feeling, and candor should do, is to endeavor to learn the objections of the parents, to see whether they cannot be removed. If they are based on his present insufficiency of means, a lover of a persevering spirit may affect much in removing apprehension on that score, by cheerfully submitting to a reasonable time of probation, in the hope of amelioration in his worldly circumstances.

Happiness delayed will be nonetheless precious when love has stood the test of faithfulness and the trial of time. Should the objection be founded on inequality of social position, the parties, if young, may wait until matured age shall ripen their judgment and place the future more at their own disposal.

A clandestine marriage should be avoided at all cost. In too many cases it is a fraud committed by an elder and more experienced party upon one whose ignorance of the world's ways and whose confiding tenderness appeal to him for protection even against himself.

In nearly all the instances we have known of such marriages, the results proved the step to have been ill-judged, imprudent, and highly injurious to the reputation of one party, and in the long run detrimental to the happiness of both.