"Marriageable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wonder—male and female? Take a woman of the world: follow her course through the season; one asks how she can survive it? or if she tumbles into a sleep at the end of August, and lies torpid until the spring? She goes into the world every night, and sits watching her marriageable daughters dancing till long after dawn. She has a nursery of little ones, very likely, at home, to whom she administers example and affection; having an eye likewise to bread-and-milk, catechism, music ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Yorkers bang the whole of them; bear witness, O ye New Year's doings I have there seen. Visiting your friends, and your friends' friends. Open houses every where! "Drop in and take a glass of wine or bit of cake, if nothing else"—that's the word. Jeremy Diddlers flourish, marriageable daughters and interesting widows set their caps for the nice young men, the streets are noisy and full of confusion, the theatres and show-shops generally reap an elegant harvest, and the police reports ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... whether they learn anything or not; and on these occasions, not merely to hear the lecturer, but to be seen by him. To them, however attractive the lecture might have been, the lecturer was more so. He was an irresistible temptation to matrons with marriageable daughters, and wherever he sojourned he was overwhelmed with invitations. It was a contest who should have him to dinner, and in the simplicity of his heart, he ascribed to admiration of his science and eloquence all the courtesies and compliments with which he was everywhere received. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... had toes and fingers. He did not deserve this esteem, for he was not only cruel and jealous, but spoiled, petulant, and thick-headed. His qualities were exhibited on his very first meeting with his promised bride, for neither had seen the other until reaching marriageable age. Two braggarts, who were so ill formed and ugly that their boasts of winning ladies' favor would have been taken by any one else for lies, declared, in Kauhi's hearing, that they were lovers of Kaha, and they ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... table sat an elderly young lady, who was not in the habit of receiving attentions from gentlemen of marriageable age, and was therefore inclined to notice those ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... make no claim on all that she and these four children have or shall acquire.(400) It is noteworthy that one of the three receives ten shekels as the terhatu of the wife he shall marry. He was evidently not of marriageable age, or, at any rate, still unmarried. In such a case the Code directed that on partition of the father's property, a special sum should be laid aside for this necessary present to the bride's father.(401) So we find two brothers giving a sister a share consisting of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... eighteen years she had lived with her youngest sister, who had married very early and now possessed five children: two young ladies of marriageable age, a third still in short dresses, and two ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... which might yet alienate both property and rank from you, and endow therewith your sister Nisida. For should she recover the faculties of speech and hearing by the time she shall have attained the age of thirty-six, she will yet be marriageable and may have issue; but should that era in her life pass, and she still be deaf and dumb, all hope of her ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and far repair thither the mothers and their marriageable daughters, all tricked out with their dowries ready in the shape of strings of gold and silver coins round their necks, with bright variegated garments at their horses' sides, and stuffed pillows and painted pitchers on the saddles in front of them. All these things they unpack and arrange ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... shocked, bewildered or frightened her with accusations, sulks, or sneers, her light, innocent head was set in such a whirl that the rest was easy. It was possible, upon the whole, that the thing might not turn out so infernally ill after all. Supposing that it had been Bettina who had been the marriageable one! Appreciating to the full the many reasons for rejoicing that she had not been, he ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Gareth, 'An ye hold me yet for child, Hear yet once more the story of the child. For, mother, there was once a King, like ours. The prince his heir, when tall and marriageable, Asked for a bride; and thereupon the King Set two before him. One was fair, strong, armed— But to be won by force—and many men Desired her; one good lack, no man desired. And these were the conditions of the King: That save he won the first by force, he needs Must wed that other, whom no man desired, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... entertained by the Florentines, but his desire to secure the duke's alliance kept him in suspense; and the duke, aware of this desire, gave him the greatest assurance that his hopes would be realized as shortly as possible, if he abstained from hostilities against him. As the lady was now of marriageable age, the duke had frequently made all suitable preparations for the celebration of the ceremony, but on one pretext or another they had always been wholly set aside. He now, to give the count greater ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... cultivated the gift by diligent practice. As the sight of a tendrilled vine suggests the need and fitness of a trellis, and a stray glove invariably brings to mind the thought of its absent fellow, so every disengaged spinster of marriageable age was an appeal—pathetic and sure—to the dear woman's helpful sympathy, and her whole soul went out in compassion over such "nice" and an appropriated bachelors as crossed her orbit, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... time. Besides, those ideas are old-fashioned. It'll have to be understood that marriageable girls have nothing specially sacred about them. They must associate with men on equal terms. The day has gone by for a hulking brother to come asking a man about his 'intentions.' As a rule, it's the girl that has intentions. The man is just looking round, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... these considerations, promised that he would think over the matter. And so search was made among all the marriageable Princesses for one that would suit him. Every day charming portraits were brought him, but none gave promise of the beauty of his late Queen; instead of coming to a decision he brooded over his sorrow until in the end his ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... interested to find her so young a wife, and so pretty, though it was only a respectful interest. There was nothing of the dashing lady's man about him. He had respect for the married state, and thought only of some pretty marriageable girls ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... their wish took the maidens' breath away. They looked from one to the other without a word; and the Bishop, in more courtly language, explained that amid all these contending parties he could not but judge it wiser to put the King's two marriageable sisters out of reach, either of a violent abduction, or of being the cause of a savage contest, in either case ending in demands that would be either impossible or mischievous for the Crown to grant, and ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... circles, where there is much time for idle gossip, the most intimate secrets of an important household are often bandied about when the black coffee is being served. The marriageable young men of Morovenia had learned of the calamity in Count Malagaski's family. They knew that Kalora weighed less than one hundred and twenty pounds. She was tall, lithe, slender, sinuous, willowy, hideous. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... a great favorite in the social circles of Longport—none greater; but there were other single ladies in the First Parish, and it was something to be deeply considered whether she had the right, with so little delay, to appropriate the only marriageable minister who had been settled over that church and society during a hundred and eighteen years. There was a loud buzzing of talk that Sunday afternoon. It was impossible to gainsay the fact that if there was a prospective engagement, Mrs. Lunn had shown her usual discretion. The new minister ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... was fit to rank among the annals of the pioneers of Tecumseh Township, and asked him to his house for supper. At five o'clock he received the telegram of promotion from the head office that raised his salary to a thousand dollars, and made him not only a hero but a marriageable man. At six o'clock he started up to the judge's house with his resolution nerved to the most momentous step of ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... air castles were tumbling about his ears, but he stuck to his guns. His affection for Kathleen, fanned by her indifference, had become all-absorbing. Courted and flattered by mothers with marriageable daughters, he had come to believe that he had but to speak ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... course a party was given in her honour; there were some eighty persons present, all free from the shackles of matrimony, apparently to give the Boston young lady an opportunity of meeting a representation of her peers, the marriageable portion only of the New York community. The evening was pronounced delightful by Miss Lawrence; but all the guests were ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... his marrying again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom in Mrs. Bugbee's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... from the provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How ever could that little, thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands, her light, vacant eyes, and her clear silly voice, who was exactly like a hundred thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent, clever young fellow? Can anyone understand these things? No doubt he had hoped for happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in the arms of a good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... it was probably going to adorn the museum of Mr. Cornelius van Koppen, an alien millionaire, not one of them found it in his heart to disapprove Count Caloveglia's action. For they all liked him. Every one liked him. They all understood his position. He was a necessitous widower with a marriageable daughter on his hands, a girl whom everybody admired for her ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... constituted. This method of sexual selection, half playful, half serious, flourished especially in the region between England, the Moselle, and the Tyrol. The essential part of the custom lay in the public choice of a fitting mate for marriageable girls. Sometimes the question of fitness resolved itself into one of good looks; occasionally the matter was settled by lot. There was no compulsion about these unions; they were often little more than a game, though at times they involved a degree of immorality which caused ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... marriages occurring between persons of this class. I have seen more than fifty persons, all of mixed blood, descend from one couple, and these with the persons joined to them by marriages as they have come to marriageable age, amounted to over seventy souls—all in about a half century. That the slaves had, despite their fearful death rate, the manumissions and the escapes, increased twice as fast as the free colored people of the North, three times as fast as the free colored people ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... questions of the cures concerning their resources, that of their parishioners, the intelligence and morality of the population, etc. He rarely failed to ask the number of births, deaths, marriages, and if there were many young men and girls of a marriageable age. If the cure replied to these questions in a satisfactory manner, and if he had not been too-long in saying mass, he could count on the favor of his Majesty; his church and his poor would find themselves ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... imagine from this that I was not a lady's man. At any rate, such was the case. I had lived my thirty years without ever being in love; indeed, I had from principle avoided the society of ladies, that is, when they were of the flirtable or marriageable kind. ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... his eyes upon me all this time, replied like a man penetrated with gratitude by the offer I had made. He said, that of his eight daughters the eldest was between fourteen and fifteen years old; the second much deformed, and in no way marriageable; the third between twelve and thirteen years of age, and the rest were children: the eldest wished to enter a convent, and had shown herself firm upon that point. He seemed inclined to make a difficulty of his want of fortune; but, reminding him of the proposition I had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... house in the West had been searched for its marriageable females. At one time a daughter of the Doge of Venice was nearly chosen. Unfortunately there were influential Greeks of greater pride than judgment to object to the Doge. He was merely an elective chief. He might die the very day after celebrating ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... affair, I hope?' Beaufort almost fiercely demanded, looking sternly in his daughter's agitated and flushed countenance as he uttered the words. 'Perhaps,' he sarcastically continued, without giving her time to reply—'perhaps you deem yourself marriageable at the matron-like' age of nineteen, and have selected some country boor for ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... with lustre ever new, as if his face, bright and broad as it was, were not enough to reflect the love and sunshine ever dwelling in his heart. We will not undertake to vouch for the truth of this, however. As the young lady was a marriageable young lady, and had been for a number of years, it would not be gallant or generous for us to mention it; but of this we are certain, that, when this good old gentleman enters a room, there is a warmth and brightness in his very presence, that causes you to look round, half expecting to see the ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... tears for his dismissal, the latter was intoxicated with joy by his elevation to the Chancellorship. The defeated judge, however, was not the man to submit without a struggle to his fate. By his second wife he had a daughter: she had reached a marriageable age and was heiress to a princely fortune. Coke resolved that she should marry Sir John Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's eldest brother. Sir John was very poor, and the Duke of Buckingham all powerful. The union effected, what should hinder his return to favor? Bacon, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... who was on the point of death whose heiress she was, her nephews, and her servants; and I could perceive, despite the tender benevolence that appeared in all her words, that she was the victim of all these people. She ended by informing me she had a marriageable daughter, and that her stomach was an obstacle ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... from the circle. She has been summoned to a conference with the shadchan (marriage broker), who has been for months past advertising her housewifely talents, her piety, her good looks, and her marriage portion, among families with marriageable sons. Her parents are pleased with the son-in-law proposed by the shadchan, and now, at the last, the girl is brought in, to be examined and appraised by the prospective parents-in-law. If the negotiations go off smoothly, the marriage ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... a reproach upon her that she had not yet succeeded in making the marriage everyone, including herself, predicted for her and expected of her. On the contrary, it was the most savage indictment possible of the marriageable and marrying men who had met her—of their stupidity, of their short-sighted and mean-souled calculation, of their lack of courage—the courage to take what they, as men of flesh and blood wanted, instead of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... distractions of Paris; he dined at table-d'hotes; he made acquaintances heedlessly; he sought society, with no result but that of increasing his expenditures. Walking along the boulevards, he often suffered deeply at the sight of a mother walking with a marriageable daughter,—a sight which caused him as painful an emotion as he formerly felt when a young man passed him riding to the Bois, or driving in an elegant equipage. The sense of his impotence told him that he could never hope for the best of even secondary ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... how for a woman her age she snaps her black eyes at him. It ain't hard to guess when a woman's got a marriageable daughter—not?" ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... days, renders her awkward, forces on her a sense of weakness, and makes her timid; and this, finally, finds its expression in her attitude and character. The custom among the Spartans of letting the girls go naked until marriageable age—a custom that the climate allowed—contributed considerably, in the opinion of an ancient writer, to impart to them a taste for simplicity and for attention to decency. Nor was there in the custom, according to the views of those days, aught ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... little exposed, has not undergone selection, and so in time the proportion liable to attack, or to fatal attack, gets to be as large as ever. The greater the fatality, especially in the population under marriageable age, the more favorable the condition of the survivors; and, by the law of heredity, their children should share in the immunity. This explanation of the cause, or of one cause, of the return of pests at intervals ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... the passage where Tiberius leaves it to the Senate to choose whether Lepidus or Blaesus shall have the government of Africa. Lepidus refuses in very unmistakable terms, alleging as his reasons the bad state of his health, the tender age of his children, and the marriageable condition of his daughter: the writer then goes on: "another reason that Lepidus had, he kept to himself, though it was understood, Blaesus being the uncle of Sejanus, and that was a very powerful reason with him." "Tum audita amborum ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... patiently to endure pinching want in the active exercise of arms; and as an expert horseman, dreadful for his spear, let him harass the fierce Parthians; and let him lead a life exposed to the open air, and familiar with dangers. Him, the consort and marriageable virgin-daughter of some warring tyrant, viewing from the hostile walls, may sigh—- Alas! let not the affianced prince, inexperienced as he is in arms, provoke by a touch this terrible lion, whom bloody rage hurries through the midst of slaughter. It is sweet and glorious to die for one's ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... this pleasant relation—whether she being the only truly marriageable person in the house. Robert Lyon intended to marry her, or was expected to do so, or that society would think it a very odd thing if he did not do so—this unsophisticated Hilary never thought at all. If he had said to her that the present state of things was to go on forever; ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... through to the ears of Mrs. Thaddler, who rejoiced in it, and called upon Mrs. Warden in her largest automobile. As a mother with four marriageable daughters, Mrs. Warden was delighted to accept and improve the acquaintance, but her aristocratic Southern soul was inwardly rebellious at the ancestorlessness and uncultured moneyed pride ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... dare say you are right, and of course there is no probability of either of them thinking of such a thing. But after all, Paul is a very marriageable fellow, John." ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... flirted with all the marriageable officers, whom the depots of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who seemed eligible. She had been engaged to be married a half-score of times in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath, who had used her so ill. She had flirted all the way to Madras with the captain and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... fourteen and joined the Merchant Marine, and in that service poked into most of the queer seaports on the map. He had long since lost track of his kinsfolk, and although he insisted that he was anxious to marry he carefully kept away from all marriageable ladies. ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... returned home, I found myself, quite unexpectedly, a lion. All the neighbors flocked in to see the young man who'd been to college, and in the evening a dozen young ladies—marriageable young ladies—called on me. I tried to have a pleasant time; and should have had, if I had n't been pulled and pushed, and made a puppet-show of; made to go through all my college exercises, to please the pride of my immediate relatives, and minister ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... of new jewellery, new lace, and feminine apparel, and an income of nearly seven thousand pounds a year. After this, he became so welcome in society that he could have boasted with truth at the end of any July that there were few marriageable gentlewomen of twenty-six and upward in London who had not been submitted to his inspection with a view to matrimony. But finding it easy to delegate the care of his children to school principals and hospitable friends, he concluded ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of the town were all divided into companies, as they called them, from five or six years of age, till they became marriageable. How these companies first originated or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I belonging to nine occasionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, notwithstanding that I spoke their current language fluently. Every company contained as many boys as girls. But I ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... easily managed. Once a month we dress the marriageable girls in their best, and take them for a walk in the street. If an honest young man falls in love with one of them going by, he comes to the Superior, and describes her as well as he can, and demands to see her. She is called, and if both are pleased, the marriage is arranged. You see it ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... than you by many years in knawledge of the world, though I haven't seen so much of it. Go slow. Wait a while till that brown bwoy graws a bit dim in Phoebe's eyes. Your life 's afore you, and the gal 's scarce marriageable, to my thinking. Build your house and bide ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... were old squaws who "in vindictiveness, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the men." The same is asserted of the Comanche women, who "delight in torturing the male prisoners." Concerning Chippewa war captives, Keating says (I., 173): "The marriageable women are reduced to servitude and are treated with great cruelty by the squaws." Among the Creeks the women even used to pay a premium of tobacco for the privilege of whipping prisoners of war (Schoolcraft, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Nice and Cannes, at Marseilles I took steamer to Algiers. Barring its agreeable winter climate there is not much attraction there. Here I was told that the marriageable Jewess is kept in a dark room, fed on rich foods and allowed no exercise; treated, in fact, as a ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... a father give a present to his daughter—either marriageable or a prostitute [unmarriageable]—and then die, then she is to receive a portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... were made in New York. This in itself had been sufficient to have set him apart from all the other males of Oakdale. He was widely travelled, had an independent fortune, and was far from unhandsome. For years he had been the hope and despair of every Oakdale mother with marriageable daughters. The Oakdale fathers, however, had not been so keen about Reginald. Men usually know more about the morals of men than do women. There were those who, if pressed, would have conceded that Reginald ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... these circumstances, the army and navy keep aloof, and associate with no class. There were very few ladies at Hong Kong at this time, and of what class they were composed of may be imagined, when I state that a shopkeeper's sister was the belle of the place, and received all the homage of the marriageable men of Hong Kong. Hospitality to strangers is as yet unknown, and a letter of introduction is only good for one tiffin, or more rarely one dinner. I made several excursions in the country, but did not find any thing worth narrating, or ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... or later every young man dropped into a set or circle, and frequented the few houses that were willing to harbor him. An American who neither hunted nor raced, neither shot nor fished nor gambled, and was not marriageable, had no need to think of society at large. Ninety-nine houses in every hundred were useless to him, a greater bore to him than he to them. Thus the question of getting into — or getting out of — society which troubled young foreigners ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the Orient, thus to speak of this girl—in years a mere child—as one speaks of a mature woman, would seem strange, if not unnatural. But in the East, of course, at the age of ten a girl is counted marriageable; at the age of fourteen she is not infrequently the devoted mother of ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... to the Castilian throne; that that lady should make the election within six months, either to quit Portugal for ever, or to remain there on the condition of wedding Don John, the infant son of Ferdinand and Isabella, [34] so soon as he should attain a marriageable age, or to retire into a convent, and take the veil; that a general amnesty should be granted to all such Castilians as had supported Joanna's cause; and, finally, that the concord between the two nations should be cemented by the union of Alonso, son of the prince of Portugal, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... A marriageable young lady in Fiji would generally have a great quantity of long braided ringlets hanging down on one side of her head. This looked odd, considering that the rest of her hair was erect or frizzly. ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... Gulian paused again to give weight and dignity to the disclosure. "You are now of a marriageable age. I have this morning received ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... before she has a burrow, the Lycosa earns her living in another manner. Clad in grey like her elders, but without the black-velvet apron which she receives on attaining the marriageable age, she roams among the scrubby grass. This is true hunting. Should a suitable quarry heave in sight, the Spider pursues it, drives it from its shelters, follows it hot-foot. The fugitive gains the heights, makes as though to fly away. He has not the time. ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... number and species of the animals to be found there. Scientific men have gone still further; they have reckoned up the cords of wood, the pounds of beef, the apples and eggs consumed in Paris. But no one has yet undertaken either in the name of marital honor or in the interest of marriageable people, or for the advantage of morality and the progress of human institutions, to investigate the number of honest wives. What! the French government, if inquiry is made of it, is able to say how many men ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... pretty and marriageable?" he asked. "My business, nowadays, seems to be providing the eligible bachelors of Powhatan with wives. It is pleasant enough from one standpoint, and that is the young men's. But my ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... leaves the lowest of a range of dust mountains, with a dwelling-house, to an old servant, who is sole executor. And that's all, except that the son's inheritance is made conditional on his marrying a girl, at the date of the will a child four or five years old, who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement and inquiry discovered the son in the Man from Somewhere, and he is now on his way home, after fourteen years' absence, to succeed to a very large fortune, and to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... require a chaperon from her; society would, indeed, resent a chaperon if she were to appear with one. Society not only granted her freedom, but demanded that she should exercise it. As a freelance she would be taken notice of, as a respectable, marriageable girl she would be passed over. The cradle and the masterpiece were irreconcilable ideals. He drew an amusing picture of the prima donna's husband, the fellow who waits with a scarf ready to wind it round the throat of his ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... is the sort of person we should carefully avoid if he were anyone else's brother. All Europe (except Scotland, which has clans instead of families) draws the line at second cousins. Protestantism draws it still closer by making the first cousin a marriageable stranger; and the only reason for not drawing it at sisters and brothers is that the institution of the family compels us to spend our childhood with them, and thus imposes on us a curious relation in which familiarity destroys romantic charm, and is yet expected to ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... frankly regarded her as his affianced wife, and could see no reason for further mystery. She understood his impatience to have their plans settled; it would protect him from the formidable menace of the marriageable, and cause people, as he said, to stop meddling. Now that the novelty of his situation was wearing off, his natural indolence reasserted itself, and there was nothing he dreaded more than having to ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... astir, twittering their songs of morning; and already the velvety brown bees were beginning to hum their spinning chorus as they hovered here and there among the tall flowers which stood in rows before the windows, like marriageable ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... be owned that such a speech from the father of a marriageable daughter to a young man who had hardly as yet shown himself to be enamoured, was not delicate. But it may be a question whether it was not sensible. He had made up his mind, and therefore went at once at his object. And unless he did the business in this way, what chance ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... of some poor human brain,—or even testify in favor of this Head-Worker, and of the sense he shows, especially of the patience. For example: that of the "Polish Towns and Villages, ordered" by this Tyrant "to deliver, each of them, so many marriageable girls; each girl to bring with her as dowry, furnished by her parents, 1 feather-bed, 4 pillows, 1 cow, 3 swine and 3 ducats,"—in which desirable condition this tyrannous King "sent her into the Brandenburg States to be wedded and promote population." [Lindsey, LETTERS ON POLAND (Letter ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... lives—the ancient Donna Abreguardo. He now has his second wife, has the good don. By his first he has two daughters and a son. Young Don Ricardo is married and is at the Hacienda del Norte. The two se[n]oritas are of the marriageable age—oh, yes! But in these troubled times ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... the sort who are described by that officer as "beggars sent out to enrich themselves," and who expected the government to feed them while they looked for pearls and gold mines. The paternal providence of Versailles, mindful of their needs, sent them, in 1704, a gift of twenty marriageable girls, described as "nurtured in virtue and piety, and accustomed to work." Twenty-three more came in the next year from the same benignant source, besides seventy-five soldiers, five priests, and two nuns. Food, however, was not sent in proportion to the consumers; and as no crops ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... approaching. This came in 1878, when Mr. Sen's daughter was married to the Maharaja of Kuch Behar. The bride was not fourteen, and the bridegroom was sixteen. Now, Mr. Sen had been earnest and successful in getting the Brahmo Marriage Act passed, which ruled that the lowest marriageable age for a woman was fourteen, and for a man eighteen. Here was gross inconsistency. What could explain it? "Ambition," exclaimed great numbers; "the wish to exalt himself and his daughter by alliance with a prince." But Mr. Sen declared ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... described as being the handsomest people in the world; the men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say, fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is selected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as the groom ties the tali, or marriage cord, about her neck, he is feasted and is then dismissed; the wife must never again speak to, or ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... kings longed to marry her, but dared not propose. Seeing this, her father conferred upon her the right to select her own spouse, and the princess began to travel from court to court inspecting all the marriageable princes. One day, in the course of these wanderings, she paused beneath a banyan tree, where a blind old hermit had taken up his abode. He was just telling the princess that he dwelt there with his wife and son, when a young man appeared, bringing wood for the sacrifice. This youth ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... them some sporting instinct, making hazard attractive, or, perhaps, a conviction that Fate is kind, need not be discussed. The fact remains that there were a very few youthful and marriageable folk who had no desire to know beforehand what their ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... man has set his affection on a young lady,—that is, his real affection,—he ought to stick to it,—or die." Mr. Littlebird, who was the happy father of three or four married and marriageable daughters, opened his eyes with surprise. The young men who had come after his young ladies had been pressing enough, but they had not died. "Or die!" repeated Tribbledale. "It is what I should have done. Had she become ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... of our men are killed every karkam. Their wives, if of marriageable age, are expected to marry again. Then, too, you know that most Kondalian men have several wives. No matter how many wives or husbands may be linked together in that way, it merely means that after death their spirits will be grouped into one. Just as in your chemistry," ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... cob; and it was soon known in the neighbourhood that the only journey the cob was ever condemned to take was to the house of a certain squire, who, amidst a family of all ages, boasted two very pretty marriageable daughters. That was the second holy day-time of poor Caleb—the love-romance of his life: it soon closed. On learning the amount of the pastor's stipend the squire refused to receive his addresses; ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time of my arrival, that after refusing every marriageable man in the county, she was now trying to make up her mind between Jim Mattison and Radnor. Whether or not these statistics were exaggerated, I cannot say, but in any case the many other aspirants for her favor had ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... always the very hardest members of the tribe to engage in conversation, except a young girl of marriageable age. Both do all their courting by making eyes at ...
— The Sheep Eaters • William Alonzo Allen
... of the tribe of Bines? If not, you need to. The father, immensely wealthy, died a bit ago, leaving a widow and two children, one of the latter being a marriageable daughter in more than the merely technical sense. There is also a grandfather, now a little descended into the vale of years, who, they tell me, has almost as many dollars as you or I would know what to ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the list of visitors figured the names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to the three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, two ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... would follow confidences as to the disastrous results of popish influences and Romanising tendencies; and an openly expressed conviction—more especially on the part of ladies blessed with daughters of marriageable age—that it would have been so very much better for many people if the late Sir Richard Calmady had looked nearer home for ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... fortune. This circumstance, with the added advantages of a very pretty face, in which were set two deep and thoughtful grey eyes, and a figure more graceful than was common among the Netherlander women, caused Lysbeth van Hout to be much sought after and admired, especially by the marriageable bachelors ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... going to settle down in our neighborhood, I can introduce you to some of our marriageable young ladies," said ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... now found more eccentric than many other of the new rich, who had been tolerated in the ranks of the older plutocrats. Even Bryce had made the standing he desired. He was seen with the richest and idlest young men, and was invited to the best houses. Those fashionable women who had marriageable daughters considered him not ineligible, and men temporarily hampered for cash knew that they could find smiling assistance for a consideration at Bryce's little office on ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... Tigara in the simple art of cooking. At first the girls viewed it in the line of a novelty, but when they noticed the eligible young men picking out the cooks for their wives, it was astonishing to see what zeal all the marriageable girls suddenly developed. As soon as they had learned to turn a slapjack, or to make a cup of coffee, they would, on returning to their homes in the evening, pass around among the young men, bragging of what good cooks they were; or if a whale ship was sighted, off would scamper the cooks, ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... excuse the fact that both Bona's daughter-in-law, the Duchess Isabella, and her young sister-in-law, his own wife Beatrice, were expecting similar events early in the next year, while her daughter Bianca was of marriageable age and needed her mother's protection. At Milan new pleasures awaited Isabella. Theatrical representations in honour of Duke Ercole, were given by the Delle Torre family and other noble houses, and Isabella spent long days with her sister in the park and beautiful ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... said, "with a pretty and marriageable, dowered and maiden niece on your hands, a new era is opening in your life of passionate self-sacrifice. It used to be orphan children and neglected wives of farm hands. Now it is presentable but neglected bachelors. Your darling match for ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... the best of women speak of each other is lamentable. You say I should be better married, and then you take for granted that every marriageable woman in the neighbourhood is trying to kidnap me. I am sure you did not take my father by force ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Trinity Sunday, and the next day is "the Day of Spirits," or Pentecost. On this Pentecost Day a curious sight was formerly to be seen in St. Petersburg. Mothers belonging to the merchant class arrayed their marriageable daughters in their best attire; hung about their necks not only all the jewels which formed a part of their dowries, but also, it is said, the silver ladles, forks, and spoons; and took them to the Summer Garden, to be inspected and proposed for ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... indeed, graduated in all the accomplishments of the finished Moqui maiden. She now does up her hair in two large coils or whorls, one on each side of the head, which is meant to resemble a full-blown squash blossom and signifies that the wearer is of marriageable age and in the matrimonial market. It gives her a striking yet not unbecoming appearance, and, if her style of coiffure were adopted by modern fashion it would be something unusually attractive. As represented by Donaldson in the eleventh census report the handsome face ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... child of a non-Florentine mother, he and his were always on terms of good relationship with the gentle Duke Lorenzo. His associations with Florence were of the closest nature, and "Giovannino" was quite content to look for his bride among the marriageable maidens there. ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in our hotel, Bobby, and thirteen of them have marriageable daughters. Imagine the creaking of casements, when Mr. Thayer warbled, 'Open the window to me, Love!' Troubadours will do for the country; in town, one can heed only the impersonal strains of the hurdy-gurdy. ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... lay behind them, and Mrs. Honoria and the senator, Gantry, Gordon and his wife, and the two Weatherfords, with one of the marriageable daughters, were at the cafe door waiting for the laggards. Being in no proper frame of mind to enjoy a theatre supper with another Weatherford attack as the possible penalty, Blount reluctantly surrendered Patricia to Gantry, made his excuses, and went to smoke a bedtime pipe ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... desire that his son should seek alliances in Germany. A son of the reigning duke, Stephen of Bavaria, had come to serve in the French army, and the Duke of Burgundy had asked him if there were any marriageable princess of Bavaria. "My eldest brother," answered the Bavarian, "has a very beautiful daughter, aged fourteen." "That is just what we want," said the Burgundian: "try and get her over here; the king is very fond of beautiful ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the system without possibilities of good in modern times, as was illustrated recently by the action of a prominent North India caste in prohibiting large expenses in marriage and in raising, by legislation, the limit of the marriageable age of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... down and fell upon the dinner silently, but there was a hot flush still upon his face. He was not a beau. It had always been difficult for him to address a marriageable woman, and a joke on that subject threw him into dumb confusion. He had lived a dozen tender dreams of which no one knew a word. Indeed, he never acknowledged them to himself. He had admired in this way Eileen Deering whom he had seen with Milton a few times ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... and then he would be astonished to see everybody as lost in admiration as if he had brought up a ton or two of virgin gold. Every remark he made delighted his hearers and compelled their applause; he overheard people say he was exceedingly bright—they were chiefly mammas and marriageable young ladies. He found that some of his good things were being repeated about the town. Whenever he heard of an instance of this kind, he would keep that particular remark in mind and analyze it at home in private. At first he could not see that the remark was anything better than a parrot ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner |
