Choosing A Mate

In her book The Fascinating Girl Helen Andelin devotes a whole chapter to the topic of choosing a mate. She starts with suggesting to pray for God's help in choosing a husband, but also points out that the woman should do her part, too.

Mrs Andelin reminds her readers about the importance of making the good choice as your future husband will be your companion and  the father of your children, and states that a young woman should seek a man of a worthy character, but also that she should strive to become a woman of worth herself.

There are things which aren't really important to marital happiness, such as the colour of a man's eyes or his height, or his popularity with women. More important are such virtues as honesty, integrity and high moral standards. An ideal man is the one who has a sense of right and wrong and moral courage to follow his convictions. He respects the higher authority, keeps his commitments, is diligent and unselfish, free from arrogance and has consideration for others.

Mrs Andelin also suggests to look for intellectual skills and abilities, such as a good basic education but also wisdom and good judgement. The next on the checklist are his masculine traits:

Does he look and act like a man? Does he face life with manly courage? Would he make a good father, a good leader of his family? Is he aggressive and decisive...?Is he planning a career which would provide for his family adequately? Is he...chivalrous? (p. 186)

When evaluating the prospective husband, Mrs Andelin advises to discuss different topics with him, so that you will discover his attitudes about such important things as family life and his future plans, his ideas about religion, raising children and money. Is he materialistic and worldly? Does he have an unwholesome drive for status and money? Is he selfish or does his life have a higher purpose?

I'd like to add to this that if you want to be a housewife, you should make it clear beforehand that you are not planning to work after your marriage. If his idea of a family is a dual income household, you should probably find someone else. The same goes for men who explicitly state that they don't want to have children. Men generally mean what they say, and if you think you are going to make him change his mind you might be in for a rude awakening.

The next post on this topic will be about which men to avoid. .