Choosing Wisely Before Marriage...

Till Death Do Us Part by Edmund Blair Leighton

"There must be a wise choosing before marriage, or it may be impossible to make a happy home. At few points in life is divine guidance more severely needed than when the question of marriage is decided. A mistake then will cast its shadows down all the years to the close of life. Many a career is blighted by a foolish marriage. Wedded happiness depends greatly on reverent, prayerful, deliberate, wise choosing before marriage."

The HUSBAND has his part. He must be a good man. Not every man who marries thinks of the responsibility he assumes when he takes a young girl away from the shelter of father-love and mother-love—the softest, warmest nest in the world, and leads her into a new home, where henceforth his love is to be her only shelter. Well may the woman say as she goes to the marriage altar–

"Before I trust my fate to you,

Or place my hand in thine;

Before I let your future give

Color and form to mine;

Before I peril all to thee,

Question your soul tonight for me.

Does there within your dimmest dreams

A possible future shine

Wherein your life could henceforth breathe

Untouched, unshared by mine?

If so, at any pain or cost,

Oh, tell me before all is lost."

~ J.R. Miller, Secrets of Happy Home Life

"The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord."

~ 1 Corinthians 7:39

For further reading on this subject,
you may be interested in Waiting for Shem, Ham & Japheth.