I’ve decided I really need to write down my favorite passages from Lapham’s Quarterly; this one comes from the winter 2009 volume – EROS. It is from Benjamin Franklin concerning the advantages of dating/marrying older verses younger women. Seems like sage advice to me:
You should prefer old women to young ones.
Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility.
Full letter is HERE
LTMD – I learned this lesson in my late 20s. It seems to me that most women who are gifted with great beauty are often lacking in other areas. This applies to men as well who have relied too much on their looks and have failed to develop other areas of their character.
Therefore, I give you this advice; never go for the best looking but for the one with the best personality and biggest heart. The initial allure to a beautiful face loses its luster as the days pass by and this is especially quickened when accompanied with a poor character. The fascination with the beauty will quickly end and to add insult to injury, the beauty itself will fade over time and bear very little resemblance to its former self.
This is a little different from what Benjamin Franklin states above but is very similar.
