Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-28
Wednesday Morning, Sep. 2s, 1881.
e.HIARRIAGE INsURANCE.,,


 The State of Pennsylvania has been of late
 profitable field for rasca1ly and questiona-
 ble insurance schemes. There the business
 of insuring old and infrm people as specu- | lation has been active, and much wickedness has been done in connection with it. Now l attention is turned to the marriage insur- | ance associations" which have recently sprung l up in the State. These associations bear diff ferent titles but they all do business in sub stantially the same way. Any unmarried person applying for admission can become a stated sum, varying from five to ten dollars. After that condition has been complied with, he receives certificate of membership, and after the expiration of year, or in some cases six months he is entitled when he mar ries to be paid gross amount, which ranges, according to the strength of the association or the recklessness of it's conductors, from one to five thousand dollars.
 Application was made in a Philadelphia court the other day for the chartering of one of these associations. The judge refused to grant the charter, and in doing so said: '.It is against public policy and would be injur- ious to the community to confer the priyi- leges and immunities of corporations upon such associations. A premium upon mar riage may, and probably frequently will, be the price of virtue. Such associations ought not to be encouraged by judicial tribunals. If they choose to prosecute such . business as this, it will have to be done without any sanction from the judges of this court" The stand taken by this judge is commendable. It is said that the majority of the associations are organized simply and solely as a matter of speculation and not with any idea of accom- plishing the beneficial results to which they ostensibly directed. But even if this were not the case it would still be inexpedient to give them legal sanction. For, as the Philadelphia NortA Ame1fcon clearly shows, they tend to impair the freedom and purity of marriage. Suppose the case of an impe cunious father with three or four marriage able daughters upon his hands, whom he is unable to endow with portion, and in get ting rid of whom, therefore, he experiences an embarrassing difficulty These co-opera- tive associations enable him to convert his superfuous family into source of profit. He takes out marriage policies in the names of the daughters who are in the market, and then looks round for complaisant swain who is willing to come to terms for a pc cuniary consideration. It may be said that the girls will still be free to reject their ready-made suitor. So they would in theory, but hardly in fact. Again, it is manifestly to the interest of the man who has joined one of these associations to marry some one as soon as possible after the expiration of the proba- tion period Most of the members would probably marry in haste and repent at leis- ure. In these and other ways the marriage associations are sure to make trouble and wrong. Then, too, as the North Amoeafcan points out, they are not sound in business principles. A member promises, of course to continue the payment of installments after marriage; but suppose after he has realized l the principal sum he suspends his contribu- ! tions? His fellow members might or might 1 not be able to recover the amounts due by l an action at law, but in the great majority of l cases they would lose more or less heavily l by the transaction. Unhealthy in their moral influence and radically unsound in business principle, these marriage associations deserve nothing but suppression.