Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-10-03
WHY MEN DO NOT MARRY.

The English marriage market has be.
come an arena of competition as keen as
any auction.room. The natural impulses
|, of women are disregarded. Mothers ad-
wise prudent alliances, and discountenance,
by fair means and foul, love-masches.
Girls choke down their feelings, and aid
and abet their seniors in encouraging men
who are "catches," throwing off the re-
straints which made their grsndmothers
charming. But still the cry goes up,
"Men do not marry" And yet, the most
inveterate clubman, the mocker at love in
cottage, was once a youth not blase, to
whom the vision of home was enchanting.
Almost every man tries his hand at realiz-
ing some such dream early in life but the
attempt is usually nipped in the bud by
want of means, or by failure to win the
particular woman on whom his heart is set.
He suffers acutely; but man ia an elastic
creature; in time he mingles again with
the world, not entirely proof against
feminine fascination, but finding it almost
impossible again to set up an ideal. Ma
irons with attractive daughters cannot
complain that their girls see few men. The
tendency of the age is to level the barriers
between the sexes girls play tennis, they
row, they rink, they skate, they sit in the
smoking-room, they dance, not only In the
evenings, but in the afternoons. The
natural tendency of such intimate associa-
tions would be matrimony. But the fact
is, that men who might have had serious
intentions are frightened off before liking
begets love. There is an all.prevailing
fuss pervading the intercourse of young
people which is altogether detrimental.
The instant pair begin to show any par
ticular liking for each others soiety, the
wide world about them is instantly on the
qui vive. The mother watches, fuses, re-
ports to her cronies, and too often
catechises the girl, wounding her sense of
delicacy, and making her conscious and
constrained or leading her to imagine
herself beloved, when the mans feeling is
only that of pleasure in the society of
young woman who does her best to make
herself agreeable. Men are usually ignor-
ant how girls note and weigh the attentions
they receive, and that they impart the de-
tails of such homage to sympathetic-lf
notwithstanding ears, thus giving body
to vague nothings. Meanwhile, the man,
having said the pretty things his idea of
politeness has prompted, goes away, for
getting them and their recipient, while she
is expecting declaration as the result of
few soft nothings, squeeze of the hand, or
tender chances. Women are not aware, on
the other hand, how sincerely he may like
and admire girl without thought beyond
mere good Will. And it is precisely the
better kind of man who falls into the mis-
fortune of raising false hopes the man
WHO believes in the simplicity and candor
of women, desires their sympathy and
values their regard. A man of the world
has the instinct OF self preservation devel-
oped strongly enough for his protection.
The sense of safety is the real bond OF
many of the alliances now so fashionable
sometimes salutary, often mischlevous-
between men and married women. Kept
within bounds, no suspicion attaches to
them, no hopes are built upon them. The
lady receives the pstits SONS dear to the
female nature, which the husband of long
standing often neglects !; the man receives
the sympathy grateful to the masculine
creature. Men feel this without Analysing
their sentiments, and it is common COM
plant among them nowadays that it is i'm
possible to become well acquainted with a
girl without exciting the too lively anxiety
of her friends. And no man proposes
without knowing the character of the girl
he wishes to marry. The mothers who are
SO eager for their daughters establishment
are wise, although this precipitation is not
only foolish but indecorous. Il Whitehall
Il sviaw