Middletown transcript., 1886-08-19
why Men Don't Marry.

The silly season is sufficiently ad
vanced to have matured for discussion
the topic of matrimony, and number
of our contemporaries Lave accordingly
taken up the question. "Why mer
don't marry" though the conundrum
Why men do marry" would seem
| in view of the proportion of Benedicts
to bachelors, to be the one most re.
quiring a solution. The reasons as.
signed by editors and correspondents
for the alleged aversion Of young men,
or men of any age, nowadays, to the
married state are extremely various.
An unmarried female correspondent of
thirty-five summers, who expresses
desire that "a marrying crusade
should be gotten up" attributes
her missing several chances for
happiness to the fact that "the
young men thought they would incur
in marrying unbearable legal response
bilities and expenses that would take
away all their pocket money" The
legal terrors, she thinks have been ma
liciously exaggerated and misrepre-
sented, and she therefore begs the
editor, in the interest of a boom in the
market, to tell just what the legal
points about marriage, divorce, ali
mony, dover, &C., are." The positive
information derived from bachelor
correspondents rather confirms the
would-be crusaders conjecture. The
unequal financial burden placed upon
the man by the laws and social customs
of this county is the gist of nearly all
their letters. Ones sense of natural
justice, it is alleged, is offended by the
exactions Of the married state. "The
dover right, - says one, lis a piece of
sentimental fraud; the right of alimony
is another curse Of the marriage rela-
tion-the law gives o wife too much
power to entangle her husbands af-
fairs" The curmudgeon naturally
goes to the length of enunciating the
principle that i" finance and marriage
laws should be as separate as church
and state.' Another correspondent
who boasts an income of $500 asks in
credulously how the average woman,
whom he describes as 'sa toy to set in q
dollhouse could help him along.
Z" She would be a drag" he asserts un-
gallantly, "and the laws would chain
me down SO that would be at her
mercy. If we quarreled and sepa-
rated I would be compelled to
support her in idleness. This writer
is full of suggestions. Married life,"
he says; I" is a plain, barnyard sort of
state let women, therefore, learn how
to wash, cook, sew and beat carpets,
and let the dover and alimony laws be
modified or abolished. It rests with
the lawmakers and women to lessen
the noble army of single men," The
of feminine dress, habits
and fancies is the text of many com.
plants. The bachelors outgo, it is
alleged, is not halved, but trebled or
quadrupled "on assuming the conju-
gal moose" Careers, it is claimed,
are spoiled by premature marriage,
and one writer has the hardihood to
affirm it to be "a matter of fact that
the greatest men who have lived were
childless and wifeless men," This is
explained by the distractions Of house
keeping and !" the infinite task of lab
or1ng to satisfy wives brought up with |
the idea that economy is meanness."
The disposition to convert homes into
costly museums Of old china. bric-a-
brac, useless furniture, unappreciated
books, &C., instead of STUDYING to
simpllfy and minimize the requirements
OF daily living, is another vice charged
upon the modern woman. "She
makes nothing and wants everything"
one complainant puts it. HLiying
costs too mnch," says another, sum-
ming up thousand objections in one.
1t may be observed, however, in re-
gard to much Of this fault-fnding, that
it proceeds upon a narrow view of
llIe ana It's objects. A pretty effective
reply to it all is the contribution made
to the discussion by young lady who
says: "One has only to look around
him to see that the married men are
the most regular, temperate, law-abid-
ing and prosperous. Baltimore Sun.