The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-29
WHY DON'T MEN MARRY
Detroit Free Press.

HIS IS ThpIuly DcCOH1luS Oue OI tue great social questions of the day. The best organized society is that where the marriage relation is most carefully adjusted. Statistics show that the per cent in marriages is decreasing, while the per cent of divorces is in- creasing. Perhaps it is not fair to apply this rule to all localities. There are always exceptions. But that this is the case in general there does not seem to be much doubt. Unless some sudden check is put upon this inclination to live alone on the part of the male sex, there is no telling where it will end and what society will come to.
 There is naturally variety of opinion on this topic. Ask a young lady who is yearning for her own vine and fig tree, and a husband, by way of an adjunct, why it is that the Een are so 10th to take unto themselves partners for better or for worse, and she will reply: 70! the men are self ish. They want to spend all their money upon themselves. They like the luxuries of celibacy. They like their club life with all it's comforts. They want to provide themselves with every thing that is calculated to make a man satisfied with himself and the world at large" This is the reply that the interrogator will get in most cases. There may be varieties of expression, according to the indi- vidual, but the tenor of the answer is not far removed from this.
 Ask the young man who is a fit subject for the matrimonial market why the men ~do not marry and he will say: 70! the women are so foolish. They want to enjoy them selves. They want to wear fine clothes, servants to do the work for them and live like the wives of millionaries. If the women were not 80 foolish more men would get married. Ii they were less capricious there would be less anxiety felt about the married state. As it is the young man with moderate income is afraid to plunge in the vortex of matrimony for fear that fHancill bankruptcy may be the outcome "f This will be the reply in nine cases out of ten.
 Here we are between two grind stones. But when one investigates the question in careful way the con- clusion is inevitable that there is ground for complaint on both sides. The young man is certainly selfish. He forms habits in his bachelor days which certainly would not become him as married man. He has his club and his club claims a good deal of his time and thought. He does not as general thing take his wife to the club with him. Therefore she natur- ally objects to clubs and thinks that they are horrid. If the young bene- dict would make his home his club house and his wife his club-fellow, there would be mu ch less ground for complaint than there now is. But to most young iAen, who even in a married state pine for 6 little bit of freedom, club life of this kind would be too monotonous. Again, there is some ground for complaint that the young man il nd of his own comfort. That btedly true But man is very creature of habit. He forms f4yFos and habits in celibacy which he cannot shake oil. Too often when he has a wife hc grat- flies th6se tastes even if to do SO he is compelled to sacrifice his wife's com- fort This is not right. A woman when she marries takes the step in some cases for the want of congenial companionship in others to better her condition. But, leaving the ma- terial aspect of the matter out of sight, 6 woman who marries does not at once like to begin life of denial and self-abnegation.
 The young man has 8 good deal to complain about, too. The education of a young woman is often far too su- perfcial, and, therefore, useless. It does not 1t her to be the true help meet of man. It is calculated to make her an ornament, not . useful being. The average society woman is we'll defined by the philosopher Thomas Carlyle in his @Sartor Re sartus" as a piece of celestial art which he glories to survey in galler- ies, but which he has lost all hope of purchasing. The young woman too often is educated to be parlor orna- ment, to dress well, to pose effectively, to play the piano little, and to have a smattering in those branches of eiu- cation which are purely ornamental. A wife of this kind is not what the young man wants who is just starting out upon his career. He must have some one to help him ave In order to do this the wife must know how to