Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-08-13
JUST THINK OF THE WIDOWS.
Why There Are so Many More Of Them
Than of Widowers.

| Than of Widowers.
| SOME REASONS FOB AN EXCESS THAT WILL SUR
| PRISE YoU-woMES SHOULD THINK OF sEcUR-
mo COMPANION FOB LIFE AND NOT FOR A
FEW YEARs-PosrERIrY WILL SUFFER-
| From the Westminster Review.
| In the article which we published in March
| last on Work and Women" we stated that sit
| is not the spinsters who constitute the sur
plus female population and by whom the labor
market is flooded, but the widows" and adj
ducing statistics in evidence, We added: '"That
| the widows number as many as ,410,6 and
the widowers $50, GA, being excess of S21 ,040
women. So great an excess of widows over
widowers was scarcely to be expected, and must
| be regarded as a deplorable thing, which seems
to suggest at once some default or vice in our
| social life" The greater longevity of women
| than of men becomes factor in the advanced
stages of life. On reference to the census of
England and Wales for 1881 we find that Wild
overs Of sixty-fve and upward numbered $780,
IA and widows Of corresponding age 372,S77,
whereas at ffty-fve the widowers numbered
SO, 995 and the widows 259,8Ii; and again. at
forty-fve the widowers 73 92S and the widows
1873, $780, so that the excess Is still greater where
longevity has nothing to do with IL. For every
100 widowers in France there are 1874 widows.
How young, too, in our own country some are
left widows is shown by the census Of England
and Wales Of 1881, at which date there were
62,O19 widows at the age of twenty-five. Fifty
two thousand widows seem great number at an
age when, according to some authorities, most
women should first marry, especially in these
times.
As long as women do not submit to the fate
which weighs on their natural mates or COM
panioDs, but marry men old enough to be their
fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers
loiten widowers), from unwillingness to face
the battle of life, or from love of and show,
so long will there be gross inequality between
the number of widows and widowers. That
marriage on the part Of men is becoming later
through the greater struggle Of life, the advan-
tages and Vaccinations Of club life and other
reasons, Is a well-known fact. Now. from the
fact OF men not only marrying often when far
advanced in manhood, but sometimes when
nearer the end than the beginning to which
must be added remarriage often more than
once, and marrying then not women Of CORE
spending or approximately corresponding age,
but young women, 1t must follow in the ordi-
nary course Of things, without the necessity of
any calculation or reference to statistics, that
such women must be left widows long before
the natural termination Of their lives Some
have seen in the fact Of woman's greater long
gevity reason why she should marry a man
somewhat younger than herself, so that she
may hope to have companion in her latter
days as well as in her earlier-a season. indeed
u
protector. The difficulty of finding a suitable
companion later in life should certainly dictate
TO women the importance, SO far practical
BILE, OF securing a lifelong companion. It is
hardly necessary to mention that to do so is one
OF the essential conditions of true marriage
the ideal marriage, which, be it said by the
way, Is often very different thing from the
base, mercenary counterfets of today, which
pass under the euphemism of ''holy matri-
mony"
II il obviopu that fba ;5oo 80 o,ao.uo~;.z, -
procure companion for life should for many
reasons, be uppermost in the mind of a woman
intent on marrying. Does observation show
that woman invariably exercises the foresight
just indicated2 We think not, but should say
rather the contrary. So eager are some, we
do not say all, to enter the bonds of wedlock,
that If they can reasonably hope that the pros
pected coveted husband will get through the
marriage ceremony and the HONEYMOON, thew
seem tolerably contented. Even in this limited
forecast they are sometimes led astray bv en-
thuslasD. Only last spring we knew an elderly
swain OF sixty-fve summers, or thereabouts
who, being captivated by fair young charmer
must needs marry her; it is true he got through
the ceremony, but he was not SO successful
with the honeymoon, for it cam to pass on the
fifth day that his soul was required of him,
Ihese amorOus veterans. nevertheless do not
always so expeditiously shuttle off this mortal
coil and leave this sphere of marriage for the
one where ''they never marry, nor are given
In marriage, but rather seem to take a new
lease OF life. What Is, however, the lease of
life OF man OF fifty or sixty in comparison
with that of maid of twenty or twenty-five?
One OF the correspondents of the Ddiiy Tele-
graph correspondence of last autumn showed
well how the union OK May and December was
one OF the most fertile sources OF the failure of
marriage. While May was full of pleasure to
come, December was chewing the end of past
ones. The one had lived, the other wanted to
live, and here they parted company on the
threshold of their married life A young woman
marrying man of like age may have to exer-
else self-denial, the very quientessence Of true
marriage, but she inspires and encourages him:
she is the key to unlock the treasures and stores
OF his manhood; she Is the right person in the
right place. On the contrary for MANY OBJ
V1ous reasons, in marrying a man at the end of
his manhood she often drags him down. Gross
disparity was forbidden by Jewish iaw-giyers,
and also by the most enlightened Of Pagan leg
islators. Is it wise or prudent to permit the
vigor Of manhood to be dissipated or wasted.
and to allow posterity to owe its origin to the
waning strength of old men? 1t is certainly
contrary to the warning voice Of the most in
teiligent and disinterested of the medical pro-
sellers on this subjecs.
Marriage in its essence is the duty Of one sex
toward the other and may be approximately
expressed as the complementing and supple
mentlng development and utilization respect
lively OF manhood and womanhood and we are
not aware, apart from this. that 1t differs from
any other union between man and woman so
far as morality is concerned. The kew is not
more necessary to the lock, nor the cord to the
bow, than is man and woman to each other in
respect to the perfection of human life; they
are, indeed, as the poet, Longfellow saws
Useless each without the other" This widow,
making vice of marital disparity is but one
feature in that hymeneal proclamation which ia
the curse and disgrace of our age, as it was
that of the decline of Rome. Looking on our
society Of today the reader will realize the
truth conveyed in the words Of Mr. Hepworth
Dixon, in the White Conquest" Nature puts
the sexes on earth in pairs and man DESTROYS
that balance at the cost Of his moral death"
The social evil' is but the reflection or
shadow Of an unsocial evil and we must not.
therefore, wonder if the all agencies of the
philanthropist and the missionary efforts of the
evangelist fail when We know how impossible
1t is to remove a shadow while that which
causes the shadow remains.