The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-03

D1IC1dO11AC41d, CIHI rs -uIIS" G1 OClup Il
strated and accounted for with the
same deliberate and sober gravity. |
do not mean that the dOOm-wOrd de-
ter1nining the fate of the institution
0ctUm or cORS1ntmdtum eSt-has already
gone forth, nor even that we are yet
within measurable distance of such a
supreme cataclysm. | mean merely
that marriage is losing it's popularity,
is beginning to die out. Starting with
u own country, the Registrar-General
has recently pointed out that for the
first time in the history of u popular
returns, the marriage rate has not IN
creased IN proportion to the rise OF
prices. Almost simultaneously we are
informed that in Germany, France and
America the marriage rate has taken a
r~etrOgrade direction, while in the last
two centuries the increase of divorces
is proceeding, not gradually, but by
leaps and bounds"
Now, it must be evident that for
phenomena so widely spread, the causes
must be equally general. What then,
l ask, are those causes?
The first and chief of them is, in my
opinion, the more general advance of
culture. Here, again, [ must bespeak
the readers seriousness. | can assure
him that lam neither testing nor in
dnlging in irony or satire. [ am, with
complete simplicity and bona fde
about to PROFOUND a sociological aus
to account for a sociological effect.
Those who are cOnverSant with the
countries just named are aware, that
in nothing else have their populations
changed 50 enormously during the last
quarter of a century, as in intellectual
and artistic culture. 1t is not, how
ever, with the fact that we + so much
concerned, as with it's social Onse
quences- the decadence of marriage.
Starting from this cultural transfer
nation of humanity, which attends
the higher stages of civilization, we
are confronted necessarily by a new
conception of marriage. 1t is no longer
the alliance for commonplace objects
of two persons of opposite sexes, with
few or no mental needs or susceptible
ties in common. Culturally and 8s-
thetical4y, it is the union of two beings,
whose intellects, feelings, tastes and
sympathies have been assiduOusly
trainsd to a high point of development,
and, ipSO-tdctO, sensitlveness. But here
comes the difficulty. This institution
becomes hampered by the increasing
e~laborateness of it's preliminary con
ditiOns Just as i'll nature vitality be-
comes endangered by the increased
complexity and delicacy of the or
ganlSm.
The foregoing observations lead at
once to the first p~ropOrsitiOn [ wish to
lay down, viz, Culture not only creates,
1t emphasizes and SensttiCiSeS jndi-
ridudIity.
In illustration of this, suppose a man
of highly elaborated and refined culture
contemplating marriage. How does
the enterprise present itself to him!
| He finds that his culture has made
him sensitive and neutrality-suspicious.
unduly 50. Assume e q. that he
possesses and has trained to an extreme
nicely some artistic constituencies; that
he has cultivated, e. q. to the verge
of a morbid, yper-8StheticiSm. a pas
sion for sweet sounds and harmony.
This at once excludes from his matri
mOnial purview that large majority of
women, who have coarse, rancOus or
masculine voices, or betray by a harsh
pitch or disOnant unaffected cadences,
not only the total want of a musical
ear, but, it's too often ~cOngenital ac-
cOmpaniment-a hard, unsympathetic
nature. | need hardly add, that the
same cultured sensibilities would Oper-
| ate in the case of the other sex.
Passing from the aesthetic prejudice
| of cultured senses to the mental pre-
possession of cultivated ~intellects, the
process repeats itself. The educated
intellect has a natural repulsiOn for
minds either uneducatable, or whose
| education has been grossly malfOrmed
or perverted. Here, as in other social
antagOnisms, the opposition lies not so
much between trained and unframed
intelIectS, as between those that are
trained and those that are untrainable.
Judging from present appearances,
and relying on those statistics which
appear to show that it is among the
higher classes that marriage is most
on the decline, it seems probable that
| il-assOrted marriages, and, per cOnSe-
Quence, marriage, will become T as
| the world advances still further in it's
cultural progress. Men and women
are beginning to perceive that culture
| tends to the formation of a strong
| individuality, both intellectually and
| psthetically, and thus induces a con
ditiOn which does not predispoSe to
marriage. Culture concentrates and
| aSSimilateS the various interests of life,
intellectual and disciplinary, in such a
way as to make its possessor indie
pendent of any other individuality. 1t
tends to generate an all-round, self
reliant, Serenely moulded character,
to form aptitudes of thought and feel
ing, self-cOntained. locked in, and fOrti-
fed by, a carefully-trained and in
structed reason. 1t is yident that a
man of this type does not need the
perpetual companiOnship which to un-
cultured men is an absolute necessity.
TOaself-cOntained character Of this kind
of marriage, however advisable for
other reasons, is not an absolute neces-
sity. 1t may take the form of a con