Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-04
YOUNG MEN DON'T WE'D
Most Of Them Deter Marriage and
Many Never Marry at all.
THE GIRLS ARE NOT TO BLAME
They Afe Not Flushing Into Matrimony but
They Will Sacrifice.
EDUCATION As IT. AFFECTS ECONOMY
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH.

l
Men Defer Marriage" Fortified by. sta
tistics, by interviews with prominent cler
gymen and by the experience of thorough.
competent witnesses, he makes out tn
melancholy fact that the number of youn,
men who defer marriage until they are 81
and over is largely on the increase, whil'
bachelors are multiplying with alarming
rapidity.
This serious state of affairs, as the author
views it, is due to the fact principally, tha
the income of the average young man can.
not be stretched to cover the expenses o.
the present scale of living. The standard
of comfort has become so exalted that
young men hesitate and shrink from asking
girl TO accept the hardships and sacrifices
OF love In q cottage. The education of the
young women of to-day units them, he
declares, for entering upon married life in
. humble way as did their mothers and
grandmothers before them. With the in
crease in wealth high school education has
become common to both young men and
women, and 1t is owing to this education,
he insists, that so many new obstacles have
arisen in the way of early marriages
| The Woman in the Case.
From this it may be inferred that having
eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge,
and thereby knowing good and evil, the
| young people nowadays are wiser than those
OF the olden time. That is, the young men
are supposed to be. Girls, it is thought, are
| ready to rush helter skelter into marriage
at any time. The holy estate of matrimony,
it is held, is to them the aim and object of
their lives. Girls are supposed to be just
dying to get married, and the popular be-
lief is that any of them will marry any poor
stick of q man to escape the reproach of
being an cold maid" No article of belief
is more firmly held by men generally than
that no woman remains single from de-
liberate choice
But the truth is that the advance in
knowledge, with the certainty that the exer-
else of her own talents can give her liberal
living and secure for her the pleasures of
life and the freedom to enjoy, young women
are growing more chary and critical in the
matter of marriage. Silly women-plenty
of them there are still-who marry without
deliberation, who wreck their lives by ac-
cepting husbands who are good for nothing,
and who have all the softness and sweetness
of the typical angel before marriage but
prove to be fiends or frauds afterward; but
the number is growing less
Abe to Take Care of HERSELF
The papers are full of the infelicities of
mad marriages, and the tragedies that result
from such fatal mistakes. But the knowl.
edge that the essayist seems to deplore is
why leading women refuse to enter
upon the worldly marriages which no love
hallows. The independence of girls and
their ability to support themselves, which
he mourns over, is what will prevent those
possessed of common sense from making
improvident or Ioveless marriages to be
repented of as experience opens their eyes
and impresses them with the magnitude of
their own folly. This ability on the part
of women to maintain themselves as it has
appeared in late years seems to frighten
tie writer greatly. Where this thing will
end is to him great social problem.
If he were philosopher of the Schopen-
hauer type he would console himself and
rather ejoIce over the increase of eelibacy
upon which, as the great German philoso-
pher sets forth in his doctrine, depends the
deliverance of the world from all its pain
and misery. 1t was held by the saints and
early fathers of the church that to refrain
from marriage was a virtue of the highest
order, and by the Roman Church it is even
now enforced upon the clergy. Tolstoi
holds the same doctrine on gospel grounds,
and maintains that it is supported BY the
teachings and example of Christ himself
But apart from philosophy and Christian
doctrine it Is now chronicled as deplorable
fact that SO many young men defer mar
riaga until they are 80 or marry not at all
as they see fit.
Compelling thu Gir:s to Work.
Taking the view that there is wisdom in
DELAY, and that they have the inalienable
right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness
in their own way, they marry or not, as
suits them best. By this shirking of mar
riage, they have compelled millions of
young women to earn an Independent liv- |
ing and take care of themselves. This is a |
violation of what the author of the essay,
Mr. Payne, conceived to be the Divine |
Law. Under this law, men should be the |
bread winners, and women be keepers-at- |
home. The transgressors of this law-as
estimated by Brother Payne-amount to |
g. 900, 600 of young men, between the ages of |
20 and 80 years This manifestly counts the |
same number of young women lett out in
the cold.
The failure of young men to conform to
the divine plan is laid to the score of |
women, as might be expected. Their inca
pacity, their lack of knowledge as to domes-
tic economy, their unwillingness to sacri-
plenty to the pinches of snail salaries, in
their reluctance to accept groove OF living
which would call for much of self-de nial
and much restriction in the pleasures to
which they have been accustomed The
great trouble, say the young men, Is that
girls expect to live in good style-that is,
in such style as cannot be justified upon
small, or even moderate income. They
want to dress we'll, to keep up with society,
o live as comfortably as they did at home,
ind this cannot be done with salaries as
hey are, house rent SO heavy, and living as
expensive as it is at present.
Young Men More Extravagant,
But as everybody knows, who gives
hought to the subject, the fault is not all
With the girls. Many of them, for the sake
# those they love, will give up wealth aad
ccept the privations of small means with
money to do with, as general thing watch
he pennies with more solicitude than men
10 the dollars. Their powers of mind in
most cases are devoted to small economies,
nd to the endeavor to make quarter do
he work of dollar. If the facts could be
sc ertained, it would likely be discovered
hat young men in the main are much more
xtravagant than the girls upon whom they
~ the blame of their failure to marry.
Jerks at $40 or S12 week are notorious for
heir expensive clothes and habits They
xpend in costly bouquets and amusements
,ore than would keep family, and then
,ake their moan that they cannot afford to
ct married.
But what seems most perplexing to some
eople is why the girls of to-day cannot
ONE down to live in the style of half
entury ago. Henry Ward Beecher and his
life began housekeeping in two rooms on