Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-06-17
MODERN MATRIMONY.
WHY GIRLS ARE NOT SO ANXIOUS
TO MARRY AS FORMERLY.

Women Are Now Abic to Earn Living
Without Eeing Obliged to De Dependent
on Men, and So They Are Not Driven
Into Marriage For Simply n Home.
One of the San Francisco dailies sent
around its reporters to interview people on
'the decline of matrimony." The contro-
versy over the decrease of marriages
which, by the way, is not an absolutely in
controvertible fact-has advanced a step by
the contention of some of those interviewed
that, in the present condition of affairs
women are not as anxious to be married as
they were, and that theperplexing problem
of the hour is not W. shall become of the
maids, but what is going to become of the
unmarried men.
Men are being supplanted in almost every
walk of life by women, who are steadier,
more reliable, less dissipated, and less
extravaganza than the majority of men
Hence state OF things is prefigured in
which the woman shall not be driven to
marry for a home. 1t is said that there
are in New York alone $4,000 female wage
earners, besides domestic servants
1t results from this condition of affairs
that girls are not worrying as much as they
did about the future and are willing to let
the conjugal question settle itself. They
are ranging themselves on the same plane
as men, willing to marry if the right man
comes along and the conditions are favor
able, but equally willing to remain single
and to fight the battle of life alone rather
than risk an inharmonious match or a
CHASTITY shipwreck. The old stories of has-
band hunting are relics of past age.
The old maid OF our early recoliections is
not the old maid of today. She was scrawny,
angular, without a curve or a grace, with
fishy blue eyes and n wrinkled high brow,
thin nose, thin lips, a hard mouth, sharp
chin, scant hair and n shrill voice. her ma
ture was stiff, prim, austere. narrow, carp
ing. envious, fussy, intolerant, whereas
the notwithstanding old maid at 80, is
fresher, younger and better preserved than
most married women. She has known
fewer cares and pains than her married sis.
ter; therefore her nerves are quieter her
manners gentler, her temper under better
control. She is apt to be amiable
This picture is familiar to the average
girl, and when she contemplates it, after
reading one OF the belligereut divorce cases
with which the newspapers abound, she is
less inclined than ever to throw herself into
the arms of a man whom, flirt with him as
she may, she never can know until she has
been his wife, and more disposed to do as
her brother does-acquire knowledge OF =
calling which viii! support her and make
matrimouy secondary consideration In her
life.
Men have used old maidism as whip &c
oDerce girls into saying yes when their in
stincts prompted them to say no. If old
maidism loses its terrors, the relations of
the sexes will undergo a change The
coarse brutes who now secure wives simply
because they can offer girl home and
the position of a spouse will then be dere-
lict.
The girl who, having to choose between
supporting herself by work or supporting
herself by marriage, elects in favor of the
latter does herself an injustice of which she
may hereafter repent.
Mr.. Labouchere, fully approaching the
crisis which the question has reached, pro-
poses to meet the new society which is be-
ing evolved out of the ruins of the old with
a plan which would wrest from men their
monopoly of the right of making offers of
marriage. The suggestion is worth consid-
ering. There is no natural reason why the
man should choose and the woman be
chosen. There probably lives no girl who,
at some time or other has not seen a man
whom she could have loved and made hap
Ply if she could have spoken. but who has
passed her by unconscious, while her mouth
was sealed by conventional rule. If it were
possible, the experiment would be worth
trying. If men had to prink in the hope of
attracting offer from a girl, their be-
havior would be more circumspect, and
they would be more amiable creatures than
they are.
A sound view on the subject is that
which was expressed by one of the ladies
interviewed, Mrs. Bunker of the Woman's
union. She says that women do not marry
as often as they used to do, because they
are not now forced into marriage by want
or at the point of public opinion. a woman
may marry or not, as she pleases. She can
take care of herself, and no one criticises
her conduct. That seems to be the com
mon sense of the question and points the
way for its solution.
When Italy for the fourth time rose in
arms to throw off the yoke of Austria
France offered her assistance. Italy had
had cruel experience of such help, and
Charles Albert, by one of those inspirations
which sometimes come to Il man, declined
the offer with the historic words, "L'Italia
fara di Sc" When women can afford to
say to men that they can take care of them
selves, the conjugGl problem will be solved
San Francisco Argonaut.
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