Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-05-12
MODERN MATR1MONY.
WHY GIRLS ARE NOT so ANXIOUS
TO MARRY AS FORMERLY.

TO MARRY AS FORMERLY.
Women .A:c Now Able to Earn ~ Living
Without !cins Obliged to he Dependent
on Men, and So They Are Not Driven
Into Marriage For Simply IL Home.
One of the Sun Francisco dailics sent
around it's 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
conference.-the 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 us
of the hour is not what shall 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 a 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
SUA UCSIACs uOlilCSUlC SCINHIllS.
1t results from this condition of affairs
that girls are not worrying as muchn they
did about the future and are willing to let
the conjugal question settle itself. They
are ranging themselves on the same plane
rs men, willing to marry if the right man
comes along n 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 hus-
band hunting are relics of a past age.
The old maid of our early recollections is
not the old maid of today. She was scrawny,
angular, without q curve or a grace, with
fshy ! eyes and a wrinkled high brow,
a thin nose, thin lips, a hard mouth, sharp
chin, scant hair and q shrill voice; her ma
ture was stiff, prim, a%ustere, narrow, carp
ing, envious, fussy, intolerant, whereas
the end-of-the-century old maid at 40, is
tresher, 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 belligerent divorce cases
with which the newspapers abound, she is
less inclined than ever to throw herself into
the arms of Il 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 a knowledge of a
calling which will support her and make
matrlmony n secondary consideration in her
life.
NJ
Men have used old maidism us a whip to
coerce girls into saying yes when their in
stlncts prompted them to say no. If old
maldism loses it's t~errors, the relations of
the sexes will undergo a change. The
coarse brutes who now secure wives simply
because they can offer a girl n home and
the position of a spouse, will then be dcre-
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.
MIR. 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-
erlng. There is no natural reason WHY the
man should choose and the woman he
chosen. There probably lives no girl who.
at some time or other, has not seen q man
whom she could have loved and made han
Ply II she could have spoken, but who has
passed her by unconscious, while her mouth
was sealed by conventional rule. fit were
possible the experiment would be worth
trying. If men had to prink in the hone of
attracting an offer from a girl, their be-
havlor 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
marry or not, rs she pleases. She can
take care of herself, and no one criticises
her conduct. That seems to be the COM
sense of the question and points the
way for its solution.
When Italy for the fourth time rose in
to throw off the yoke Of Austria,
france offered her assistance. Italy had
had q cr:ic! experience OF such help. and
Charles A!3ctt, by n of those inspirations
winch sometimes come to a man, declined
the offer with the historic words, "L'Italia
fara di &C." When women can afford to
say to lnen that they can take care of them
selves, the conjugal problem will be solved.
Francisco Argonaut.