Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-08-18
THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE.

Grant Allen Ascrfbes 1t to the Cumu-
iattve Effect of Nervous Excitement.
Mr.. Grant Allen, in what he is pleased to
call "A Philoscphic View of the Marriage
Question" undertakes to explain why mar
rage Is less common today than 1t was a
century ago.
thirty or forty years ago." he says,
young men used to rush by blind instinct
into the tolls of matrimony-because they
couldn't help themselves. Today they shilly
shally. they pick and choose. they discuss.
they criticise. they say foolish things about
the club and the fiat and the cost of liv-
ing. They believe In Nautilus. Fancy a
young man who believes In Malthus, But
they don't marry. and it is because they are
less OF young men than formerly. Wild
animals in confinement seldom propagate
their kind. Only few Gagged birds will
continue their species Whatever upsets the
balance of the organism in an individual or
race tends first of all to affect the rate of
reproduction Cfviiize red man and he be-
gins to decrease at once in numbers.
rs not the same thing true of MS? Civ
ilization and its works have come too quickly
upon us The strain and stress of correlat-
ing and co-ordinating the world we live in
are getting too much for US. Railways, tel
egraph. the latest edition, have played
havoc at last with our nervous system. We
are always on the stretch. rushing and
fast, we catch the train or bus by the
skin of our teeth. The tape clicks perpet-
ually in our ears the last quotation in Fries,
the telephone rings US up at inconvenient
moments. Something is always happen
ing somewhere to disturb our equanimity.
Life Is one turmoil of excitement and
hustle. Financially, tits series of dissolv
ing views; personally, tits a rush; socially,
Drop out one piece, and you can never re-
place 1t. You are full next week from Mon
day to Saturday-business all day, what
calls itself pleasure (save the markD all
evening. Poor old Leisure is dead. We
hurry and scurry and furry eter-
nally. One whirl of work from morn
ing till night: then dress and dine; one
whirl of excitement from night till morn
d. capo. Not an hour. not a minute we can
call our own.
THE first generation after Stephenson
and the Rocket pulled through with it
somehow They Inherited the sound con-
situations of the men who sat on rustic
seats in the gardens of the twenties. The
second generation--that's you and me-telt
the strain of it more severely. New ma
chimes have come in to make life still more
complicated kilograms, Bell and Edison,
submarine cables, evening papers. pertur5a-
tons pouring in from all sides incessantly;
the suburbs growing, the hubbub increas-
ing, metropolitan railways trans, bicycles
innunlerable; but W. still endured, and pre-
scented the world all the same with third
generation. That third generation-ah, mel
there comes the pity of it! One fancies the
impulse to marry and rear family has
wholly died out of 1T. 1t seems to have died
out most in the c1hss where the strain and
stress are greatest. don't think young
men OF that class today have the same
feelings toward women of their sort
formerly. With certain classes and in GER
tain places a primitive instinct OF our race
has weakened. The present crisis in the
marriage market is due not to clubs or the
comfort of bachelor quarters, but to cumu-