The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1897-07-24

Mrs. Bowling, whether you can deny
that there Is such thing as the BEL
gravian marriage market and that You
keep stall in it with your daughter
Agnes On sale2 I have, as you win, !
am sure. acknowledge, asserted moth.
ing myself, but merely arranged more
clearly the facts admitted by you"
Poor Mrs. Bowling's reply to the final
question of the female Socrates may,
we think, be more easily imagined than
set forth. Probably it would be firm
and incoherent and something on this
model:
I'm sure never said anything OF
the kind and don't know what you
mean except that know all this talk
about marriage market is all non
sense and very vulgar. too, and not the
sort of thing that nice people ever have
anything to with, and what puts
such things into your head, Miss Por-
chester, ! really can't think. How can
you know? You've never been mar
ried yourself and had children. If you
had you'd think very differently. Don't,
Tplease, tell me it was / who said there
was a marriage market. I never did.
You evidently did not understand me;
it's like the second-class society pa
pers that Agnes says her maid tells
her things out Of No, won't argue
it out again, it makes one so hot, and,
really, indeed, you can't understand
anything about it, even if you are old
er and have read great deal more
than many married women. It's like
servants. As cook says about Agnes
when she's doing the housekeeping:
Young ladies never exactly UNDER
stand Well, I really feel quite con-
fused with all the questions you've
asked me, and I'm sure you ought to
have been a great lawyer. You would
have done splendidly when it was nee
essary to make witnesses say some
thing they didn't mean to. At any
rate, you may be quite sure I'd much
rather Agnes married poor man who
would be really nice to her than rich
one who wouldn't. That goes without
saying. Only, unfortunately, all the
poor men aren't good, as the people
who write for the magazines seem to
think. OF course, the rich men aren't
always good, either. I'm afraid, indeed.
that it's pure chance with both"
A Socratic dialogue such as we have
just given would very aptly sum up
the general results of the modern as
poets of the eternal marriage market
controversy. It can apparently be
shown that something like a marriage
market exists, in which the mothers
try to sell their daughters to the best
advantage; and yet all the time it is
quite obvious that the mothers are do
ing nothing Of the kind, but are only
trying to get their daughters comfort
ably settled "a very natural and very
sensible action. In truth, there is
more foolish nonsense written about
the marriage market than on any 9TH
er subject under heaven. In the first
place, the analogy is altogether false
one. How can a person be said to sell
when she gets nothing by the sale?-
for except in very rare cases the moth
Ell. gets nothing tangible by her daugh-
ter's marriage. OF course, occasion
ally a mother does force her daughter
to marry a rich man against her will
or insist upon her abandoning a poor
one. AS rule, however, it is the want
of money sufficient to keep wife, not
the Vaccinations Of the mother, which
defeats the poor man. If, though poor,
he is in a position to marry, and the
young woman is really anxious to be-
come his wife, the mother may tell her
daughter she is an IDIOT, but she can do
little else.