The Van Buren press., 1897-12-18
WHEN 1T is BEST TO MARRY.
The Proper Age Is n Question of Great
ImDortance

importance
Taking it for granted, which all SEN
sible, right-minded and goodzhearted
people do, that marriage is the very
best condition for all men and women,
the question arises: What is the best
marriageable age?
There is very much to be said i'll favor
of both late and early marriages. Those
who start out in life early may have the
satisfaction of gathering large family
of grandchildren about them, and
spending the latter portion of their
lives in comparative freedom from care
and anxiety, Having brought THEN
children up in the way they should go
and established them comfortably in
prosperous occupations, they may feel
relieved from the immediate response
bilities of everyday life, and feel that
all the children will have an interes
in their happiness and welfare. OF
course, where youngsters begin life to-
gether, they usually do so with small
means, and if the little ones arrive in
rapid succession there may, and almost
inevitably will, be more or less hard
ship in making both ends meet and in
providing food and clothes and eduea-
tion for the fast-growing brood; but il
parents will only take a rational view
of the situation, and understand that
simple food is not expensive, that plain
clothes are quite as good as fine ones,
and that education and knowledge is
the one thing of all others to give the
children in order to furnish them with
working capital, they will have simpli-
fed life to a great extent, and can pave
the way to prosperity and peaceful
and plentiful old age.
People who marry when quite young
are likely to live together more har-
moniously than those who enter into
this relation after their ideas, minds
and methods are fully settled. The
younger a woman marries the less like
ly she is to set up her will in the house
hold. For this reason many men prefe,
very young wives; indeed. they some.
times say that they would choose q
very young girl and bring her up, so tc
speak, to their liking. Mature women
have their own ideas, and these are
very frequently not specially in accord
with the views of the average man.
Physiologically there is a good deal
to be said in favor of early marriages,
provided the family does not increase
too rapidly. If women would observe
all the laws of health they could marry
later in life with much greater safety
than at present; but health is usually
the last thing to be thought of until it
is gone.
Marriage is the only proper state for
rational beings to live in, and if it is a
failure it is not so from general laws,
but from the capriees and wrong meth
ods of those who enter into it. From
20 to 20 is a good age for young women,
and men would do well to marry before
they are %.
II women we're as physically able 10
assume the most important duties of
the marriage relation at 25 or 80 as at
20 there would be an excellent reason
for delay; but all psychologists are
aware that the responsibilities of
motherhood are attended with much
greater risk after 25 years, and after
80 the dangers are increased tenfold
There is one serious defect in the
education of the average girl. Instead
of being taught to put herself in perfect
physical trim from her girlhood and
being able 10 meet the ron optinupnpies of
life with calmness, confidence and the
certainty of a successful outcome, she is
left in profound ignorance of those
things that she has the most need to
know At 25 or 30 a woman has more
intelligence to guide her, but less favor
able physical conditions. As health is
the most important Of all things, it
would seem wise to so arrange our life
that its most taxing cares come with
as little injury to the physical system
as possible.-N. Y. Ledger.