The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-11-26

these social scoundrels. for 1t will b
easier for them to square their con
sciences by persuading themselves tina
to prefer the single estate would be sci
fish, to hesitate to meet the responsible
tiles of marriage cowardly; and what
ever happens afterward they will be
lieve they acted with the best of inten
tons. Indeed, their decision to marry
was so profoundly moral that they
have no conjunction in accepting
what assistance they can get from theil
relatives and friends, and they have NJ
doubt that it is quite right that theil
wives should work themselves to the
bone in the struggle with life.
| Not less unfortunate is this canon OF
unselfishness when applied to the work.
| ing classes. They have the utmost
courage In taking upon them matrimo.
NAL responsibilities. They are uniform.
ly unselfish In not hesitating to jepar-
die their unmarried freedom. And
this splendid unselfshness results in
hunger, rags, low wages, high rents
overcrowding, crime vice. The penalty
of their unselfishness is truly visited on
IL.
and weakly East and South Londoner
in the sweated workwoman, in the
prostitute, we have in it's full signifi-
canoe the paradox of Mrs. Creighton s
proposition. We are aware that in the
scientific sense of certain social evolu-
tionists these plunges into matrimony
may yet be proved unselfish; unselfisll,
because they provide in plenty the low
form of existence, the plasm Of social
life out Of which the higher types may
evolve. We are told by some social
scientists that the moment you regulate
life so that there shall not be too many
mouths for the available food to feed
WELL too many to sleep for the avail
able space to hold them comfortably
and healthily, society Is doomed. In
that sense selfishness may be predicted
to those who hesitate to marry. But
Huxley himself furnished the answer
to any such contention, insisting that
the ways Of nature must not be taken
as a model for the ways of man. Ger
tainly no Christian could for moment
accept any such theory as basis of
social policy. And indeed, no one
does
But we are getting more serious than
we meant to be. 1t was the lighter,
or just the irritating, side of this
theory of unselfishness that stirred us
to write this article. There is some
thing particularly provoking in the
disposition that does not allow it's own
er to be happy unless he sees every
body like himself. There are people,
who, the moment they have done a
thing themselves want every one else
to do the same. How often that is the
case with married women is notorious
There are thousands of women who
seem unable to contemplate a man and
a maid in any other light than as a
possible man and wife. They want ev-
cry boy and girl they see to marry
And the feeling grows on them until
they come to regard it as a sign of
moral depravity that such are not man
and wife, and do not want to be. These
people are a constant irritant to the
Really we ought to re-
member that, however happy we may
be in the married estate, there are 9TH
ers who prefer to be single and are
neither insane or depraved.
And as to the unselfishness inherent
in marriage, there is something almost