The Savannah morning news., 1901-05-05
WOMAN'S
WORLD.

1u6Ie are q SOOu many SlBHS thdb seen
to indicate that we are slowly, but surely
drifting towards paternal form of gov
eminent. One of the most significant
proofs of this is furnished by the fact
that several of the states are seriously
contemplating settling up in the matri-
Eaonial agency business and decided the
important question of who shall marry
and when they shall do it,
Pathologically, says Dorothy Dix in the
New Orleans Picayune, there can be no
argument against the wisdom of prevent
ing diseased people marrying. Insanity
could be stamped out. Idiocy would be
prevented. Consumption and epilepsy
would disappear. and We should be well
On the way 70 that millennium when
everybody born in the world would have
sound mind in sound body There is
no other thought in the world so appall-
ing ana so fraught with pathos as that
of the millions of sicldy and deformed
and feebleminded children whose sole
heritage in life are the diseases and sins
of their parents Nothing can atone for
such a crime against the individual and
against society, and anything that even
tends to lessen it is a blessing to hui
mainly.
Probably no one will deny the advan-
tage to posterity of permitting only the
fit TO marry, but some will say that the
price is too high to pay, and ask with
Artemus Ward, What posterty has ever
done for US that we should sacrifice our
selves for it? Let's look at the matter
practically instead of sentimentally, for
after all the time comes when every ro-
nance gets down to hard, indisputable
facts, and see if in the long run it
wouldn't make for the present happiness
of the one concerned as well as for the
good of the race.
If Algernon were refused permission to
marry Maud because he was a drunkard,
or the state refused to grant Gustavus a
license to wed Evelina because she was
physically unsound, no doubt these young
people would consider themselves hardly
used and talk of blighted lives and
broken hearts, and all the rest of us
would drop few sympathetic tears and
join with them in bewailing their hard
fate.
In reality, we should save our pity for
the girls whom nothing stops from mar
rying drunkards and the men who find
themselves tied for life to sickly wives.
That's the place where our tears are
due You see, things have such a habit
of working out differently in real life
from the way one expects 1t to be before
hand. When Maud falls in love with a
dissipated man, and looks at the future,
she doesn't see herself dragged down to
poverty, a drunkard's wife, getting UP
in the night to let in a disgusting reel
ing, maudlin man. She sees herself, by
that beautiful wifely influence, of which
we hear so much, and see so little. leading
him up to the higher life, and it is this
picture of herself as a guardian angel
that makes her rush into taking a step
she spends the balance of her life re-
penting. We can all count up on one
finger of one hand, and have a finger to
spare, all the women we personally know
who have reformed men. but it would
take patient adding machine to enumer-
ate all the ones we know who have
wrecked their lives trying to do it, If
there's any way by which the government
can prevent girls making fool matches,
for heavens sake let's have il.
It's the same way, too, with men who
marry sickly girls. When a young fell
low is in love with an etheral-looking
young creature, her very delcacy gives
her an added charm. He pictures him
self cherishing and guarding her. and
winning the roses back into her cheeks.
Just like heroes always do in novels. Do
you suppose that If he had a vision, for
one moment, of what the reality of hav-
ing an invalid wife is, that he would
marty her? Not on your life. II he is a
poor man. it means that he spends his
days toiling to pay doctors bills and drug
gists bills. 1t means that he goes home
TO an ill-kept house. to humor a sick per-
sons whims, to querulous complaints and
temper and nerves. There is no martyr
in all the calendar who is more deserving
of reverence and alteration than the hus-
band who bears patiently with an invalid
wife, but any man who is prevented
forcibly If necessary. from getting him
self into such a scrape. should erect a
monument in gratitude to whoever stop
ped him in time
If the state once begins to regulate who
shall marry, there is no reason it should
stop at health quarantine. There are
so many other things. There's the finan-
cial side, for instance / am not one
of those who believe that wealth Is neces-
sary to happiness, but a sufieiency is.
You can't love properly on empty
stomach, and IL is just plain, simple bus
mess proposition that no man has right
to marry until he has got some settled oc-
cupation that will enable him to supply
a family.
We Americans are the most sentimental
people on earth, and when we hear of an
fmpecunious youth who has never support
ed himself marrying a girB who hasn't a
penny to bless herself with, we don't
look upon them as a pair OF yong crimi-
nails, as they deserve. We back them up
in IT, as II marriage was a kind of super
natural state I'm which people were never
hungry, or didn't have to have clothes,
and we entirely overlook the fact that
nine times out Of ten they go and settle
themselves down on some hard-worked
old father or mother. who has to take
care of them because they can't see them
starve. Love is enough" says the old
poem. So it would be If II were all heart,
but as long as very infnitesimal portion
OF our anatomy is heart, and all the rest
is body that has 10 be fed and clothed and
housed, love isn't enough by long shot.
so far as my opinion goes, whenever the
marriage laws are amended. am in favor
of inserting a good, strong financial plank
into them, and making every man stand
on II before he is given a right to starve
v woman.
d Then there's the question Of suitability.
have often thought that a good matri-
nlonial advisory committee, with power 10
enforce their advice, was one of the cry
ing needs of every community. They
might do a world of good, and at any
rate they couldn't make worse selections
than many people make for themselves.
One of the heart-breaking things of life
Is the fatal persistency with which men
marry a woman for one quality, and ex-
meet her 10 Dossesg the opDogite the min