The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-26

annual SdldIE t4udl 10 @oAv- Anu eAA~@S 0N-A
aries, says the essayist, with just indigna-
ton. are put forward by the treasury with
the avOwed object Of attracting the elite
of that niddle-class which furnishes the
bulk of bank and insurance clerks With
the state doing its utmost in this way to
make married life impossible for the great
mass Of its servants who need wonder, he
asks, that there is a constant increase In
the noble army of bachelors?
The real secret of the slack time in the
marriage market. says a single man of ma
ture years in Home Chat is money. or, to
be accurate the lack Of it. But in his own
case there are evidently other reasons. for
he goes on to observe that the great point
in being single is there is no one to say you
nay or make scenes. If you want to be
comfortable you can, and if you want to be
an idiot you can; TO which latter remark
there has been chorus of responses from
feminine availabes. all saying that the
man who doesn't get married when he
might is an idiot, whether he wants to be
one or not.
To this fascinating symposium on mat
rimony, its disappointments and dangers,
and the drawbacks 10 it, one who adopts
the suggestive nom de plume of Tom era
ven contributed a severe arraignment of
the average middle-class man." This in
dividual, he says, returning from his days
work, either grunts or pecks at his wife's
brow as an apology for not giving her a
real marital kiss. grumbles over his even
ing meal, growls over his business worries,
DULLES the children glares at the servant,
picks a quarrel with his better half. and
with bewildering sense of inanity puts on
a pipe and busters out of his jerry-built
villa, declaring that hes sick and tired Of
it all" After a scanty, lonely supper, the
better half of this creature retires. says
Tom Craven, 10 be awakened from a fitful
sleep by the return of her hard-worked hus-
band who has been assiduously improving
his prospects by sitting for some hours on
stool in a saloon bar or spending on bill
lizards the money he ought to devote to ef-
fecting life policy calculated to benefit his
wife and children.
A STRONG INDICTMENT.
Why, he asks. does the average middle
class man marry the average middle-class
woman? For one of three reasons. First,
he fancies he's in love with her, whereas,
in truth, he's desperately in love with him.
self. Second, her social position tiny
dowry may advance his interests. Third,
his life as a bachelor has so impaired his
constitution that only the attention and
self-sacrifice of good woman can prop
him up until he reaches a dyspeptic ILL
conditioned old age. Properly such crea-
ture, if he be typical, must be guarded
against, and Tom Craven sounds the alarm.
His advice is. let our good, wholesome. in
valuable British girls seek to know more of
the inner working of their fiancees' lives.
They can preserve their modesty without
remaining absolute simpletons. Let them
understand that no husband at all is pre-
ferable to depraved or altogether bad one
and, above all, let them continue to strive
during their spinsterhood to render them
selves Independent of the sterner sex as
the bread-winners because all too often
they discover, when married, that man is
not the bread-winner, but the liquor-win-
ner.
Against the average man this formed a
pretty strong Indictment but there's an old
book which says every mans cause is good
till another cometh and searcheth him. and
by the reply he got to these allegations
Tom Craven must have been reminded of
that saying. This writer claimed himself
to be IAN average man" and it was by
this title that he signed his rafting re-
tort. It's all right, he says, to worship
woman-she is adorable often-but why
combine woman-worship with so much
vituperation of us men? The average man
comes home, We are told, and. besides
grumbling at his wife, 'glares at his serv-
ant" Does he, indeed? If he did she'd give
notice the next minute and there'd be no
end OF job to find another. The average
man marries a woman because forsooth.
he is desperately in love with himself But
If a mans self-love is so excessive why does
he take an income. which he might keep
solely for himself. and, by getting married.
divide it with another? Oh but he has so
wrecked his constitution by the vices of
his bachelorhood that only the self-sacrifce
OF good woman can patch him up There
you are again, says THE Average Man.
praise the women and blackguard the men
and you won't go far wrong. Yet the
charge isn't true. The average man is not
a physical and moral wreck, and the aver
age married woman is not sacrificed, for
statistics prove that married women live
longer than unmarried women.
DECAY OF DOMESTICITY.
Thus valiantly and effectively came THE
average man" to the defense of his maligned
sex, and he closed with some sage observa-
tons on the decay of domesticity. Women.
he said, are not fond of domestic life
as they used to be, and for good reasons.
There are a million more women than men
in this island, and women naturally feel
that they ought TO look out for themselves.
The continually increasing division of labor
creates various kinds OF employment suit
aHl for TQxrf he
they can obtain women are now fitted for
almost any kind of work. Therefore. more
women than formerly remain unmarried
earning their own living; some, as they
should, by work specially suited TO women
others by displacing men from employment.
The result is that. whereas some years ago
a male clerk could earn. say, e170 per an
mum, nowadays women clerks can be found
10 do his work for $50 per annum, or even
less, and thereby is the male clerks in
come reduced TO 500 per annum, for where
is the employer who will pay him more
when woman can be found who will do
the work for less? Ergo, the male clerk
and his family have 10 live on $50 year.
mo wonder domesticity Decays is 1.-THE
average mans observation upon these
facts. for TO live upon the sum instanced
not only must the man be a model husband
but his wife would need TO be a prize econ
omist. And all the time, adds this writer
ia Wifi GrfnG STE cf=T