The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1903-08-27
PENALTY FOR MARRYING.
Bachelor Clubs In Foreign Lands Inn.
pose Heavy Fines and Ostra.
cize Offending Members.

Matrimony is considered a punish
able offense in some communities.
These circles of society are small, but
their edicts are strong. The larger
community, if it takes cognizance of
mans single, state, usually imposes
fine for not getting married, as in Ar
gentina, where bachelorhood requires
the payment of an increasing tax to the
government
But in certain circles marriage is re-
garded as an offense, says the Chicago
Tribune. At Oxford university, for in
stance, fellow Of All Souls college
forfeits his fellowship if he takes to
himself wife while he is supposed to
be studying the classics.
He not only must pay this penalty
but he must present his college me-
mortal in the shape of silver cup, on
which is inscribed the words: De-
scendit in matrimonium"-"He back
sided into matrimony"
The aristocratic Bachelors club OF
Piccadilly, London, ostracizes members
who forget themselves so far as to mar
ry. Instant expulsion is the punish
ment for this offense. The backsliders
must leave the company of the bach
elors forever. As an act of grace they
may pay fine of $100 and become
honorary members of the club, but that
is their only salvation.
Not only England has these anti
matrimony clubs. Their formation in
Chicago has been treated as joke as 1t
has in other American cities. Bache-
lors in other countries have lent an air
of seriousness to their endeavors.
1t is serious for member of certain
Jungesellen club in Germany to lapse
into matrimony. AS soon as his en-
tention becomes known he Is tried in
the club court, with the president as
judge, when he is allowed to plead in ex-
tenuation of his offense On the skill Of
his pleading and his excuses depend his
fine, from s100 to $3.50.
This fine is devoted to a dinner, at
which all members appear in mourn
ing garb. At its conclusion the presi-
dent reads the sentence of expulsion,
and the delinquent is led from the prem
ises to an accompaniment of groans
and lamentations
The nature OF the act of penance de-
pends on luck, for the culprit must draw
one of number Of slips, each of which
contains punishment II he refuses
he can escape by fighting duel with
the most expert swordsman among his
fellow members.
Only last winter a recreant was con-
demned to swim twice across the Seine
at midnight in his night shirt. with the:
result that severe attack of rheumatic
fever nearly robbed him of the bride he
had paid such heavy price to wed
While the bachelor sometimes has to
pay dearly for wife, in at least one
country 1t scarcely pays to remain celi-
bate. In Argentina the man who pre-
fers single to duplicated bliss has to
pay substantial and progressive tax.
II he has not taken wife by the time
he reaches his twenty fifth birthday he
must pay fine Of IS month to the ex-
chequer; II at IS he has not seen the
error of his ways the fine is increased to
SO month; and at this figure it re-
mains for Is years.
II at so he still jibs at the altar he is
looked on as hopeless, and the fine Is
diminished every year until at so he II
exempt. Only last month a man who
had paid his fine cheerfully to to the
mature age of exemption celebrated his
freedom by getting married.
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