The Savannah morning news., 1904-09-25
WHICH LOVES THE MOST
MAN OR WOMAN.

tNlnk men or women loNe the HloSl.
l think that. taking the average mar
ried couple as a standard of measure
ment. we find that men love best at the
start OF matrimony, and women love
best at the finish; men love most, and
women love longest; that with man love
is fever that can be easily
cured, but with woman love is
a chronic complaint from which she
never RECEIVERS. A man may do a foolish
thing for love, but not infrequently love
turns a woman into a fool herself
This is generally speaking. In reality,
every love affair is an individual case
where the relative affection of the man
and woman must be determined by
their Individual temperaments. Not all
men have the same capacity for loving
any more than all men have the same
financial genius. There are just as few
Romeos as there are John ID. ROckfel-
lers, and the same thing is true OF Wom-
en-. There are some women who are all
heart, just as there are other women
who are all complexion, or all conscl-
ence, but there is no standard measure
ment of a woman'S ability to love. II
is a sliding scale, and it goes up or
down according to the woman.
In the majority of cases, however
when a young man and women get
married he is more in love with her
than she is with him. and there are
several good reasons why this should
be the case. In the first place, when
man marries the act is one of abso-
lutte volition on his part. Ii is the real
ization of a dream, the Towering of a
romance that he has conjured into be-
ing himself, and 1t is because he de-
no oil nrh nth ~
that he has become Benedict, the mar
ried man.
No power tacit or overt. constrained
him to marry. For him there was no
obliquy in single blessedness. The
passing seasons did not relegate him
from the front row of buds in the ball
room back to the chaperon chairs. and
then crowd him into that outer dark
ness of society where one is neither
fish, nor flesh. nor good red herring
where one has lost the grip and the
pass word to the young set, and has
not been put up for admission to the
married set-for mans place in socie-
~ is ever a reserved seat, and he Is
never too young or too old to receive
the glad hand and the warm welcome.
Nor does mans family gently and in
sldiously, but firmly try to shove him
out of the home nest, for a bachelor, son
or brother, or uncle. has ever been re-
garded by their relatives in the same
light as Cordelia's jewels--an ornament
as well as a living asset that one may
be able to realize upon at any time.
Men do not have to marry for a lv-
ing. They are amply able to support
themselves. Nor are they forced into
matrimOhy to find some outlet for their
energies, and some occupation to fill
their idle hands and purposeless days.
because for men the whole wide world
NJ Inf CT lie NJ to ,Av,sr
that fires their fancy that they may
not dare and do.
Above all, in picking out a wife o
man can absolutely choose whom he
pleases. If he sees a woman whose
beauty entrances him or whose wit at
tracts him, or whose grace and charm
pleaSses him, he may seek her out and
WOO. and generally win her 1t is safe
to say that when nine hundred and
ninety>ntpe men out of a thousand
march to the altar they have with them
the one-woman in the world that they
prefer above all other women, the one
woman that represents their ideal OF
feminine pulchritude, and virtues, and
whom they believe. for the time being
at least. to be an unfledged angel so
when the bridal choir chants "Oh, Per-
feet Love" the average bridegroom
feels like speaking up and saying II
am IT."
ANoW kn0 NOIildn starts INTO naIrl-
mony under no such suspicious condi-
tons. and while very few women mar
ry without being in love, the majority
of women have a highly cultivated IA
cility for loving that enable them to
get up enough sentiment about almost
any man to marry upon. Never mar
~ for money, my child" said an astute
old dame, always marry for love, but
never let your affections rest upon any
but a rich man." To a certain extent
this sentiment represents the mental
attitude of the feminine sex on the sub
Ject OF love. A woman knows that IL
is so uncertain about the man she
could love, loving her. that she keeps
her Feelings like a prudent housewife
does her preserves, bottled up and
not to be opened until company
comes.
Thus is she always prepared for
sentimental contingencies, and so mar
velous is her ability to love to order
that she has no difficulty in bestowing
her heart upon the man who asks for
II, and living ever after as devoted
wife. Women win deny that the as
sertion that they marry for anything
but the purest and most disinterested
Affection but II is a fact, nevertheless,
that a good deal of the skinned milk
of liberation and kindness and grati-
tude masquerades as the cream of de-
votion with woman, and that what they
call loving is merely liking.
In her secret heart a woman always
wonders that man should be foolish
enough to marry, even when he mar
ries her. She can't see herself being
rash enough to burden herself with
the support of a family, and having
TO put up with another persons whims,
If she didn't have to. With her the
matter is different. In a way, matri-
mony is forced on a woman There is.
10 begin with, the reflection OF being
an old maid that not even the modern
w0man's philosophy has been able to
rob of its thorns. Then there is the
necessity of a support, for few women
have been taught any way by which
20 earn competence for themselves
and still fewer have a private fortune
OF their own. In the third place, the
spinster is an anomaly in society, one
who is neither maid nor widow, and
who finds no niche to At in. and IN
the fourth place she is pushed into
marriage by her family. who frankly
show that they feel a spinster daugh.
ter or sister as an incumberance.
Worst OF all woman may not seel
the mate she desires. She must marry