The San Francisco call., 1904-03-11
He Who HeSitdteS Is Lost.
BY CHARLES FREDERIC Goss. DID.


(measured by wealth and culture) mar
riages seem to be decreasing in num-
ber and to be postponed to a later and
later period of life.
This is a phenomenon that challenges
work some sort of revolution in the
social system.
The reasons for the fact are not hard
to find. Young women are able to de-
cline unsatisfactory offers, because
their prospects of self-support have
been enormously increased. Young
men are less ready TO undertake the
maintenance of a family. because the
standards Of a good living" are be-
ing steadily elevated and the expenses
Of keeping up an establishment have
risen with them. Both sexes have come
10 desire and demand more out of life
than the earnings of a single sex can
procure 1t is easier to be a bachelor
or a spinster than a husband or a wife,
and the mere luXuries Of the single
estate are more than twice those of
the double one.
These considerations, and many 9TH
ers like them, have made marriage a
matter Of educated calculation rather
than inherited instinct, and nothing is
so fatal to matrimony as calculation.
Some people consider this a happy
state Of affairs, but 1 do not. They
think it conduces to the general well
fare to have fewer marriages and to
have them contracted in deliberate pru-
dence a method which l believe TO
be fatal to the best interests of So
ciety. People may, of course, marry
when they are too young; but the trou-
bic is that if they do not marry when
they are yGang enough they win not
marry at all And, however reason
able il seems that calculation" at 80
or 80 should make more happy mar
riages than impulse and instinct at -
or 20, it has never been shown to be a
fact
Some people are proud OF not hav-
ing married until they saw their way
clearly to a good living" But some
Of US are equally proud of the fact
that we fell in love like the birds and,
like them, mated with as little fear of
being able to find our daily crumbs.
Did not the good God make us to love
and 10 live? Why should we be afraid
to do either? If / did not believe i'm
the right to live and love 1 should pray
fer death. for to doubt those two pill
lars Of the temple Of existence is to
doubt the divinity who dweIIs within
the shrine.
Undoubtedly marriage IS in a GER
tain sense a lottery. but il is a hazard
in which the stake is so great that a
man who will not resolutely throw
the dice is a coYard or a fool. The
absolute whole" of earthly bliss is to
be found in a happy marriage. No
one was ever so happy single but
that millions have been a thousand
times happier double. To remain un-
married for fear of rislxing unneces-
sary sorrow is like refusing to live in
order to avoid unnecessary dangers.
Especially when one realizes that
nine-tenths of all marital unhappiness
is absolutely unnecessary and mex
cusable, being the fruit Of individual
unreason and not the inevitable con-
comitant of the relationship itself
BY marrying we put ourselves in
the way of enjoying life's most per-
feet friendship-the love of the oppo-
site sex; of securing life's most pow
erful incentive to industry, sobriety,
unselfishness-the responsibility of a
family; of enjoying life's most hon.
eyed sweetness-the love of little
children: of gaining life's most pro-
found consolation--the care of our
old age by the devotion of offspring
The young people of this age are TO
be pitied because they breathe an at
mosphere tainted with marital un-
happiness. Everywhere they see sell
fish and irrational people chafing un-
der the bonds of marriage, simply be-
cause they refuse to put a curb upon
their passions. On every side the
squeal1ing of the hinges on the di-
vorce court doors fills the land with
discord. That utterly unsettling ques-
ton (the very asking of which is a
symptom of weakness and deteriora-
tion), lis marriage a failure % fills
them with skepticism and alarm.
But if they are to be pitied they are
also to be blamed. For they are old
enough at a marriageable age to be
able TO discriminate the essential from
the fictitious obstacles to happiness in
this heaven ordained relationship.
They ought to be able to see that the
obstacles to happiness in marriage
are no more essential and no more
numerous than the obstacles to sue
cess in business or science or art.
Patience, wisdom, purpose and
love in both the man and woman are
practically certain to produce it,.
And these same qualities in even
one Gf carried up TO their very high
est power) stand many good chances
of renrOducine themselves in fhe other
during the long and educatiye years
of married life, and so securing what
seemed to be a fugitive bliss.
Do not let calculation stifie instinct.
1t is the fatal weakness of "caIcu1a-
tion'-that while it is able to thwart
the marrying impulse in youth, it is
impotent to reanimate that impulse
in maturity.
If you do not marry when you want
to you will not marry when you wish
Z to