The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-10-02
coURTSHIP MADE TOO EASY.

A great many reasons are given foi
what Mr.. Wegg would aptly call "tho
decline and fall off of matrimony."
Some lay the blame for the continually
lessening number of weddings on the
higher education Of women, declaring
that men do not care for a steady
diet of brains for breakfast. while 9TH
ers accuse men of having grown so
selfish that they fear to fly from the
comforts Of the bachelor apartments
they have to the perils of the house
keeping they know not Of A third
set of philosophers account for the in
crease in eelfbacy by the career craze
in women. while a fourth ascribe it to
the economic conditions of the times,
and the difficulty a man experiences
in making enough bread and butter
for two.
A woman might answer the question
of why people do not marry as much
as formerly by replying. as did the
milNmaid in the old song: Nobody
axed me. sir" she said.
And in this lies the crux of the whole
matter. People do not marry because
they do not desire to. For some un-
instead of working over time as he
used to do. Comradeship has been sub
stituted for love between men and
women, and they are content to be
friends instead of husbands and wives.
As for all the specious reasons that
political and social economists give for
the fewer numbers of marriages, they
are all rank nonsense. No man enam-
ored Of a wOman's eyes, ever yet
stopped to think whether she was wise
or silly. No woman ever yet lived
who, when the right man came along,
wouldn't have snapped off a laurel
wreath for a kiss and thought she got
the best of the bargain, while as for
the sordid financial matter of being
able TO support a wife, IT'S the very
last thing that Romeo ever considers.
Now the blame for this Discrimination
towards matrimony may be fairly laid
upon the shoulders of men. Few wom-
en- ever espouse a career until they
fail to espouse a husband The rea-
son that women do not oftener sue
coed in business is said to be because
they are always ready to give up a
Job for wedding ring, and even the
fact that women compete with men in
labor, and thus lower wages, is solely
attributed to the fact that, falling to
achieve husband to support them,
they are forced to support themselves.
There is nothing to show that women
are averse to matrimony, or being
properly urged, refuse to enter into the
holy estate with the proper party.
The unacceptable inference of all of
this is that women are not as at
tractive to men as they formerly were,
and that with all the accomplishments
that the modern girl is taught, she
lacks one art in which her grand
mother eKoelled-the art of catching a
husband. 1t is sadly true that there
are no such bellies now as there once
were, no woman who is the toast of
her city, or village, or county, and for
whom men do daring and reckless
things. and are willing to fight and
perchance die. The girl of to-day
: listens with pea-green envy to her
grandmother's account of the rows of
suitors who sighed at her door, who
logged her footsteps wherever she
went, and who besieged her with Of
fers Of their hearts and hands. She
might have picked and chosen among
score of good offers, and when her
granddaughter compares this retinue of
lovers with the two or three men in
her own train who are almost often
sively frank in declaring that their at
tentions are without intentions, and
who knows that she will be dead lucky
If she gets a single good matrimonial
offer, she wonders why this is thus,
masculine hearts more impregnable
than they were of old.
IT is certainly not because of the
deterioration of woman. Never in the
history of the world, not even among
the ancient Greeks. was the percentage
of female puleritude so high as 1t is
now. The cult of the body has become
almost religion among women. More
intelligence in eating, and drinking,
and bathing, and exercise have devel-
oped generation of young girls who
are veritable Hebes, and who would
make their aenemic, thin-chested, pas
~ complexion grandmamma's look like
candidates for an Invalids' Home. So
if man seeks for beauty in a wife, he
may shut his eyes, and make a grab
in the dark in any group of women
and be sure of getting one who, had
she lived in his grandfather's time,
would have had all the poets writing
sonnets TO her eyebrows, and all the
beaux fighting duels for her smiles.
Women are more intelligent than
they were before, more versatile, more
sympathetic, more companionable.
Time was when talking to a woman
must have been as fatiguing as anus
ing baby, so limited was the range
of subjects in which she was inter-
ested, and so insistent was she in keep
ing the conversation in the personal
key. Now woman fits herself to en-
terrain man, and he has no fad or
fancy to which she is not able and
willing TO minister. She is willing to
enter into his mood and discuss pol
itics or pie, prize fights or piety. ge-
ometry or golf, as he pleases. and it
is pathetic to think that woman hav-
ing devoted such pains and trouble to
prepare herself TO be the ideal wife,
so seldom gets chance to do it.
1nasmUch then as woman is as
charming as she ever was, how is
that she fails to fire mans fancy as
she once did, There can be but one
answer. There are lost arts in the
world, and just as the secret of Civ
ing to steel the fine temper of the
Damascus blade lies buried in the past,
just as no hand has now the skill
to give 10 stained glass the rainbow
hues that the craftsmen of old did, so
women, TO a great degree have lost
the art Of winning husbands. Their
methods are bungling. crude, and they
present even to the man that marries
them the practical advantages of hav-
ing a side partner instead Of the glory
and romance Of realizing dream.
This of itself renders them less at
tractive 10 men, since il is the luSuries
and not the necessities OF life that al
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