The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-02-14
THE REASON THAT
MEN DO NOT MARRY.

The other night a famous Philadel-
mia divine preached a sermon on THE
education of Our Daughters, What 1t
should Be-" in which he said many
sensible things, but he wound UP with
The startling declaration that the rea-
son that men do not marry is because
women are so ignorant-particularly
tecause they are so ignorant of domes-
Tic affairs.
About 100000 highly educated old
maids will at once arise in meeting,
upon hearing these words, and inform
the philosophic parson that he doesn't
know what he is talking about: that
a blue ribboned diploma is a handicap
and not a help in catching a husband;
and that the M. A. after a college
girl graduates name is seldom called
upon to spell Ma.
From time immemorial women have
been married because they had peachy
compilations or golden hair or velvety
ewes. but never because they had
brains. They have been married be-
cause they possessed money, or social
position, or political pull, but never
because they possessed erudition. To
he called strong minded is still con-
sidered an asDersion on a woman's
the reputation of being clever is as
blighting to her prospects for having
beaux, as a scandal. No mother who
was going to bring out young
daughter in society, no astute matron
who was going to have a girl visit her
and wanted her to be admired and
have attention, would think of brag
ging of her superior intelligence and
cultivation Instead. she would con-
ceal the fact of her having taken the
medal in higher mathematics at col
lege as carefully as she would the de-
feet if the girl had false teeth.
OF course this should not be thus. 1t
merely is, and nobody's experience or
observation is going to bear out the
preachers assertion that the reason
men don't marry is because women are
ignorant If that were true. and men
were really seeking learned wives, and
moaning because they were not, the
college bred girl would be at a pre-
MUM matrimonially instead of a dis
count and there would be such a
stampede of women to the fountains
of knowledge as the world has never
seen. For what man wants women to
be she is, and the reason that the aV-
erage girl is as silly and Eighty as
she appears is because she sees that
the less she knows, and the sillier she
acts the more, she pleases man, and
good marriage.
The most cursory glance around any
social circle will show that HIftY
haired little ingennue without two
ideas in her head will be in demand
for parties and balls and theaterS, and
have to cut her dances in two to go
around among her partners, while
the earnest student is left undisturbed
by man to the pleasures of a quiet
evening at home with our best au-
thorS.
Nor is this without reason. Primarily
it is based on suitability and congen-
iality. The average American man is
not highly educated in books. He
goes into business instead of going to
college, and when he starts out to mar
ry he doesn't go on a still hunt for a
wife who is keyed up to a Tannhau-
ser pitch of culture while he is still on
an Annhauser plane. He wants some
body whose ideas, and thoughts, and
interests gibe with his own; one who
prefers farce comedy to grand opera;
and the daily papers to Matterlinck
philosophy; and whose general infor-
nation won't be a standing reproach
to his ignorance of everything but his
own business.
Besides this, every man desires, and
rightly, to be an oracle to his own
wife When God made man of taller
statue than he did woman He intended
that she should look up and not down,
and this wise provision of nature is
defied at ones peril. As long as
woman begins every sentence with
John says so and so" about the mat
ter under discussion it is a guarantee
of domestic happiness strong enough
to draw money on at the bank. EV-
erything is going smoothly sin that
house. The woman is marvelllng at
her luck in having married an under
study to Solomon, and the man IS
filled with peaceful complacency at
having wife that can appreciate
him at his just worth, but in family
where the wife is superior, and cor
reefs her husbands grammar and pro-
nuncation, a discriminating ear can
hear the skeleton rafting its bones IN
the closet. The man is afraid OF his
wife, and she looks down on him with
the plying contempt that knowledge
always has for ignorance.
So far as the great mass of people
are concerned it is utter folly to say
that the general young man doesn
marry because of the ignorance OF
women. AS a plain matter of fact
the average girl is better educated
than the average boy because she
stays in school longer, and when she
leaves school she has more time to
read. 1t is the woman and not the
men who support the literary CLUBS,
and raid the public libraries, and just
taking them by and large, any ordi-
nary business young man can shut MS
eyes and make a grab in the dark and
get wife that knows as much as ne
does.
And it must be said for the rank and
file that this complaint that women
are not smart enough for them, ana
that the reason that they stay single
is because they can't find wives intel
lgent enough to entertain them does
not come from the average man. Wnen
he thinks of a woman's disabilities,
lack of knowledge is never one of them,
Tor woman's ignorance never dis
gusts a man. He thinks it cute ana
innocent for her not to know things,
and he never loves her so well as when
ne can sit down and explain TO her
why Panama PANIED out as it did, and
steel slumped, while she murmurs her
sdmiration and awe of the mighty mas
Cullne intellect. Would any man eX-
change this delightful ignorance, and
me JOY of enhghtening it, for the most
profound knowledge of politics, or the
most subtle grasp of the money situa-
uoh? Nay, verify. 1t is worth of note
m ~ W