Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1905-07-16

| ,eacons which he himself does not
understand and without any serious
.! intent cf marrying, once ne is reject
ed outright and once accepted for bet
ter or worse.
Ont cf the first three proposals the
average man is accepted three tlmes
the girl being no more in earnest
than he is and actuated by the same
mysterious impulses in accepting MS
f,ffer that he is in proposing, and IL IS
,,o,htfu, if such a relation should be
referred to seriously as an engage
ment to wed. Both understand 'ha'
Il is q tentative arrangement and
neither hesitates to break 1t OIL shore
or SIMPLY let it go by default Witho"'
further reference to any understand
ing
These figures have been collected
lv prof Arthur Thielman. Pennsyl-
van;a socioloeist. from personal IN
terviews with $50 men in all classes
IT society and all married men. Out
of the $50 he found only nine VINO mao
nroposed marriage to more than ten
women and the highest was fourteen
He found only three men WHO hao
nronosed but once and married the
woman to whom he proposed.
Many Wed Without Proposals.
Stranger than that-out OF the zHo
there were forty-seven VINO declared
that after they had proposed to many
women they never did propose TO the
woman they married. Twenty-slX de
c]ared that theif wivey proposed 10
them, while twenty-one could not re-
member that there ever was any pro
,osal-they simply understood Wl'h
ont q spoken word that they were 10
wed.
Whether or not the men imagine
.hat they were not in earnest IN thef
first proposals CT marriage is q"es-
tion which puzzled Prof Thielman'
hut after analyzing the replies re
ceiyed from the $50 out OF l.ooo men
TO whom he wrote asking fer details,
he has arrived at the conclusion that
they were in earnest--or the majority
of them were-in their first proposal
that they were not in earnest two
cut of three C. their next proposals
, only half in earnest about one, and
wbol]v in earnest when they finally
met THE woman.
His statistics show that the prOpGS
al made during the spuppy love per
iod is generally a serious one. and
that the lGye of the boy for the @lrl
at that age is earnest. no matter Whaf
else il may be. and also his statistics
reveal the fact that thlrty-nlne CT
those who married the girl to whom
thev first proposed, having turned
hack to the first love after propcslns
to several others.
Finds No Heart Broken Men.
The statistics compiled by this stu
dent of courtship reveals love as a
strange. fickle institution so far as
man is concerned, for he failed to
find even one case of heart break.
He does not think, however, that his
test was a fair indication in this re-
eard. as he argues that heart brok-
en- man-one who has had a great
love and lost-would not answer his
queries.
From the letters received he draws
the following conclusions:
That the idea of marriage is close
" associated with love among the eX
tremely young, possibly from observ
ance of their parents, and the desire
tc possess is the first instinct of boy
hood love In the puppy" stage OF
development the schoolbcy who cher
ishes tender feeling towards the
| curly haired girl who permits him t6
carry her books from the schoolhouse
who walks past her house at night
desires to own her almost as soon as
he begins to ''lile' her. Among the
$50 eonfessors. 253 wrote that the!
proposed to school girl acquaintance:
before they were IS years old. and o
| these 229 were accepted.
This school boy and school CIR
ensa cement extended usually owe
period of about eleven months OF
an average. and in almost every cas'
! i. was broken off because OF jealousy
Only seventeen claim that they ever
discussed marriage on sensible pla'
in this stage of affections. the other
being content to be engaged to WEI
"when he made his fortune'-which
the sage professor declares. may b.
the reason that few of such engage
ments ever result in anything.
Some Propose to Every Girl.
After his first incubation CT love