The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-04-04
MARRIAGE 70 YEARS AGO.
Ultra Modern Idea Not New
After All.
OLD TIME SIMPLICITY.


Holds Good-ldleness is Fatal.
Carelessness Of Partners-Home
Life Dying Out.
Persons who profess the Christian
religion must keep in their hearts q
green spot wherein the sanctity of
marriage is preserved as a natural
law from which there is no receding.
Marriage has been from the beg N.
ming, and must last indisputably until
the very end, and let us hope that It
is not in all cases failure" says
Theresa Corletta in San Francisco
News Letter Dec. 10, 1883.
1t is we. the inhabitants of this
world, who are failures, not the insti-
tuition, which is the only one out of
which law and order can spring.
There are two sides of the question
to be discussed.
In the past we may remember that
marriage was looked upon as a holy
alliance; one to be entered into after
mature deliberation and only under
fortuitous circumstances. A man
would as soon have thought of puteing
his head in the fire as asking wo-
man to be his wife unless he had
comfortable home to take her TO.
Husbands found pleasure in home
life long ago, and when tired, after
the professional or business employ
ments of the day, would ask no
greater happiness than to pass their
long, happy evenings with their
wives; or when little voices and pat
tering feet echoed through hall or
cottage, to gather the children around
the winter fire and gambol with them
on fower-scented lawn or grass-car-
peted fields.
Long ago, the thought of which
comes to us who have seen it like
the reflection of a bright dream, wife
and children looked eagerly for the
coming of the beloved parent, whose
image held sway in each heart dur
ing absence, and each married woman
felt happy in her wifehood, glorying
in the JOY Of her home.
Men did not startle the world with
the theory they promulgate today,
that they won't be owned" They
were happy to be owned by good and
faithful wives, and even the youngest
men were not satisfied until they
had their own firesides. Families
went to church together and brought
up the little ones in the right way,
and no one was ever heard to discuss
the possibility of marriages being
failure"
Things are different today. Just
as soon as a girl leaves school she
is on the outlook for man with
money" no matter how old the gen.
tleman may be, if he can give her
diamonds and those other accessories
for which the woman of today seems
solely to live.
The woman who marries a man in
medium circumstances only would
scorn to keep house." No, indeed;
she wants good time" She boards,
and here her first troubles commence
To be boxed up day by day with one
person, with only the one room, or
even suite, except meal hours, TO call
their own, would lead the most de-
voted couple to the brink of suicide.
Gagged up in this way, every little
foible and fault stands out in bold
relief, and man and woman both
grow weary and arrive at the con-
clusion to each "go their own way"
It is not the marriage tie that is In
any way a failure. Why should it be
more so now, in the enlightened nine
teenth century, than it was in the
days of darkness and superstition?
There can be no reason, except that
possibly we are growing too much
enlightened, educated too much, and
yet too little.
It is "the people of the people" who
are slipping back, who are satiated
with the wine Of pleasure, the people
who do not grow from infancy to
youth slowly, and from youth to age,
in temperate pleasure, but who are
born babies only to be thrust by their
silly parents into the caps and gowns
Of womanhood ere their second teeth
are cut.
While men and women live IN a
round of pleasure, over-sensual. over
bearing, having no religion or sense
Of decorum, how can welded love live
in such an atmosphere? II husbands
and wives do not love deeply enough
to live for each other, renouncing the
frlvolties of life for the serene Joys
Of home, why marry at all until they
have sobered down and feel the need
OF rest.
There is nothing the matter with
marriage; it is today as it has ever
been, but the people are different,
different in their ideas, in their af-
fect,ons, in everything, and, forget
ting their own shortcomings, they lay
their grievance on the shoulders of
marriage, and by their own incom-
petence make it a failure" But
woe to us when marriage is wiped
out.