Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1913-03-01
(By Margaret Hubbard Ayer.)

Nine Sembrich has said the Ameri-
can girls marry too young and too
often. And Miss Katherine KaelreI,
who is as well known in society as
she is on the stage, gives an excellent
reason for both the cause and the re-
suit of certain marriages which begin
at an early age and end in the divorce
court.
LAS long as society looks askance
at the engaged couple who have the
courage to break off an engagement
of marriage, just so long will the
young people who have gotten as far
as announcing their engagement,
which may only have been sort of
lark, feel that they must go on and
fulfill the pledge of the engagement.
More broken engagements would
mean fewer unhappy marriages. said
Miss Kaelred, "but no matter how ex-
cellent the reasons are which induce
young people to break their betrothal,
the very sensitive young person al
ways feels that stigma of some sort
is attached to he proceeding.
Society hears of an engagement be-
tween two young people that has been
dissolved, and instead of rejoicing
that they have come to their senses
before it is too late, tongues wag,
gosips are busy, and neither of the
two innocent parties is likely to es-
cape either pity or censure. One is
quite as bad as the other and it is
because every engaged girl knows
that should she change her mind at
the last instant she will have to face
this ordeal, that she lacks the cour-
age and plunges into matrimony Of
ten against her own instincts.
Il presume continued the beauti-
full Australian, that people have the
feeling that an engagement ought to
be binding, because in oIden times the
betrothal ceremony was almost as inn
portant as the marriage itself. But
in those days the marriage of young
people were arranged by their parents
or families, and, as far as the girl
went, she had very little to say about
it, except to do as she was told and
marry the man whom her parents hal
picked out.
To-day a girl chooses her own
mate, and, just as Nine. Sembrich
says, "she is apt to marry at an early
age and often because she's afraid Of
public opinion.
The modern girl feels that there s
a certain prestige which she acquires
when she becomes engaged to a young
man, and she often thinks more OF
this than of her future happiness. She
rushes into an engagement for the
sake of the ring, the parties that will
be given in her honor, and while Tn
not saying that she does not love her
fiance, she certainly often does no.
analyze his character, nor study him
very seriously. at first.
"The engagement is announced. The
family is delighted. The excitement
of the announcement subsidies, and the
girl begins 10 awaken 10 new under
standing of herself, of the demands
she will make on her future husband
Her fiance may be the dearest person
in the world, but some instinct, some
half-understood intuition, warns her
that they are not fitted for each othe-.
There is nothing that she can put
into words, no reason which her fam
lily could understand. In nine cases
out of ten, the young fiance is equally
confused and doubtful of the outcome
of their married life. But both young
people fear not so much the disap-
prevail of their families, but the raise