Licking Valley courier., 1913-09-04
SAYS LOT IS HARD
Countess Says Daughters of Ar.
iStOCraCy Can't Marry.
Complains Because Their Brothers
Wed Actresses and Rich American
Girls, While They Are Limit.
ed to Professional Men.

A well-known, but unnamed count
ess, writing in London publication,
unburdens her mind as follows: Social
tendencies of today make it handicap
for girl to be the daughter of peer
unless he is enormously rich.
What do we see? Most of our
young men of title, if they are not
choosing their wives from the variety
stage or from musical comedy, are
going to America for them.
But does one ever hear of an actor
marrying a girl of title? Does one
ever hear of an American gentleman
marrying an English girl of title?
know of only one instance. She
is the daughter of an earl, and had
the misfortune to lose her American
husband few years after marriage.
Occasionally a self-made English
man shows u tendency to marry into
! the aristocraoy, but it frequently hap
| pens in such cases that the wooer is
not acceptable TO the young lady at
] whom he sets his cap. He is generally
very much older perhaps old enough
to be her father, and he has spent his
best years in making his pile
The English girl accepts the rivalry
( of the American girl with the best
grace possible. The American Ger.
tainly brings money with her. and
money has always been a recognized
Weapon in the fight for marriage. But
she 10, tU put It quite frankly, Just
little resentful of these stage mar
rieges.
or course we have always had peers
marrying actresses since actresses
first made their appearance on the
boards in the time Of Charles II. There
was the marriage Of the twelfth Lord
Derby to Eliza Farren, from whom
Lord Wilton is descended.
Later on the first earl of Craven. TO
mention but one other instance, mar
ried Louisa Brunton, the great-grand-
mother of the present Lord Craven
But in all these instances the ac
tress was famous in her profession
quite apart from her marriage to a
peer. Nowadays, however, it is not
always absolutely necessary to be a
} first-rate or even a second-rate actress
} to catch an old title.
No wonder our girls, my own among
them, are thinking that the surest
. way to matrimony is to go on the
stage. What commotion there would
be II one morning it were announced
that Lady Rose - the daughter of
| tie earl OF - were engaged to Mr..
, Brown. the third-rate actor? Yet why,
for if her brother puts coronet on
the head of Miss Brown, the thlrd-rate
actress, nobody Is shocked?
1t will come to this, that our girls,
many OF them, will have to make up
T their minds to accept middIe-class pre-
fessional men. Already fair number
of them are married to doctors, solic-
itors, architects and parsons. At one
time it would have been looked upon
l as a dreadful mesalliance for the
daughter of an earl to wed solicitor
or doctor
= Officers of the army and navy, bar.
! listers and clergymen were regarded
q as of higher social rank, but even
= with the clergy, at least those of the
lower grade, there was a time when
they we're held to be suitably matched
If they paired off with the lady's
maids
Because our young men of title will
e Lave their own way and marry out oi
l. their order, their sisters will be com
a PEELED to look lower for their own hus
e bands.
! Many of my peeress friends have
+ found no difficulty in marrying theil
d daughters in their own station of life
e but know other cases where whole
+ families of five six or seven girls are
'on the shelf Some turn to nursing
some take up philanthropic work, som'
are ardent suffragists. But If the!
were quite frank about It they woult
Il confess that they would sooner b,
{ wives.