The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-09-29
THE RIGHT ACE
TO MARRY
Following Feature Article Should
be Read by Every Young Man
and Woman.
BY HERBERT KELCEY
What is the right age to marry?

luton OI WHICH u0pouQS onIlT0ly anu
always upon that little word What"
Is it for purely hedonistic desire of
insuring our own grOsser and more
materialistic motives of social or fl
nancial success? Or is it in the in
terests of posterity- According to
the end you hope to attain by mar
riage will your answer depend as to
the preferable age for entering that
condition.
Let us take under consideration
the first named reason, the indul-
gence of our own personal happiness,
that being, as | believe you will
agree, the motive inspiring the aver
age man to propose marriage to the
woman of his choice. If such is your
object in marrying my advice is,
don't marry too early in life. If you
would be selfishly happy in the love
of any particular man or woman, let
marriage be deferred until you are
somewhere in the neighborhood of
thirty-fve at least
The great mistake most men and
their faith to story book ideas about
love and the constancy of love. 1t is
very difficult, for instance, to convince
any very young man that it is not
only possible but entirely probable
that both will enjoy many repetitions
of the same experience. The mere
suggestion of such possibility is
accepted with holy horror The thing
that prompts nine out ten marriages
is lack of faith in the future to grant
us another opportunity of being in
love with somebody.
Not Real Love
Personally l do not believe it posi-
Bile for any young man or very young
woman to love sincerely. Such a
man and such a woman may be in
love with each other, but they do not
love. There is a great difference, you
know. In other words, young men
and young women are in love with
love rather than with each other
Now, sentiments of this sort are
all very beautiful, lofty and ennob-
ling to the character. 1t is one of the
glorious things about men and women
that they are privileged to feel such
emotions, to enjoy such experiences.
No one would deny their beneficient
effect upon the SOUL nor have their
sweet memories obliterated from the
mind.
And yet, Notwithstanding, roman
tic, idyllic love of this sort is a most
permiciOus thing when it becomes
the basis of a matrimonial union. 1t
is pernicious because it is false, ut
terly false, like fools gold. 1t is per
nicious because with all its iridescent
beauty it has no more substance than
the rainbow and is just as quickly
dissipated
What both men and women have
greatest need of learning is the in
finite number of romantic love affairs
of which they may be capable, and
which they are practically certain to
experience if they will but have faith
in the future. All this talk about re-
petition taking the keen edge off the
much nonsense. The superiority Of
first love is only another of those
senseless supersitions which for some
reason or other we are obSeSSed Of
Any man or woman of experience
knows that the oftener he or she has
been in love the greater the joy has
been, the more genuine the emotion
and the more enduring its effect.
For this reason, then, if for no
other, it is a somewhat foolish thing
to marry too early and thus cut one
self off from the further indulgence
of this most beautiful experience il
life. For you may depend upon it,
if you are wildly in love at twenty
with one particular woman you will
be still more so at twenty-five with
another, and at thirty still more so.
8 But, perhaps, it is not for personal
happiness you are marrying. Per
haps you are ambitious of social or
financial success, or both. And a
great proportion of marriages, mind
you, are based on just such motives.
If this is your reason for marrying it
behooves woman to marry as early
as she can and a man not until he
has to. Fer there can be no denying
the fact that the beauty and fresh
ness and good health of youth are
assets of inestinable value to wo-
man ambitious of accomplishing,
from the worlds point of view, an
adyaDta opo,1c narriao 90 yVhorpoc for
a man who is ambitious for worldly
success, either financial or social, a
wife is invariably a handicap
Eliminating the financial responsi-
bility of wife-and the wife of an
ambitious man must entail an expen-
diture adequate with the position his
ambition necessitates-the free man
has a social value which under no
circumstances belongs to the married
man. A man need not be personally
attractive or mentally brilliant, nor
need he have any money in order to
become a social favorite A fair,
common school education, veneer
of good manners, little rudimentary
knowledge of the proper thing in the
way of etiquette, and little plain
horse sense will make the social sue
cess of any man with an inclination
| that way, and have made the social
| success Of countless thousands of
penniless youths.