The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-22


 .nHILADELPHIA.-"Th early mar
 riage is doomed. see no hope for 4 it. Every force, impulse and ten dency of modern civilization is against it. Instead of helping young people to marry, society puts in their way all the obstacles it can devise Our whole at titude toward marriage and parenthood is anti-social, anti-moral-in fact, there is no word strong enough fitly to charac- tcrize ii."
 That is how Dr. Scott Nearing of the University of Pennsylvania and one or the leading authorities on social and eco- homie questions in the United States re- plies to what is charged by Professor Roswell H. Johnson of the University Of Pittsburg that the health and intellectual standing of America are being menaced by late marriages.
 Encouraging late marriage in the false hope of getting more intelligent offspring will hasten a danger toward which this country is already drifting at an alarm ing rate" said Professor Johnson. Then he offered up the usual scapegoat: The failure of college women to marry and have children is killing off some of our best racial stock.'' he solemnly averred.
 If anyone in America is competent to ana.yze the problem of our procrasti- nated marriages that person is Dr. Near ing Before he was 30 he had to his cridit half dozen volumes, each of them a valuable contribution to the serious so- cial thought of the day. In at least two, "Women and Social Progress and "The super-Kace,'' he gives admirable express sion to the new ideals of marriage and parenthood. When I talked with him in his home he didn't merely denounce the steady tendency to put off the wedding day--he explained it.
 "The.e are at least four causes for the deere ase in earh marriages" he said. First, we have the unwillingness of the thoughtful, educated woman to marry unless she can find an Al man. He Is a scarce article. Then, there is the mod ern young mans reluctance to marry wornan who is merely a parasite. sponge who will not co-ouerate actively with him in the marriage relationship. Thirdly, thcre is tue abeminable economic situa- tion in which the ruling wage Is that ncs1ed by the single worker rather than by the nai ried one. And, fourthly, there is the feeling shared by no inconsider- able proportion of young men and wom- en that marriage is a trap, prison, from which. once eptercd. escape is impossible or possible only after a severe strug- gle
 I'm glad you don't put all the blame oil ttc college woman," I remarked.
 lad felt sure he wouldn't for his wife is graduate Of Pryn Mawr with mas ters degree from Pennsylvania. Also he has taught for several years in coeduca- tional university.
 He mentioned that last fact and add ed, conclrsiyely: Ut isn't that college girls don't want to marry It is that they don't want to marry until they find the riyh man. They have high stand ard and the number of men who measure up to ir is not large. Out of all the classes graduated from Bryn Mawr there are only three in which more than half the members have married.
 Marriage with the college woman is not so much a question of chance as of choice She isn't obliged to put up with the first suitor that comes along, and she won't Gt it. She makes as the de- terminins test: Is this the man I want for the father of my children? And she 8 quite right to set it up.
 ''If Giri of p can find a man of p who has physical health, ability and com patibility, such an early marriage is ideal. But she had better wait for this man till she Is 90 or 35, she had better wait fer him forever, rather than make an early marriage with a rotter. She had better drown herself than do that.
 eft is most hopeful for the future of the race that our educated women are set- ting up such standards. because 1t means that men must eventually meet them, ' added pr. Nearing But 1t is one reason for the late marriage. or even for no marriage at all.
 ''On the other hand. the young man of today s!liinks from the burden of the par asite wife. The wife no longer contributes to the family income by creating values. With the increased standard of elaborate dressing she is often it's chief burden.
 "The woman of today is in the third stage. First she was the slave, the beast of burden, a creature that might be beaten to enforce obedierce to her lo.d and master Second came stage of cooperative labor, with tna COOK stove and the loom. Woman was then or eco nonic value. Now she is toe often an economic liability. a parasite. The whole concert of the women of tho middle ana upper classes is to sponge upon the men.
 "A young sman can no longer soothe himself with the comfortable axiom that two can live as cheaply as one.' When he marries he is likely to find that il not merely corts twice as much for two as fer enc, but 10 times as much.' .You vh,.k that women should be wage. earners after nnrriage?"
 .sEvery woman not engaged with the care of small children should give her. self to snmc other productive work, said Dr. Nearing. 'If the women of to. day co.atinuc to be economic burdens tc men that trey are now. they will ruin this country, just as Rome was ruined by l it's disscluto women"
 | However. wfmen are responsible fol l ony fraction of the economic obstacles l to the early marriage.
 In ere cf his ist books Wages in the ] United States" Dr. Nearing proved tha' half the adult men in the Upited statel