Denver labor bulletin., 1918-08-31
WAR MARRIAGES AS SIGNS OF A
DEEPENED AMERICAN DEALISM
From the Literary Digest.

Matrimony has assumed new air
of joyous adventure, in place of the
rather sad solemnity that might have
been expected in such times as these.
The fact is, according to the Rev.
Percy Stickney Grant, American youth
has determined that death shall not
conquer, and the $4,000 increase in
marriages during the first half-year
of our participation in the war is
most hopeful sign.
Writing in The Forum, he declares,
on the basis of considerable ac-
quaintance with these war marriages,
that various unfavorable interpreta-
tions of them are unwarranted. A
golden thread of romance, not a yell
low streak, is responsible for the in
crease of marrying, he finds, and he
protests:
The most fragrant injustice to the
war marriage occurred when the
United States first entered the war,
when there was an official disapproval
of war marriages on the ground that
many of them were the subterfuges
of young men to escape the draft.
| Nothing, in my opinion, could be fur
| ther from the truth. No doubt, many
engagements were brought to a hap
py climax by the war; many mar
| riages that have been delayed for
| financial or family reasons were con-
cluded in the uplift of patriotic ex-
| pediency. The indecision Of sentiment
which often makes young people wait
was stimulated by the heroism of the
occasion.
The war marriage in many instances
compelled a deeper determination of
hearts, facing perhaps eternal separ-
alton. There was nothing for these
deferred love stories in the face of
war but to close the chapter with
perhaps hasty marriage. The mes
sage of war proved a conclusive test
of sentiment. Both the girl and the
boy saw that war efficiency was not
only a case of the man behind the gun,
but of the girl behind the man. 1t
may have been her instinct which un-
derstood these unwritten beauties of
the war marriage, and planted the
bloom of a new love purpose. At any
| rate, it is certain that many of our
soldiers, both officers and privates,
have gone to the front with far more
courage and determination on account
of the girls they have left behind them
as brides in their homes.
l am inclined to believe that these
young women, whom we have regard
ed perhaps with a tolerant masculine
superiority, have quietly, with the
feminine wisdom, that is indescriba-
bly, subtle to ordinary man, crystal
lized the war marriage into a love
marriage of greater significance than
any other matrimonial adventure the
world has ever known. / have heard
young women say quite frankly that if
the man they cared for must go to
war; if he must take the chance of
death on the battlefield, their own fu-
ture could only become endurable in
caring for his child. This frankness,
this essential wisdom of matrimonial
purpose and opportunity, is one of the
new and fortunate awakenings which
the war has given US. The credit for
it belongs to the young women
those young women who with their
soft, pretty ways and their dainty
sensibilities have suddenly become the
wives of warriors. Their attitude to-
ward the war marriage lifts the cur
tain that has so long hidden the Wig
orous side of woman's soul. In her
relation to the war marriage she has
revealed her place in the world.
There is no divergence from the
main strength of her sentiment in the