Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-07-01
-vTT HATS the matter with ,
- NHf matrimony?" asked a man
w despairingly, after we had

HATS the matter with
- VA matrimony?" asked a man
w despairingly, after we had
listened to a narrowing re-
cital of the domestic squabbles of a
young couple in whom we were both
interested.
Here's Jim and Bess who start out
married life with every thing in their
favor-youth, and health, and intelli-
gence, and enough money to live on
comfortably, and crafty in love with
each other. I'd have sworn that that
marriage was sure-thing-success
couldn't fail-yet here they are in
five years, fighting like Kilkenny
cats, and both of 'em wishing they
had the courage to beat it to Reno.
What has happened to disillusion-
ize them with the holy estate? What's
in these days that so few people seem
to have nerve enough to endure it
with fortitude, to say nothing of
considering it a heaven on earth
where they lived happily ever after"
as in the story books.
There's nothing the matter with
matrimony," I replied. tits the same
good, old reliable institution it was
in our fathers and our grandfathers'
and our great grandfathers' time. The
trouble is with the people, and what
is the matter with them is that they
are no longer willing to pay the price.
The average young couple get
married thinking they can WEIGH on
Cupid and it can't be- done. Hence
these tears and ordinations and re-
elimination and the sound of connu-
bal letters being rended and broke
and homes wrecked.
Youths and maidens have an IL
fusion that matrimony is free picnic
where all that they have to do is to
dance, and feast, and make merry
with the good looking and joyous
companion whom they have picked
norant to know that there is nothing
gratis in this world-not even love
and that instead of the holy estate
being cheap pleasure resort we are
required to give up everything we
posses for pass through it's doors.
And so when matrimony presents
its little bill to them they are unpre-
pared for the staggering price they
are asked to pay, and howl to Heaven
that they won't be mulcted that way
and they'll go to the divorce court
first.
Perhaps our fathers and mothers
didn't enjoy paying the matrimonial
piper any more than we do, but at
any, rate they seem to have realized
that the debt would have to be liqui-
dated for when they married they
settled down, and accepted with a
family and bowed their necks to the
matrimonial Jokes.
Young people nowadays, especially
the girls, don't look upon getting
married as a settling process, but as
liberating one. If they are rich
girls it faces them from parental au-
thority and the eye of chaperons. If
they are poor girls it relieves them
from the necessity of earning their
own living and keeping working
hours. In both cases 1t gives them
chance for a little fling on their own.
Hence the idea of turning their
back upon, gaiety, and for wearing
pretty clothes, and giving in ten
times as much to a husband as they
ever did to father. and working fifty
times harder in a kitchen than they
ever did in an Office does not appeal
to them: 1t isn't what they expected
to pay for their wedding rings.
If girl told the truth she would
admit that what she demands of mar
riage is all that she has plus the
love and support of a husband who
will always be f1attering and cajol-
ing her and never too tired or busy to
take her out of evenings.