Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-08-06

To speak bIuntly, they
are determined that in marriage
there shall be a vast deal less
suhjection than there was"
Girls have a new attitude towards
men and towards life. They see more
of men and more of life than their
mothers did at their age. Hence. in
addition to acquiring relative indie
pendence OF spirit, they have become
wary In other words they are less
apt To be rash and foolish in the great
decisions One leading result of this
IL the gradual decline Of the fine old
British institution of the love ma tch,
And fI saw not a bad result either.
AT which expression of opinion many
readers Will be angry, and some very
angry. What. Abolish love in mar
rage, What, Adopt the heartless
continental system Of the deliberately
arranged marriage, the marriage of
convenience, Well. nobody wants to
abolish love in marriage, and nobody
could But we must understand what
we mean when we say love" The
majority OF the love-matches are
auentiy no practical consideration has
boen allowed to restrain, The par
ties-and especially the girl-enter
into them in a state of mind and body
which is abnormal, and under the
most astounding Illusion. The IL
lusion is that the abnormal state of
mind and body is normal and Will con-
Tinue definitely.
~nN nF,n SZln an N
thousand lasts, as a passion. more than
three years Few last, as passions.
more than six months; an appreciable
proportion do not survive the honey
noon.
The passion may settle down into
a solid and enduring calm affection or
g. may wither into a tolerant mutual
indifference: or il may degenerate
into acute dislike. At best the dis
illusion is serious; at worst it is ap-
pailing.
People laugh when letters of pas
son are read in the matrimonial
courts:
MY own darling pet little Hugsy
Wugsy"
They ought really TO weep for the
tragedy OF the thing. The. one con-
ceivsble advantage of the love-match
pure and simple is that 1t does fur
rish a unique emotional experience.
Whether that experience Yields. even
while Il is in being. more happiness
than unhsppiness is a nice question
which each person viii probably de-
eide on personal grounds. But it is
certain that passion is not all beer
and sl&ittles
With Open Eyes.
Now the ''heartless continental sys-
tenn" (as sentimentalists cali it,. sure
ly cannot claim to provide this unique
emotional experience, with its delicious
trary, for good or evil, il expressly
avoids such experience.
The parties are not in an abnormal
state when they enter into the con-
tract The girl speak more par
ticularly of her-is under no passional
Illusion. She does not ina gine that
her life is ready-made. She knows
that she has TO build it up. And she
sets about building IL up. She may
fail. of course; but on the other hand
. solid and enduring affection may be
reached and very often is reached. At
any rate. since the material factors OF
the situation have been prudently
studied and balanced beforehand. there
IS less chance Of them poisoning the
life of the heart than under the happy
go-lucky pa ssional system.
Moreover the proof of the pudding is
in the eating. Do continental mar
riases work out on the average less
satisfactorily than Anglo-Sa mar
riages? They positively do not.
Therefore ] welcome the decline of |
the love-match in Anglo-Saxon coun- |
tries. For If in France, for example, |
reason in marriage has ruled too
absolutely, in Britain, for example, |
passion has ruled too absolutely; and |
there is now some hope that we may |
be approaching the happy mean.
The point of the above is that Il |
furnishes a remarkable illustration of |
the great and broad fact that girls /
are trying TO look after themselves |
better than they used to do. Neces-
sarily this implies that they are be- /
coming the rivals of men in the strug-
gle for the sweets of life. do not re-
fer to the rivalry of the sexes in the |
various professions and callings which /
make UP the VI d ildA4OfiGl
istence. That particular rivalry is /
important in a material sense-for /
women have already almost complete
ly ousted men from certain fields of /
to my mind it is not so
important as the general rivalry /
which may be expressed thus:
In the opinion of women men have |
had a better time than wo-
men. (Some men would attempt to
deny this, but / do not think that il
can be successfully denied.) Women /
are now determined to have as good /
a time as men. And since marriage
is the supreme social institution.
all others in its daily
effect on all human beings who are
either husbands or wives, women are
especially determined that the sweets
Of marriage shall be more evenly di-
yided in future. To speak bluntly,
they are determined that in marriage
there shall be a vast deal less sub
lection than there was.
Some instead Of saying less sub
jection," would say less seryitude" or
even less slavery"
And | for one would admit that in
employing these horrid words they
were not speaking too strongly. Let
us remember that not many years
have passed since British married wo-