Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-08-05
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR MEN
Feminine Monopoly on Breaking En-
gaeements Passing.


ragh in the New York Tribune.
The ceremonious, fcminincly mono
polizcd, practically unbrcakablc en-
CagCmcnt that was one Of the inStitu-
tions of Il regime that is passing, is
already as old -fashioncd as the mid.
Victorian gown with its street clean
ing train, its disfiguring hustle and its
cOllapsibc hoop skirt. Like the c.othcs
of the moment, the engagement now ir
vogue is short, smart and snappy.
While to the initiated it might seem
that the country as a whole has pre-
served a fair average in the matter OF
June weddings, this year, it is never
thclcss n fact that the relation of ar
engagement to a wedding is much less
the meagcr statistics available it L.
being shown that the number OF
broken engagements in any given So
cial circle is now far greater than
those ending at the altar.
This state of affairs is said to cxis;
not because n wave Of ficklcncss has
been sweeping over the land, but is ac
counted for by the fact that the break
ing of an engagement is no longer a
monopoly in the hands of women.
For a considerable time it has been
growing less and less difficult for a
girl to. become engaged. For , many
years women have known that as long
as custom decreed that the man was
the only authorized person to speak
the formula which would bring an en-
gogement about, there was always the
chance that those words might never
be spoken. They knew that set of
rules that would permit them, as well
as the man, to speak at the psycholo-
gical moment was, all that was neces-
sary as a safeguard. SO the first bit
of remodcling done on "engagements'
was to give n girl much more to say
when it came to clnching matters, ana
now the trick OF transforming rhe
climatic situation into bona-fide en-
gagemcnt is as much her business as
his
But after women had taken in one
reef in the pre-war model men i'm
mcdiately took in another. Taking Off
an engagement was thus made as easy
for one as for the other, which SEEM
ed perfectly fair.
So now the law of compensation, or
the rules Of poetic justice, have begun
to function in the interest Of the man,
and a man has much more voice in the
breaking of an engagement than in the
days of yorc, when gallantry and chiv-
airy and a fear of social censure kept
him lashed to the mast once the fate
full promise had been given, Although
his were the words that brought an Ien-
gagement into existence in the first
place, a frowning society until now de-
MED him the privilege Of uttcring a
syllable that would bring it to an end.
and insisted that any suggestion that
there might have been a mistake must
come from the girl.
The present day engagement, nation
ally if not individually considered, mas
about the same rating as that once Civ
en- to little attention like buying your
dancing partner an ice, Or tying a
perpetually dangling shoe string or
cmbroidering sofa pillow or hat
band. In fact, embroidcring anything
so intimate as a hat band for, man
committed a girl to more in 1000 than
does her airy whispered yes" of 1921.
This is the phase Of the situation that
is dcplorcd by the rOmanticist, but
then VIC still have with us people who
pine for the hustle and the hoop skirt
and insist that because the short frock
leaves nothing to the imagination, 1t
has nothing to recommend it.
The musings of a middle aged man
on the recent breaking of the engage
mcnt of Il young fellow cub member
with no more disturbing consequences
to himself or the girl than If they had
changed their minds about going to
the thcatcr, was revealed.
"Whcn I think of my experience un-
der similar circumstances less than
fifteen years ago" he began, I'm al
most willing to cOnccdc that these
Youngsters are saner than we were,
even if they are not so romantic. In
the first place they start out different
". They have a practically standard
lied form of proposal ana most of them
use it. One of the twain says: Let
get married and the other replies,
you're on, old top
That's all there is tc it, and it
doesn't make the least bit Of difference
whether il is the girl or the man VINO
makes the first proposition. When |
was interested in getting engaged, he
went on, sit was extremely difficult to
assemble any reliable data as to. just
what words a man used when he pro-
posed. The occasion seemed to demand
extra in the way or grand
language and in every novel you read
the proposal of marriage was perfect
nosegay of handpicked words"