The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1922-08-03
Ridiculins Marriage to Death.
(From The Literary Digest)

| 1uS DA6SSs/
Proper training for the marriage
alter would tend largely to prevent
the divorce evil, we are told, since
"the real reason why there are Sc
many unhappy marriages and viola
tions of the marriage covenant is, In
a great measure, because young peo-
pie have rushed unguardedly into
matrimony, without any real under
standing of the sanctity and slgnifi-
canoe of it ALL" AS The Herald OF
Gospel Liberty (Christian) puts the
case further, young people Shave
never been taught sublime appre-
ciation of marriage, nor warned OF
the terrible consequences which are
almost sure to follow a carelessly
and hastily conceived urion." In
stead, they have heard marriage
treated as a joke, as subject for
teasing, and are thus educated to
think lightly and specifically, and
even skeptically, of the whole ques-
ton of marriage. Jokes in the fun
ny papers, ridicule and fun-pohng at
marriage and divorce in vaudeville,
teasing from childhood up, in both
school and home, all tend to break
down a sense of the "moral and sa-
cred equations" involved.
"And in the past few years there
has been added another most tre-
mendous source of harm. Our mod
ern fiction seems obsessed with the
idea of hasty marriages. In both
book and periodical literature, even
in many of our finest and most high
ly respected magazines, the charac-
ters are all too frequently hurried
to the marriage altar. It is no un-
usual thing for the merest chance
acquaintances in these stories to be
married after few weeks of silly
adventure in which many
times a young lady by choice or ac-
cident spends two or three days and
nights away out in some wild alone
with some young fellow whom she
has known only for a week or two!
And all this sort Of dangerous stuff
is now being intensified and glorified
in a new way by the movie picture.
There is scarce a screen In this land
that is not, every few days, show
ing some picture in which young
people of only a few days or weeks
acquaintance consummate marriage.
And of course in both the written
form and on the screen a halo Of
romanticism is thrown around these
hasty marriages, and the youthful
observer is led to believe that they
live happy ever after!"
What is needed to Offset all this
miseducation, thinks the Herald, is
"just plain, ordinary, common-sense
teaching of boys and girls of school
and high-school age of the beauty
and sanctity of marriage, of the holy
responsibilities cf home-making, and
of the ineffable privilege of father
hood and motherhood" Parents
must cultivate that close comradship
with their children which will lead
to the most intimate and heart-re-
vealing condolences about their "fel-
lows" and "girls," and the subject OF
marriage. The process must continue
in the secular school and the Sab
bath school, wherein the teachings
on this theme have been "pitifully
meager and shamefully inadequate. B."
Moreover,
"The church has been equally neg
ligent of this phase of the marriage
theme. It has sternly denounced di-
vorcing and our lax divorce laws and
court practises; and some denomina-
tions have even prohibited the re-
marriage of divorced parties. And
yet neither these denominations nor
the church as a whole have ever at
tackled the problem from the mar
riage altar end of 1.-THE only prac-
tical, the only sensible, and the only
workable place to attack it. Until
the church in it's own institutions be-
gins a systematic and thorough train
ing Of the minds and hearts Of youth
to proper appreciation Of marriage,
and until our common schools and
our Christian homes unite their fore
es with those of the church to put
, the whole question of oourtship and
marriage upon an infinitely higher
basis than it is in the common mind
and the common conversation, liter
ature, and parlance Of the people, it
will be useless to hope for any radi-
cal improvement n our divorce rec