The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-05-26
Attentions
Without
Intentions
Urges Girls

In certain Pots of the country
there exists social custom called
excepting company" Being inter-
preted this means that youth
deigns to cast his handk erchief to a
particular girl. He goes to see her
several times a week. He takes her
about to places of amusement, and in
return for these royal favors the girl
must receive attentions from no other
man under penalty of losing her job
as steady"
In a word, the man arrogates to
himself all of the rights and privi-
leges of fiance, without assuming
any4of the fiance's obligations, for he
is not engaged to the girl. He hasn't
asked her to marry him. He may
never ask her to marry him, and he
is perfectly free to ride away when
ever he pleases, leaving her 0eauless.
No doubt this is a pleasing enough
arrangement for the man, but 1T is
most unfair one to the woman, and
why any girl could enter into such an
unequal bargain, and one in which
she always gets the bad end, passes
comprehension.
Nevertheless they do, and I have a
pathetic letter from a young girl who
is the victim of this atrocious senti-
mental system. She says that she
has been keeping company" with a
boy for three years, and, while she
likes him, she doesn't love him. They
are not engaged. He has never popped
the question, but he gets furiously
angry and raises ructions IL she so
much as looks at another boy, and she
is tired of this petty tyranny. She
wants to play around with the other
boys and to see other men before she
makes her final choice of the one
with whom she Is to spend the bal
ance of her life, and she wants to
know IL don't think she Is right.
or course she is. The girls who live
where the keeping company" GUS
tom prevails should unite together
and break it up, because it is so man.
ifestly unjust to them all along the
line. 1T makes them give all and get
nothing. 1t makes them take all the
risks of courtship that may fizzle
out into nothing. 1t makes them the
prey of every social CRATER and phi
landerer who happens along.
1t makes a girl waste her youth and
beauty on man whose attentions
may be alptogether without intention,
and that is a very serious thing, for "a
girls face is her fortune, and she is
far more apt to make good mar
riage in her early twenties THAI
later on.
If, however, she has permitted some
man to monopolize her; If she is al
ways seen in his company, and he is
always camped on her parlor chairs,
she cuts herself off from whatever
matrimonial luck might be beaded
her way. Some other man, far more
eligible, far more attractive, far more
congenial to her. might come into her
life. as the fortune tellers say, but he
SC0re0 ha w n a
put his collar upon her.
AND the man who is monopolizing
her may have no intentions whatever
of marrying her. He may not be
financially able to marry. He may
not be of the marrying sort. He may
not care rap about the girl beyond
finding her good company, and liking
ner mothers cooking, and being
proud to be seen out with a young
woman who dresses we'll and who is
good locker
There are many men like that. They
Will use girls home as a free club
and restaurant. They wills amuse
themselves with her society, and hang
around her until all her freshness and
almost as much identified with him
as II she had been married to him.
and then they will drift off to some
newer, fresher young creature.
Any girl lacks self-respect. and
any man monopolize her until after
they are definitely engaged She
never keeps company with a man
until his ring is on her finger.
The keeping company" custom is
also bad because 1t narrows down a
girls choice to the one article on the