| Show the marriage question the marriage question is just now attracting unusual attention it interests everybody some want to marry but cannot cannou others are married but want to be free others imagine they arp are married to the wrong person persons and would like to exchange the tiie misery they have for one they know nothing about there seems to be a vast amount of acute irritation and dlf dif fuseI diffused fusel discontent in our present conjugal relations while those who want to marry butare lot not wanted in marriage and those who do not want to marry but are wanted and wooed keep the waters uncomfortably agitated doubtless there areas are as many happy homes and contented husbands and wises wives as ever but they have an amiable and admirable habit of keeping the fact to themselves and are not constantly pulling the marriage relation up by the roots to see if there is not a possibility that its leaves may wither and its branches die but there is a great deal of uneasiness and irritation statistics show ii a large increase of unmarried people divorces are numerous numerous num drous and separations without legal formality are more numerous still tile the number of young men who do not p propose to marry is alarming while not a few like mr knight of JS Is naita FaIta would like to marry on time to ve parate separate when the marrying freaks fi fleak eak is over or the gloss of the relation is is worn off there is a certain certai n flippant and aud jaunty way of talking about the most s sacred acred acied of human relations which shows a stran strange j want of appreciation of or falth faith an fn n it and lecturers elicit applause by cracking jokes at the expense of the poor fools who have suffered themselves to be caught by its san sentimental ti chafi and crude and loose notions of the lations relations le of the sexes are floating about in society and abid finding more frequent lodgment aud and plausible advocacy than thau over ever before or than many imagine the marriage guestion question 11 I 1 is SUP sue up and will be discussed in spi spite te of all ail all ali anybody y can do to prevent it perhaps the coul courageous age ou 8 w way ay of approaching a p p pa caching ching it is the wisest and best nothing is gained by resisting the inevitable letus lotus us look the difficulty full in the face but a great deal of tho the talk on this subject overlooks bhe the altered aspects of modem ocle cocle ocie ty aud and life lire and fails falls to see hew the changes in our circumstances customs and culture have bave necessarily affected all our rela reia lyon jyon and ocono economies three quarters of a century a ago most men lived and di died d where tio they were born their thor exIs existence terice torice was circumscribed their tastes were dom domestic estie estle it was wag their ambition to moar roar a family well and leave them a competence competency and a fortune then would hardly be counted a large annual income today to day low now everybody is on the tiie move we are a nation of nomads wo are a mee race of cosmopolitans every th ingis unsettled everybody is on the go all our tastes ambitions have altered bu business alness ainess is Ls done in another way the restaurant tau rant the club and and the hotel lintel have superseded the home hoing for thousands the cost coat for nor living has castre trebled and comparatively few men can to support an i ment merit to and the expectations of those they asso associate clate with while children are regarded e carded as undesirable if not unendurable e ura b ae so far as woman is concerned there has been an industrial social and intellectual revolution within three quarters of a century mechanism ha has 4 changed her occupations and turned her adrift education has sharpened her faculties made her discontented with many elements of her old ilfe lifo and awakened new tastes wants and aspirations bho sho lives ilves in a new world and is in many respects a new being her physique has changed obedience has dropped out of her vocabulary authority has heen been superseded by attraction she pines ines in what her grandmother would hayo have considered a paradise all our institutions have been serl seriously affected by the altered aspect of our new now civilly civilization atlon and it is impossible in p that such a transformation as gome iome some somo now living have witnessed should not have materially affected a relation so of in marriage arriage whose terms are determined almost solely by the feelings circumstances ani and characters of those who enter into it if human beings were made of cast iron and allon ailon all ali on one pattern and subjected to the same strain and temperature the problem would be simple enough but nature does daes not turn out men and women of that sort and into such circumstances any more the finst first step towards a solution of this marriage question is to comprehend bud its terms wo we are in the midst of a breaking up period the old order of things is going to pieces but the new is not formed we stand midway between what was and what is to bo be behind us is tradition and before us science we sumer suffer from the confusion inevitable to a transition epoch the time for raa readjustment id has lim not come but there is no cause for alarm the sexes complement each other man bran was made for woman and woman for man each attracts the other by some inexplicable law and finds in the other that which nothing else can supply and without which all elso elsa would be bo unsatisfying the sexes perpetually e reer et prophesy each to chepo the other t and out of their ceaseless wooing all that is best in culture finest in art purest in enjoyment most beautiful and enduring in literature and holiest hollest in religion come in some form the marriage relation will endure while civilization survives A but all ali that thab relates to the form a and circumstances of tho the relation is open for nor reconsideration in discussing cussing bussing it three points are to b be e kept steadily in mind tiie the affections and tastes and cincu circumstances ms of individuals the rights and welfare orso of society clety and the requirements and culture of children but in most of bf the discussions 3 the sole solo point considered has been the tastes pleasures and whims of the parties immediately concerned society is forgotten and children are ignored the idea of duty I 1 is is sunk butof out of sight inn ina in a passion for enjoyment marriage means something th ng more than pleasure it means in its and noblest sense bense it means the poetry of life the religion of the affections aati the real question is not how to get got the unmarried married nor the married unmarried nor lor the mis mated paired to their mind so much as how to th mako make the most and best of a relation so intimate and vital that ib it affects the color and charac character tei oer of everything in life it is easy enough to make malte the worst of it it is easy enough to get nothing but hut irritation and heartache out of it it is easy enough to magnify its little in felicities into positive miseries as so many do to their cost but mut bul but hofto malce maice ib it a constant eni edi enjoy oy behe and education as is the great question perhaps if this practical aspect of or the problem wore considered inore more moro frequently and seriously wb wo should havo have fewer unhappy marria marriages es and hear less lesa about the decay of the marriage relation and alfid perhaps the u unmarried would be more inclined to marry if thoy they heard less of the irritations and saw more of the tilo felicities of the marriage relation and were satis fidd fled that its joys exceeded its trials andeits and its satisfactions would offset 6 et its care cares sN JV Y graphic 1 1 7 7 is authority fortha fo statement that a majority of iho tho he priests of the catholic church aro are false faise to their vows of celibacy thagus one of his reasons for aavo abolition of the require feht in correcting children we should appeal to the intellect before resorting to the other extreme A genius has invented a shirt collar to which braces are attached for holding up the tho trousers trouse ns mr collyer of chicago is giving the people a cletuce on clear grit with an especial application to matrimony the difference between a couil country try and a city greenhorn is that one would like to know everything and the other othen thinks that lie he can tell him A clergy clergyman mah is reported to be authority for the statement tha that t 1 a 1 convention of bald headed men is soon to be held in boston for the purpose of reviving the old wig party handsome coflin plate hearse and carriage for 25 is the announcement of a new york undertaker der taker this brings funeral luxuries within the reach of the poorest an iowa church meant to be Q patriot patriotic iq in having its steeple painted with stars and stripes I 1 but the Praet practical le al result is that stra strangers nger s are continually led thither to seek an easy shave tho the key to a lockin lock in the springfield B massachusetts jail being lost all the expert locksmiths lock smiths in the town tried unavailingly to open it for several hours until a burglarious inmate came to their aid and picked it without difficulty A german paper thinks women had better take some part in politics because that the further they keep themselves from politics tho the more zealously do they mix themselves in religious ous questions and introduce into them aalthe all ail tilo tile love and hate of which their thein nature is cap capable able abie |
