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Show KATHLEEN NORMS Arranged Marriage May Succeed TWO SCHOOL TEACHER SISTERS, SIS-TERS, Grace and Goldie Brooks, wrote me some years ago from their home in a small town near Duluth, to consult me about marriages that are made through matrimonial agencies. Their parents had recently recent-ly died, and their lives, they felt, had become narrow, dull and monotonous. mon-otonous. "We love cooking and gardening," wrote Grace, "we keep a nice home, and have friends. But neither one of us has ever had a sweetheart, and we wonder why. Just of late it occurred to us that many an arranged ar-ranged marriage has terminated happily, and that as we are too shy to let the men of our own town know that we would like to be married, yet we would not feel so self-conscious with men who are deliberately deliberate-ly seeking good, loving wives. We certainly would not take any man, and we understand that 'we would be free to decline any proposal that did not appeal. But we both long for companionship, for the interest of talking over our households, husbands, hus-bands, and perhaps someday children chil-dren with each other, and we feel that a wider life would give us more chance for development, and eventually even-tually for service. Matrimonial Candidates In answer to this letter I wrote reminding re-minding these sisters, that, being adults, they were quite able to judge ly attracted to a man from Milwaukee. Mil-waukee. A quiet wedding followed, Kent being introduced to friends and neighbors as "a man our friend Mrs. Oliver knows." Immediately a man who had known both sisters for years announced an-nounced himself as extremely resentful, re-sentful, as, he said, he had loved Goldie for a long time, but had been waiting until her obligations to her mother and his to an old father, were somewhat less pressing. Goldie only could accept this with the complacency com-placency of a bride, and the disappointed disap-pointed admirer elected himself to comfort Grace, afterward finding that she was the one he loved, after all. On their wedding trip they could act as godparents for Goldie's baby son; the sisters between them now have five children, and the whole venture ended happily and successfully success-fully for everyone. Which is only to say, perhaps, that there is no harm in breaking out of the rut into which our days sometimes sink. This adventure usually belongs to girls and boys in their teens. , Some find congenial companions and open little bachelor-maid establishments, es-tablishments, sometimes not far from the home nest, but independent, independ-ent, anyway. Grace and Goldie were not young, as love affairs go. They were sensi- ble women, already experienced in guiding the young, and they knew they needn't have any dealings with charlatans and crooks and gay deceivers de-ceivers generally. The real danger of these matrimonial agencies is that to the young, curious, adolescent adoles-cent mind they present enormous fascinations. for themselves the merits and appeal ap-peal of any matrimonial candidates, and that it might not be a mistake to investigate any responsible bureau in their neighborhood. But I also said that this line of business is a notoriously unreliable one, open to the unscrupulous and dishonest, and especially patronized by fortune hunters, men to whom even the Brooks girls' modest com- "... we love cooking ..." fort would be worth plundering. Several happy wives wrote me that theirs had been matrimonial bureau marriages when I wrote of this subject sub-ject somexyears ago, and many European Eu-ropean marriages are arranged this way. One of my close old friends In New York was an Irish woman who had married a man on the very day set for his marriage to her cousin. The cousin drew out at the last moment, and my friend, then a saucy 18, volunteered to marry Dan and go with him to America the next day. Seven fine children, two priests, a silver and golden wedding were the happy results of this venture. ven-ture. But It has to be remembered that in these European marriages the religion, background and environment environ-ment are aU familiar to the arranging arrang-ing mothers and fathers, whereas in Matrimonial-agency marriages a far greater chance is taken. Quiet Wedding WeU, to get back to the Brooks sisters. They went into Duluth, and consulted a Mrs. Oliver, a middle-aged, middle-aged, motherly sort of woman who never openly advertises, but has a good reputation as Cupid's agent. After some negotiating she sent them some letters, and the sister I have caUed Goldie became deep- |