Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1901 — TALK OF MARRIAGE. [ARTICLE]

TALK OF MARRIAGE.

Engliah Publication Points Out One Di»* advantage of Being a Women. A man may remark on his intention to marry at some indefinite future time, when prudence or other considerations may make it possible or advisable, without having, as a rule, to run the gauntlet of a chorus of, impertinent and stupid would-be witty remarks. But, says the Nineteenth Century, should & girl be bold enough, or, rather, natural and simple enough, to say the same thing, what would be the result? Why, everyone knows that she would be promptly sneered out of countenance. And why? Is it immodest for a woman to express a determination to enter into a state which we are being continually reminded is a natural and honorable state, while it is modest and proper for a man to do so? Such a distinction would newer be drawn except for the “cheapness” to which reference has been made. If a man wants to marry he can marry; if the first woman he asks refuses him, he has only to ask a second, or perhaps a third or fourth. It would be safe to guarantee that within a month any man of fairly respectable life and position and appearance who cared to make the experiment could marry in his own class, could marry probably a woman much superior to himself. But what about the girl who intends to marry “some day?” Is she not in a very different position from the man? Here is a girl of good character—much better than the man’s, probably—average intelligence, averts 6 good looks. Theoretically, she is free to marry whom she will; but is she? If she receives one distinct o U fer of marriage she has had more than her share, according to the probable average. The fact that, by an unwritten law, a woman must not take, and, indeed, does not want to take, the initiative, has very little to do with the extremely limited choice which modern conditions impose upon English women.