Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1875 — Marriage. [ARTICLE]

Marriage.

Evert now and then some of the jour. nals in the large cities have a spasm upon the economy of marriage and the amoiint of income necessary befbfe matrimony can safely be contracted. A-year or two ago the New Yolk Timet devoted column after column to the subject for many days, and the Inter-Ocean is now following suit. Scores of communications from all sorts of people are interesting, as showing the varying opinions of people on the subject, and many are amusing and racy, and others are quite instructive as relating the experiences of those who have tried matrimony, and write out what they know about its costs and pains, and penalties and pleasures, for the benefit of the single. But the object of them all is supposed to be to find and declare the exact point at which the amount of income will warrant a man in taking a wife—to decide, in fact, upon an arbitrary amount-that will enable a man to say: “ Now I can take and support a wife.” This is what cannot be done, and so in the end the long discussion of the subject amounts to nothing, except in the gain of some incidental information that may be of use to young people about to marry. The amount of income necessary to marriage depends entirely upon who the contracting parties are. What is their position in life, how they were reared, what their dispositions and tastes are, what they expect, the circles they desire to move in, and the sacrifices they are willing to make for the sake of marriage, if any sacrifices are required. Says one writer: “As life is now in the large cities, and as things go, it would take a brave man to marry upon an income of $1,200 or $1,500 a year.” It would take nothing of the sort. If a man is willing to confine himself to the kind of life such an income will support for the sake of a woman, and the woman consent to share such life with him, then the couple will find that the income named will procure them all the necessaries of life and some of the luxuries. If they are happy enough in each other’s love and the pleasures of their mutual affection to make them content with their lot there is po reason why life should be unpleasant to them, or why they should not enjoy it as well as though they had SIOO,OOO a year.

When a young man says to a woman “ I cannot marry you because my income is but $2,000,” he may be, all things considered, earnest and exercising good judgment. His own tastes and habits, the tastes and habits of the woman, their social ties and obligations and expectations, the experiences they have been trained to, may make marriage between them upon such an income like suicide, or the means of bringing upon them endless misery and unhappiness. A man and woman matrimonially inclined must be their own judges of their ability to marry upon the income that will be theirs, and no arbitrary rule that will cover the case of another couple will meet their case. But when once they resolve to take their chances upon a small income, to live as that income enables them, and to be content to give up all else for each other, then they may find in such marriage much pure happiness. —Cincinnati Gazette. !* 1 ■■ j - — u„ .♦« —An Oregon Justice' of the Peace married a couple ‘ Recently, regulated Uieir family difficulties as best he could from time to time, and when the husband killed his wife and then himself the same friend in need acted as coroner and undertaker and read the funeral service,