WHY MEN DO NOT MARRY

Gisborne Times, 8 December 1906, Page 3

WHY MEN DO NOT MARRY

[(To the [Editor Gisboino Times, Sir, —“ Chosil Boaoh’s ” thoory ns to tiio unpopularity of marriage may bo eorroct with rogard to tlie class ho scorns to write about —apparently pocplo with more than an ordinary share of tho world’s goods. It surely cannot apply to tho groat majority of tho population —tho wago oarnors and tho small sottlors. Parents who bolong to thoso soctions of tho community aro i not lilcely to show tho door to a ro-< spoctablo, industrious man who socks an alliance with thoir daughtor. Thoir incomos are not so groat that they can afford to bring up thoir daughtors in such luxury that they have scruples ! about, handing her over to tho cure of a man of tho abovo typo. Ho is probably in tho sarno position as tho girl’s father started in and still holds, for tho life of most pooplo afeor marriage is a struggle to raise thoir families, and comparatively few of them are in a hotter ilnaneial position at fifty years of age than they were at twenty-five ; and it is this latter fact that makes many u youug man pauso boforo taking the decisive stop. Ho may bo earning good wages, or if he' holds a pioce of land may in these days of inllatod prices be laying by a good doal of monoy. But the worker’s wages loavo but a small margin over tho cost of living at tho best of times, and the sottler may oncountor a series of lean years. And pooplo to-day do not rush into a position that i 3 likely to involvo thorn in hardships for tho rest of thoir livos with tho same equanimity as thoir forofafchora did. Probably 7 the univorsal spread of oducation and tho weakening of religious belief combine to croato this sontimont. Young poo-

pie to-day have access to the world’s literature, and solect their reading as we may, they are certain to read much that will dissatisfy them with their position in life, and destroy that faith in Providence which was such a powerful social factor in days gone by. And then thore is the great body of men who worK in the crude industries of these new countries, shearers, bush» men, miners, navvies, stockmen—to most of whom home seems a dream of the past, and marriage almost au impossibility. For each of these homeless, lonely men, there is somewhere a woman who must remain single.—l am,, etc., H. J. Planer.