IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE?

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2100, 7 June 1907, Page 2

IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE?

‘ ‘ANTI-MARRIAGE” ATTACKS “BUSCOL.” THEORY AND PRACTICE. Tho severely practical “Anti-Mar-riage,” who appears, further, to have been very badly bitten in his own matrimonial venture, thus combats tho arguments in the two letters which have appeared from the lien of “Buscol” : With the usual “sweet unreason-

ableness” characteristic oi the fair sex “Buscol” presents her deductions to the world. These conclusions are presented to us mainly in the shape of a series of dogmatic assertions which siio would find it difficult to support by evidence. Such statements 'as “members of clubs are

mainly married men” are so palpably absurd as to carry their own refutation, while suggestions-that tho husband would prefer a “bob’s” worth in tho pit to tho pleasures! of his own fireside indicates that she feels that the joys of matrimonial life are not unalloyed. One could almost weep at tho picture your correspondent pourtrays of wifely devotion if it were not for .the reflection that for one such in-

stance in real life there are numbers where shrill-voiced viragos add to tho married man’s cares when his day of business worries is done. In my last letter I illustrated the disadvantages of married life from my own masculine point of view, but did not even imply that there was nothing to be said from a lady’s point of view, as your fair correspondent seems to assume, but quite the contrary. It is therefore satisfactory that even this maiden without experience, unconsciously supports; my contention that marriage is a failure by her illustrations of her idea of the unfortunate married woman’s life. If marriage means this sacrifice or any sacrifice on tho part of oither men or women' why should they make it? Since writing the first part of this letter the “Times” has reached me with “Buscol’s” second interesting lotter, which confirms the opinion that the lady is more in .touch with Carlyle and Ruskin than the actual realities of life. Her conclusions may be quite correct were the lofty I ideals she breathes common to ordiI nary workaday mortals, but they are I not. While married life is in many cases a happy state, there are numberless others whore it is nothing •but a tragedy—frequently hidden from the world or unsophisticated ladies like your correspondent —but

still a tragedy. Men and women rarely know one another until after marriage, when the disillusionment comes, when they find that they are

■not “two hearts that beat as one and that they aro condemned to live a dreary existence in uncongenial company for the rest of their lives. Do we not see unfaithful wives and —hill?-

cation of uncongenial bonds? What is ,tlie remedy if it is not to adopt Mr. Punch’s advice to those about to marry, “Don’t.” I pass over “Married Woman’s” peevish and silly letter as it does not call for an answer. FACILITATED DIVORCE. A STRONG, ADVOCATE, y “Humanitas” writes as follows: Please allow mo to say that I cannot agree with .the statement of “A Married Woman” in her letter on the above subject. She says “that men who write like your two correspondents ought to be in gaol.” For one I am convinced that the advocates of extended facilities for divorce arc on the right track. “A Married Woman” speaks of the case of divorce as merely caprice, but there are often other reasons of a more weighty nature. It is not only men who are sometimes crushed by an unhappy union, but those of her own sex also.