GO-AS-YOU-PLEASE MARRIAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1920, Page 4

GO-AS-YOU-PLEASE MARRIAGE

VISITS TO EACH OTHER BY INVITATION ONLY.

NEW YORK, May 5,

A novel experiment in matrimony which promises to excite world-wide discussion, is announced to-day by Miss Fannie Hurst, the author, who, speaking after five years’ experience of its working, pronounces it to he a blissful success. By all except six of her friends, who witnessed her marriage on May sth, 1915, to Air Jacques S. Danielson, the pianist and composer, Miss Hurst has been regarded as a single woman. The following is her own story of how “ we sailed into the sea of matrimony in a barque of our own design which lias not sprung a single lead. “ Five years ago, when I met Jacques Danielson, I found my youthful determination that marriage was not for me suddenly undermined. But my determination that marriage should never lessen my capacity for creative work or pull mo down into a sedentary state of fal-mindedness was not undermined. “ I made certain resolutions concerning what my marriage should not be. We decided that our marriage should in no way interfere with my work or my studies. My writing output has doubled since Mav, 1915.

“ We decided to live separately and maintain our individual studio and apartments and meeting as per inclination, not duty. We decided that seven breakfasts a week opposite to one another might prove irksome. Our average is two. “ We have maintained our separate groups of friends.

“ Wc decided that the antediluvian custom of a woman casting aside the name had neither rhyme nor rhythm. I was horn Fannie Hurst and I expect to die Fannie Hurst. “ We decided that in the event of offspring, the child should take the paternal name until the age of discretion, when the decision would lie with him.

“ We decided that accounting for cui time to one another would prove irksome, and for five years we have enjoyed our personal liberty precisely as we did before marriage, using rather than abusing the unusual privileges we grant ono another.

“ The proof of the pudding lies in the eating. “ One year has stretched to five and—well we are announcing instead of annulling.” Miss Hurst does not think her form of matrimony in secret could he successful except in a vast city like New York, hut she is sure that the policy of separate establishments and separate friends is the right one, and intends to pursue it even after the present announcement of her marriage. -

She assures the public that neither of them lives in Bohemia nor wears hornrimmed spectacles. “ Mv hair reaches waist-high and is clipped. We believe in love, but not free love. Rather are we willing to pay the price in mutual

sacrifices toward the preservation of one another’s individuality.” Mr Danielson, so far, has said nothing for publication, but as an amusing illustration of how the experiment has worked the wife mentions that last week she attended a theatre with a friend and quite by chance sat next to her husband and a friend. She and her -husband were introduced to one another. She was born at St. Louis in 18811, and gained considerable face as a writer of stories about Jewish sweating shops and East Side New York. Her husband is a native of Petrograd, 45 years oi ago. He came to this country 20 years ago.