THE AGE OF MARRIAGE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 308, 2 November 1910, Page 2

THE AGE OF MARRIAGE.

Too Old at Twenty.

When Jane Austen was writing her aovels, a girl who was unmarried at twenty was considered to be on the shelf, and a woman of twenty-five was a hopeless old maid. Moreover, it was doubted if a man of thirty could be pleasing to the fair sex, except to the matrons, to whom in those days, it seems to have been worth no one's while to be polite. But we have long since got past all that. Nowadays a girl of twenty is considered only just grown up, and, in fact, has only just got over the Indignity of being called a "flapper." And at thirty a man is absurdly young. For a girl there is now not much difference between twenty and thirty-five, and for a man even less between twenty-five and forty. They are still young. "Mr. RIGHT." After all, it is not so much a question of age, as of the right man coming along. The average girl is much more particular than she used to be. She knows well enough that if she marries on a small income she

pvill not be able to have that "good time," which is more and more becoming a necessity of modern life. She will have to look after the house and perhaps after the children, and the admiration and. homage which she used to receive will be no longer hers. It is no doubt very wrong that it should be so, but there it is, and no amount of horrified exclamations on the part of the elderly will alter it. If marriage means a "good time," well and good ; if not, so much the worse for it. Of course, there comes a time when the average woman wants a home of her own, but with the modern father that time seldom comes before the age of +wenty-five.—'' Sketch.''