MARRIAGE BY ADVERTISEMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5146, 20 September 1877, Page 3

MARRIAGE BY ADVERTISEMENT.

(From the Daily Express ). In France and Germany newspapers have long been devotees to the service of Hymen. Indeed, in countries where marriages are usually arranged by the principals or friends of the engaged couple, it is not very clear logically why the requirements of intending Benedicts should not be made known to ladies desirous of entering upon wedlock through the agency of the newspapers. According to the Continental theory of marriage, it is as natural to advertise for a wife with so many hundreds a year as for a partner with so many thousands. But in England, even if we do marry for money, we like to keep up the profession that we marry for love ; and till a recent date marriage was not considered a branch of business to be conducted on commercial principles, arranged by advertisement, aud charged for by commission. It seems, however, that there is a paper exclusively devoted to the task'of providing introductions to ladies and gentlemen, weary of single life, who desire to form acquaintance with a view to courtship and marriage. Visitors to London, who generally know more about the metropolis than the dwellers therein, very probably have had their attention called to a placard addressed to “persons who want to marry,” and may have been persuaded by newsboys into buying a copy of the Matrimonial Gazette. But the great majority of Londoners will, we suspect, learn with surprise that every week for a comparatively small sum they may purchase a list of ladies with fortunes varying from £IO,OOO a year down to zero, who are willing to unite themselves in the bonds of matrimony with any one of a list of gentlemen, all provided, as per advertisement, with ample means and good social position.