WAR WEDDINGS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 197, 4 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

WAR WEDDINGS.

THEIR ROMANCE AND RISK. Whenever Mars leads his legions to battle, with flourish of trumpets and flutter of flags, Cupid gleefully fills his quivers, because he knows that a busy time is awaiting him; and never in all his long history has he counted so many happy victims as during the present great world-struggle. The sky is thick with his arrows, says an English paper, and no man who wears khaki can say how long he can escape one of them. There are thousands of young men to-day mated for life who, eighteen months ago, looked on the aitar either with indifference or as a very remote goal; and there are thousands of young wives who still have not' ceased to won uer how they came to wear their wel-ding-rings. Such is the magic of war to revolutionise lives. One may well wonder what is .ne explanation of this mania for ni'ilrimony which has come upon us Why should a man who, hi peace time, looked on marriage as a step to be taken with groat caution, suddenly lush into it at a few days' notice and choose his wife with less care and deliberation than he would exercise in the choice J. a summer suit; and why should a girl, her head full of romantic ideals of love iind wedded life, give her hand and life to a man on whom she had never set eyes until within a week or so of wearing a wedding-veil for him? THE LURE OF THE KHAKI. On the face of it, it seems little better than a form of madness; and yet there is something to be said in defence of it. No doubt the glamour of war, with al lthe new emotions which .t brings to the surface, is partly responsible. This is an impressionab'e time, in which people are wholly living in the present; their thoughts dominated by the overwhelming events of the war, and unable to envisage a situation humdrum as peace will restofe. Man ii clothed in heroic mould. Little thought is given to the day when the soldier will return, doff his uniform, and ask to lie valued by peace-stan-dards. . Another contributory is the faculty for imitation. Matrimony, like measles, is "catching"; and me* and maids a'ike follow each other, like so manv sheep, to the altar, when their heads are turned in that direction. .Tones of the Buffs takes the plunge; Smith and Robinson and Brown, his messmates, are impelled to follow him. But apart from the glamour and the infection, indivdual motives are quite intelligible, if at times misleading. A man who goes to war, knowing that lie may never return % not unnaturally likes to feel that he leaves someone behind to whom he is more than anv other; whose thoughts and prayers perhaps are all his; and who, if the w should happen, will mourn his loss. »he, on the other hand, is proud to have a husband fighting for her and his country-; to feel that she js bearing her part of the burden of sacrifice. Neither probably ha.s thought of the future; the present is all sufficient tor them, and in this the danger lies.

COLD-HEARTED BRIDES. There are some, it is true, who are not inspired by such laudable motives who go to the altar as indifferently as they would sit down to a meal. lat - otism and sentiment arc alike stranger # to them, as in the case of one newlywedded girl known to ths writer, who, when she was asked how she could be a. tho thought of her husband beim, killed, answered, "Oh! I never worry about that—bea des, I should have my pension." Another bride, wheni ashed how she could marry a man whom she had not known msny days, IC P IC '" "He was as good as any other man. wanted to be married, and didn t moan to miss my chance. Bette bc a w for five minutes,you know, than an oia regrettable it may be, many women who have wedded 2- soldiers from no more worthy motives than these; although it is to lxe hoped there are few qmte as callous and cold-blooded as two ot whom I heard. One had been manned to a young officer of Engineers, whom she had known for less than a week before her wedding-day, and who, weeks later, was killed at \pres On the ory evening of the day on which his name appeared in the casualty list she was dincin"- at a local ball, one of the gajandmost lieht-heartol there.

heartless. In the other case, within a after hearing of ner husband s deathm action, his young widow became the wife of another officer, home on shoit leave, whose acquaintance she first made onlv three clays he put J w<'dding-ring on her linger. Mich cases of heartlcssness are, let us I'.pf. .are as they are deplorable • but tl.t /hey are possible at all illustrates the dangers of these hasty and improvident 11 "'hie town in which the writer lias bis home has probably witnessed more o thesa precipitate war-weddings than anv other in England. In one casetvpical of a very large nuniber-a. captain iust home on four days leave met, at a friend's house, a girl of consideiahle attractions, whom he had neve' Un before. Tlie same evening he pronosed to her and was accepted ily next day lie procured the wedding cent ?, on the following day he was married, and. after a final day of hon. amooninc, lie was saying good-bye to hi., So on l.i« Imc'U to tho W*. T,ess than a week later, the young *<fe was a widow. . Tn another case, to illustrate how haphazard these unions may he. a lieutenant of Engineers, on the first dav of his short leave from the front, ;n----vited a friend and bis \vif.-fo dine wit him at his hotel. "By the v.av he caiii, as he gave the invitation, if /op know any particularly nice girl, I wisn vou would bring her too. A oart • .1krlv nice girl" was duly brought i"> complete the quartette, with the resnl - that before the little party separated the host had proposed to her and \\aacccpted. Two days Inter they were married, and on the following da> the bride was left behind- probably to won. d.T how it- all happened. MARHTEI) IX HASTE. Such matrimonial records are common onougli, and tlioy liavo l>o?n qui to put into the shade bv others such as that made a few weeks ago by a sublieutenant. who met, won. and marnert a vouin' ladv during the last thirty-six hours of his leave. " A few rs after the ceremony," to quote a trench "newspr.pei-," "the bridegroom left lor Boulogne bv til" famous 'one o eloc.c special' from Victoria Station, and before midnight. he was cosily installed in ibe 'Carlton' diir:-out, pelted with cnnWliiwi fjir liottor tnnn ('infr-i.* old shoes'. IT is brjde Mii back to h'-r mother's to dream of the 'i!ii a v. lien iu'd come a-iin. We're hcak'> lrre. iUennwhil- the (Vot.M e keeping an eye upon vounsr fo' •• ilr.v or twi until h;s head copies < .O \ out of the clouds, and the be-ron-ieq n real to li'in again. What a sublime contempt th- sob; :.r

or sailor has for time, when his mind is made up to take to himself a wife, is proved by the following story. A blue-jacket on one of the Harwich destroyers could only get two hours' leave of absence from his ship, but he turned it to excellent acoeunt. Directly he set foot on shore he was met by liis fiancee and her friends, and they drove off post-haste together to Ramsey Church, three miles distant. The wedding ceremony was soon over, the newly-wedded couple drove'back to Harwich, and after an excellent, ;t brief, wedding-breakfast he bade his lass good-bye, and was on deck again within the two hours!

Romantic as such weddings arc, tlicv art 1 , naturally, no less risky, and it is feared that many will discover too late that they have done, under the electrical atmosphere of the times, what 'n loss sensational days they would hare shrunk from doing. 5 Couples who marry after a few days acquaintance can know little or nothing of each other- —or character, dsposition, tastes, family history, and connections —all the many qualifications which are so vital to a relationship which is to last as long as life Itself. Few, too, give any thought to the long years tliat must follow the war, and to the prospect of providing and maintaining a comfortable home in which to spend i them; and equally few seem to realise how vital a mutual love, which nas probably played no part m their union, is to the happiness of the joint life to which they have committed themselves. In many cases a'ready the glamour has been dissipated by disillusion; though seldom, let us hope, under as cruel conditions as in a case which was revealed in a court of law not many weeks ago. A young girl of seventeen, &nd of o-entle birth, met at a London hotel 111 officer who told li?r that he was a captain in the Army and a D.S.O. Jhe following day he proposed marriage; a special licence was procured; and two days later tliey wore made man and wife. Hera was a,s romantic a union as one could imagine—a pretty girl and a ga'lant soldier, mutually attracted t» each other and standing together at the altar within four days of first meeting. But mark the sequel. Before the honeymoon was three days* old; the man s true character revealed itself; and wc find him not only beating his young wife with his can,", but threatening to shoot both her and himself, with the result that she was compelled to appeal to the law to gi ant her a. judicial separation. Such was the tragedy that followed swiftly on one war-marriage; and it is too nineh to hope that many another war-romance will not have an unhappy, if not so quick and crue', an endinc. On the other hand, one may reasonably hone that the ereat majority of tlies* unions—-.especially as in many of tnem tl.o young people have known each' other for some time, and til? war has only precipitated the'r marriage—will prove as happy as could be desired.