CHANCES OF HAPPINESS.

Shannon News, 24 October 1923, Page 4

CHANCES OF HAPPINESS.

Discussing the question whether the ehances of happiness have increased, a writer in the London Spectator reviews the changes that have taken place in regard to marriage:—"When women of the middle-class were not trained to earn money, marriage was absolutely necessary to their happiness. Parents knew this very well, and impressed the fact upon their daughters from their cradles. Any marriage was considered better than no marriage, and parents urged their daughters to make romance and affection secondary consideration A woman was regarded as an old maid before she was 30, and if distaste led her to refuse one offer, she thought

many times before she refused a second. From what our told us, happy marriages bore as large a pro-, portion to the unhappy as they-do now, and that even when we have made allowance for the new fashion of frankness. How this came about it is not easy to say. Between the period we have been thinking of and the present day there came a time of transition. Everyone,, parents and children alike, began to see the evils of the system. Thackeray opened their eyes to it. "Love" in the most romantic sense' was exalted as it h-.s never been since the age of chivalry. The children were brought up upon Tennyson, and there arose slowly in the middle-class a vast army of old maids,' and a very great stir they made. The present' generation owes a great deal to them. They forced the doors of the professions and the still stiffer doors of men's minds. They broke down the old barriers. Nowadays marriage in the miadle-class is not more a necessity for women than nature will always make it. They are free to accept or refuse who they like. They go to school, and mix with the world, and play games with their Lrothers and their brothers' friends. They insist on knowing something of the personalities of their husbands before they marry them. They have copied from the working class the custom of "walking out." They \"dance out" instead, but it comes to the sorre thing. It seems as though no butter system could be devised. What would the historian of happiness have to say of the,results? It is too soon to judge, but the evidence of the Divorce Court would need jto be given its due place. Is it a Very large place or not? *