What is Wrong With Matrimony ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

What is Wrong With Matrimony ?

Actress Airs Her Views

S MARRIAGE doomed? Both in this country and in the United States j there has been enough a: panic talk recently to j w suggest that the insti- j tution of matrimony j I couldn’t last more than a few years | at most. A London magistrate, ap- I l palled at the number of people who ; j seek his advice regarding matrimonial i troubles and the way out. has sugj gested advisory bureaux for the as- j i sistance of engaged couples, while a i leading American lawyer suggests trial j marriages! In this ,country there are j j those who seriously advocate poly- ; i gamy as a solution ( wrote Tallulah ! Bankhead, the popular actress, in a j recent issue of the “Sunday News”). On all hands there are signs of a ! widespread feeling that the huge num- j her of divorces being granted, both j here and in the States, is evidence { that something is the matter with j marriage, and that pretty serious steps j must be taken to stop the rot. Let Love Rule In the States they have taken various steps toward this end, and many of them do not strike me as being likely to achieve the desired result. But they are undoubtedly right in one respect. They realise there that if any steps are to be taken to prepare the young for matrimony, such steps must be taken before love has come to send logic flying and enthrone feeling as the sole guide to action. Love casts out every other consideration. It’s of little use talking to a youth or a lass caught in the first flue rapture of love, and expecting them to face up to matters in a logical and calculating manner. They simply can’t do it! That’s why I have little faith in the advisory bureau idea. Frankly, there are very few who set out on the seas of matrimony with any bad intent. The overwhelming majority of men who take a girl to the altar mean to act straight toward her, and sincerely intend to keep their vows. Almost every bride sets out on her married career with a fixed determination to make it a success, and with high hopes and ideals. There are, of course, people who marry for wealth, for convenience, for power, and other reasons; but surely it will be granted that in the majority

of cases marriage is prompted by love. And the apparent feailure of marriage as an institution nowadays is due in thousands of cases to the fact that there is a greater determination than ever before to let love rule. Scientific Marriage Courses Of course, it’s easy to advise an intellectual young man that he should marry a woman with like interests, a sort of intellectual soul-mate. It’s easy to tell the youth who lives for sport that the stalwart tennis girl would make him an ideal wife. The point is that love doesn’t work in that calculating manner at all. It. seems to obey no laws save itself. Tt results in the strangest unions often proving

the happiest. That's why all the efforts to reduce it to something like a science are doomed to fail. This tendency has been carried to extremes in the States. There they have their scientific marriage courses for girl university graduates, with certificates for those who pass their tests —certificates that they are competent to practise matrimony! And there, too, they have undertaken numerous experiments, all directed toward standardising love and marriage. The Ideal Mate One of the most interesting of these was with a view to ascertain the ideal partner. Large numbers of question papers were issued to male and female students of the University of Kentucky, and when the results were tabulated it was found that men favour a wife sft Gin in height. 1251 b in weight, slender in build, about two years younger than the bridegroom, with brown eyes, brown hair and light complexion. The consensus of female taste favoured a man of sft lOin or thereabouts, weighing 1651 b, with brown eyes and hair and light complexion. Whether such investigations as these are borne in mind by American youth when seeking life-partners, I don’t know. But Ido know that the coming

of real love removes all such standards. Scientifically-planned love may appeal to the mind of the professor; it’s too unromantic for the mass of young people. No, all this talk about advice to the engaged, and these efforts to standardise love are beside the point. They are doomed to failure, because it’s love which really matters, and, in the long run, which decides. Love will find a way, as always, and if marriage as an institution matters less to many than it used to, that need not trouble us greatly. What does matter is to be true to the promptings of love and never to sin against love.