Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1909 THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4377, 23 February 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1909 THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

I his above all—to thine own self be true, 1 nd it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

When we speak of the marriage problem we are really touching upon the preventive aspect of the divorce problem. The divorce problem, that is to say, the problem as to how the increasing license in the matter of divorce is to be checked, is 7 very rightly attracting the attention of right thinking people from the clergy downward.

Increased facilities for divorce can spell but one thing, namely an increase in the applications for divorce with a steady undermining of our national life.

To make it easy for a married pair to cut the tie of lawful wedlock, must inevitably mean that the pair contemplating marriage will be less careful to be quite sure that they are suited to make a success of wedded life together, since if they find out that they are not, they may so easily rid themselves of its restraints and responsibilities. Hence to make divorce easy is to increase the number of unhappy and unsuitable marriages. The only way to keep up the sense of the solemn seriousness and sacredness of marriage is to make men and women feel that whom the law has joined the law will not disjoin. except for the gravest misconduct. But when all this is contended for there will remain a certain percentage of most unhappy and unsuitable marriages to be diminished. The answer is along a threefold course.

In the first place, as far as possible young people of both sexes should meet on terms of frank and disqualified friendship, and have the opportunity to become well acquainted, so that a young man would be able to see sufficient of the character and temperament of his girl friends, without requiring to single one out from the rest in such a way as to excite remark, and set people coupling names together. Because if a young man cannot see enough of a girl in the ordinary way of friendship, to decide whether he and she would be suited to face life together, but must seek her society in a way which leads their names to be coupled as a pair likely to become engaged, he is placed in a compromised position from the very start; and may out of sheer regard for ti e girls feeling to become engaged without making quite the best choice.

Another way of reducing the number of unsuitable marriages would be if young people, when actually engaged, indulged in less sentimentality and went in more for true and lofty sentiment. If they discussed their common ideals, their work, their plans for being of service in the world. That would j in itself fit them for the marriage , life together . which proves under present views of courtship, some-' times such a painful disillusion-' ment. :

And lastly, having entered upon the state of matrimony, the married pair should regard their new relationship, not merely in its re-

lation to their own felicity, but just as much in its relation to the state. If they find that after all they are disappointed in their dream of happiness, then they must simply accept the situation in its duty aspect realizing that happiness is not the main quest in life, and that to seek it at the sacrifice of duty is to gain it may be, but with a poison* ing and ruinous bitterness added. Where disappointment follows marriage only the supreme can give , the grace to accept the*sorrow in the spirit of self-conquest, but He will grant that grace. It is the presentday tendency to overlook this fact and to live for more happiness and material ends, that is so rapidly increasing the appalling facilities for divorce.