HUSBANDS AFTER THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1917, Page 7

HUSBANDS AFTER THE WAR.

"The chief reason,' safd " well-known lady writer, "why our girls are mak.ng such foolis'h and dangerous haste t6 marry is that they are afraid, to quote one of them, that 'there will be no husbands after tho war except old men and boys.' They are firmly convinced, thousands of them, that it is a case of 'now or never.'

''Xow, a little reflection will' show how absurd this fear ss. Of course, there will be .plenty of young men, and some of the very host, ready and eager to join the ranks of the Benedicts when the world is at peace once more. "When the last gun is fired it ia not •likely that more than lialf-a-million of our brave boys will have been killed or permanently disabled; in other words, tho number of marriageable men of fighting age will have been reduced by little more than six per cent. There will still bo left fifteen potential husbands for every sixtcoen before the war. "We must remember, too, that before the war there were actually more marriageable men than women'between the ages of twenty and thirty. From twenty to twenty-four there were 1000 unappropriated men to OTB women, and between twenty and thirty the numbers were 1000 to 992. Thus a reduction of a woman's matrimonial chances by a shade over six per cent, is not a matter to pull a long face over.

,: Tlie wise girl will be content to wait. She will have no lack of chances, and they will be th.083 most likely to lead to happiness."