IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1142, 21 February 1884, Page 3

IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES.

The Graphic says of improvident marriages : "The Daily News has opened its columns to some interesting letters on the subject of clerka' marriages; and it is pleaßant to note that most of the correspondents have written in n manly tone ahout their trials as husbands and fathers. There is a young man who complains that, being married, he cari no longer live as he used to do when a bachelor, but there i« a better young man who finds that by self-denial and care he has got on very well, and is all the happier for having induced a brave-hearted girl to cast in her lot with him. After all, the question must resolve itself into the very old, yet plain one as to whether Edwin and Angelina really love each other. A good wife is not an incumbrance to a man, but a saving and a blessing ; and children cost less, upon an hocest reckoning, than cigars, liquoring over bar counters, billiards, and the backing of this or that jookey's mounts. But if Edwin and Angelina are not really fond of each other, they will naturally find it disagreeable to practise self-denial for one another's sakes ; and again there will be trouble if Edwin, though loving Angelina, has an idea that he ought to begin life at the point where his father kft off, and treat himself and wife to luxuries which he has not had the time or perhaps the diligence to earn. An improvident marriage is not one in which a man takes a wife before he has money to keep her in the circumstances to which she was accustomed at home; for no unselfish girl and all loving girls become unselfish—expects, as a rule, to go to such a home as that which she left. An improvident marriage is one in which both parties have not sensibly considered whether they are really eager to join hands for life, and willing to endure poverty together, The little shifts of penury can be borne gaily enough by a young couple sure that patience and work will biing them better times ; but no doubt Edwin is a much-to-be-pitied fellow if he whines that Angelina expects more expenditure of him than he can afford. For this means that Angelina and he had better have kept apart ; and it suggests a fear that they may part some day after having discovered, too late, that their marriage was not made in heaven."