ANTI-BACHELOR LAWS IN FRANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1653, 29 October 1887, Page 3

ANTI-BACHELOR LAWS IN FRANCE.

Some year* ago a novel feature was introduced in municipal taxation in Belgium by allowing a rebate to all married men, with an allowance for each child of the family, the chief burden thus falling on the bachelors. In France it is now proposed to tax bachelors as they were taxed in the days of the first Republic, and there is no doubt but that the measure would he carried by an overwhelming majority if the women had a voice in the matter. It is a fact, by the way, the Republics, for some reason or another, have been very severe in their laws against bachelors. Plato the Wise condemned them to a fine, and in Sparta they were driven at stated times to the temple of Hercules by the women, who, would drill and castigate them. The old Romans, too, were severe with their bachelors, who were made to pay a heavy fine, and worse than that, for, after the seige of Yeil, it is told how Oamillus compelled them to marry the widows of the soldiers who had fallen in the war. In the time of Agustus, also, all other things being equal, the married men were preferred to single men for public offices. Then the Roman who had three children was exempted from personal taxes, and the bachelors not only had to pay for them, but were prevented from inheriting the property of any one not a Roman citizen. So that tHe present revival of laws against bachelors in Franco is no novelty after all.