ECONOMY AT MARRIAGES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2006, 11 February 1890, Page 3

ECONOMY AT MARRIAGES.

There is some idea, says the Leeds Mercury, of starting "a Wedding Reform Society in Eagland. The money that is lavished upon the marriages of many young couples would suffice to keep them in housekeeping for a year or so—and no one has ever yet been discovered so

peculiarly constituted as to find any pleasure in a wedding. The bride's* father certainly does not enjoy the occasion. He is losing a daughter and handing her over to the care of another man, in whom he cannot, in the nature of things, feel as much confidenca as her protector as he has always felt in himself in that capacity. "When he disengages his mind from this reflection it inevitably reverts to

the coming " bills." First, there is the trousseau. Then the livery stables, the charge made for wedd'ngs being in proportion to the supposed joyfulness of the occasion. The confectioner's

account, the florist's bill, and his wedding presents to his daughter all go to make up a sum total which he sees looming in the future all the more darkly because the precious figures of which it is composed are

not as yet revealed to him. "Why should custom exact such a heavy expenditure ? There is abundant need for reform. Even from the bridegroom's point of view there are matters that might be adjusted with a wiser sense of symmetry than appears to have been

studied hitherto. He has to furnish his bride's roome, to make his drawingroom worthy of her. and to render his staff of servants equal to the new exigencies of his household. Even in the early days of love's young dream, a chilly question as to how much per annum his wife will need to dress

upon has often obtruded itself upon more fervid thoughts. And then comes the gentle question of the bride-elect, " Have you thought of anything to give the bridesmaids ? " They may be ten in number, and have even been known to be twelve, and an

order to the jeweller for a little gift "wjnultiplied by these figures makes considerable inroads upon the sum set ' apart for the wedding trip. This custom requiring the bridegroom to give the bridesmaids a present of jewellery and their bouquets is of comparatively

recent date, aad is becoming quite a tax in the upper middle classes. No

one would be sorry to see it done away with, especially as, in some cases, it has led to the absence of bridesmaids from the wedding ceremony, robbing it of an ornamental procession. This has been owing to the reluctance of the bride to inflict an extra burden upon her bridegroom's finances just as she herself is about to be thrown upon his income for support.