ON THE MATTER OF MATRIMONY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9045, 11 March 1908, Page 4

ON THE MATTER OF MATRIMONY.

Essays might be written by the mile upon the subject of the apparent reluctance of the young men and young women of the dominion to marry —at any rate to contract early marriages, as was one time the rule. We may mention several probable causes without discussing the subject at large. A great and growing proportion of the young men seek clerical positions in preference to mechanical or laborious occupations. Clerical work is, as a rule, wretchedly paid, and the average young clerk finds that genteel board and lodging and tailor-made suits, together with popular amusements, absorb the bulk of his earnings. He is not in a position to marry. The girls now affect clerical work to an extent that would have astonishej their grandmothers. They dress up to the stpndard of those who are in much better pecuniary circumstances, and naturally they are disinclined to give up their free life, or tu marry those who cannot maintain them in the style they would like. Clerical work occupies so iarge a portion of their time that they have little leisure, or inclination, to practice the domestic virtues. All this hf patent in the cities. It has much less application to the provinces, where conditions are not so far favourable to it;, but even in provincial towns- these tendencies of city life are manifesting themselves. It is rather a topsy-turvy-dom that women should be- supplanting the men to so large an extent in spheres that have for centuries been masculine;; but. it may be taken as a phase of evolution,, which,, like evolution generally, has an up>ward and onward tendency, though the evidence of it may not be very striking at present. Domesticity is giving way to the desk. and. the counter, but as the disinclination of the youth of both sexes, to take upon themselves the responsibilities of domestic life increases,, the need for domesticity will diminish. All is for the best, perhaps. Who knows?