MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 9 October 1913, Page 2

MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.

INFLUENCE OF FEMINISM. . SOME GRAVE*STATISTICS. %o publication of statistics* Rowing .that 8,000,000 men and 9,000, women {in America are unmarried, started a brisk summer correspondence, in whiclx the "writers analyse the reasons why matrimony is less popular than heretofore. There was a tendency at first to place the entire responsibility upon ihe men, but the testimony given by various competent Social authorities proves conclusively that women are equally to blame for leading solitary lives. In view of the majority of the writers reluctance to marry is one of the many outward and visible signs of the feminist movement. It arises from a variety of causes, economic, social, and psychological. Mrs Adda Dowling, a leading editress in New York, says that her observation forces her to the conclusion that women will not marry because they doi not want the bother of liaving a man around all the time. Take the case of a young stenographer who is earning from £2 10s to £3 a week. She has agreeable companionship in her office, is always nicely dressed, keeps her hands manicured, and goes to Coney Island every Sunday. Suppose she was married. She would have to take a man who is earning not,■more than £3> 10s a week —that is the only kind she meets. Marriage would mean giving up her dainty existence for a dingy flat, witli "a great, hulking, cranky man to ivait on all the time."

"It's only the shiftless women," says Mrs Dowling, "who get married. The girl who wants to loaf about in a kimono all day gets married, oeCjaoise she is too lazy toi support herself. Life in New York is easy for that kind of woman. All sihe has to do is to make a cjup of coffee and serve it with baker's rolls in the morning to her husband, make a bed or two, and visit a ham and beef shop just before he comes home at night. The rest of the day she can hanir out of the window gossiping with her neighbours." • There is a type of American woman, Mrs Dowling admits, who marries simply for the sake of having children. She knows that "love never lasts :nore than five years," but she expects to endure her husband after that for tho sake of her children. . /

One regrets to add that Mrs Dov\ling's views find very general suppoi t. Those girls who refrain from manning because they are comfortable in business life are quoted in New York as 30 per cent, of the city's unmarried women, and another 20 per cent, will not marry the average man because they think there is a chance of trapping an American millionaire.