Bachelors and Spinsters .

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 9

Bachelors and Spinsters .

'Way out in Michigan— at Alpena, to be precise — it seems (in the words ol Hudibras) ' That now the world is grown so wary, That few of either sex do marry '. The result is that there is in that remote and hilly district a greater number of unattached bachelors and spinsters. So, at least, thinks the pastor of Alpena, Father Flannery. He recently spoke to a crowd of the young women of the congregation on the matter. Ac- ' cording to the ' True Voice ', the maidens, made reply and said : ' But, Father, there are no eligible young men '. The sequel was an interesting one. ' The next Sunday ', says the ' True Voice ', ' Father Flannery read from his pulpit a list of more than two hundred eligible young men belonging to his church '. - In Australia and New Zealand the marriage market will, for Catholics,, remain in a disturbed and uncer-' tain condition until parents realise the necessity of giving the boys of the family the same, educational advantages .as they give to the girls. The girl .whose training has (as is now so largely the fashion) run to seed in the direction of ' accomplishments ' that are _. seldom carried far past the honeymoon, is commonly much given to looking t "Vlown upon her more plainly

educated and simpler mannered brothers, and upon her brothers' male friends of her own rank and. station in life. 'Women', says Chesterfield, 'and men who are like women, mind the binding more than the book '. The young girl who has been taught to regard ' accomplishments •' as the chief end of education .is very likely to carry that grievous misconception into such a serious affair as the selection of a partner for life. She runs a great risk of preferring polished -brass to 1 matt ' Ounburnished) gold. The very faults of her ♦training will give her a mental warp which will" tempt her to slight a suitable Barkis that is willin', in the person of one of her brothers' honest, sterling, warmhearted companions. And she too often ends by bestowing herself upon some animated tailor.' s dummy, alien or hostile to her in faith, but with brass rings on his fingers, ' brilliantine ' upon his hair, a ' real ' gold-plated watchguard, a certain superficial smartness, and a capacity for saying the airy nonsense ycleped 1 small talk '. She sells herself cheap, and is generally surprised when— perhaps before the honeymoon is through —she is accepted at, or below, her own valuation. Men and women so often discover that they have married different persons from those to whom they plighted their troth on their wedding-day. The book is found to belie the cover ; what was taken for burnished gold is mere lacquered brass ; the polished idol has feet of clay. And in the bitterness of disillusion, the marriage is voted a failure.