A PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 4 (Supplement)

A PROBLEM.

WHY DO PEOPLE MARRY?

IS if A MATTER OF CHOl<k>

(By G. A. DAWSON, the well-known novelist.)

"In those circumstances many, m+n would have withdrawn," said the old lady primly, as she sat watching her middle-aged widower eon play tennis, "but Charley married her. Unfortunately the growth recurred, and nine { months later she died," i : ■ | '

"Charley loved Amabel," I ventured, thinking of those few months which was all of human time the couple had had together.

"He has no? married since," granted the old lady, and I lapsed into silence, meditating on the different types of marriages—arranged marriages, contract marriages and those for love.

Why, leaving aside the natural urge, does the average person marry? Look at the couples, passing down the street, sitting in trains and omnibuses, living in the nearby houses. Why have they taken each other for better for worse? Has it been a matter of choice? Or has the choice, been limited so greatly that it has been practically non-exis-tent T | What, then, has launched all these paiis* °f rowers On,the river of life.; and, not only here within sight of our.curious eyes, but all over the world? A • large proportion of the human race are literally given in marriage.. Their uarents look: about, discuss the merits of that one and the other, and decide finally on which will be the most suitable partner for their child? Money is settled, a ceremony ,takes place, and the young man and woman find themselves partners Sot Hfe. /Among the Irish peasantry .and also in India and China, this form, of marriage, has been the result for hundreds of years, and, it appears to work satisfactorily—but what a responsibility for the parents! A young Indian once described to me the courtship of his sister. "Our parents—it w*s principally my mother who decided—selected Yusuf to be the bridegroom, and he was invited'to eome to gee my, sister. Daring that first interview she sat beside my mother, who talked with him. As soon as he had returned home he wrote a poem to m lister and begged to come again , that he might Tead it to her, and there Were others, v I-doubt her having understood the poems, but she was flattered. My narents chose .well for my sister. She tnd her husband are hanpy together," loveless Marriages. J' In .suchmarriages, the fin love* element is only faintly if at all Mptesented. It appears, also, to be absent from' many the' partnerships that young people arrange for themselves. The average woman still considers tSat i 6crtwn agß the should have & has* band* home and' children. She is not always capable of romantic: feeling, but that is no reason that dm should be debarred from the joys of domesticity. In effect, she is willing to make a reasonable contract with the moat suit, able 'man she can find. She will run bis home* bear the children, give him companionship, and in retain he will support her and give her the status of a responsible matron.. This type of nage is an arrangement made by pracwWeh /haD help them to get t£s best oat of that chancy thing called Life; and although it has at the beginning nothing to do with love, jet out of it may grow a deepening'affection. This being merely a business arrangehowever, if either partner can be proved not only to have been. in health and repotation, S hot to have concealed it, the other will be justified in refusing to earry out the contract As Mr. Justice Acton said some time since, "If a man refuses to marry a woman within a reasonable time after hb has given her hfs promise, the woman is entitled to recover damages." He emphasises the business side of the nutter in what he says next—."Before uie is entitled to recoter damages' she has to show on her part that she was and willing to perform her part faf i the bargain within a reasonable period, and that she was fit to oarrv out that promise.* In other words, she must be able to run a home, hear heaWiy children, and not mulct the poor man In excessive doctor's hills. ' ■

; What Love Means. For : the ordinary person no doubt sueh. a: marriage is likely to. prove asj Sfood a bargain with fate as he is likely I to make .«; everything open and above board . . . her job as well defined as his . . . and no nonsense about it. '■ Nonsense? • And men bave died and worms have eaten teem—bat not for love. Shades of Borneo and Juliet, of Sappho, of desperately! loving people throughout the ages and all the world over, what treason is this? ! She for a little tried . ■■ To live without htm, liked It aot— . And died— is more to our. liking. How did suttee come into .existence if it were not in its inception , the act of a woman who could not endure that the barrier of death should separate her from the man she loved ? I have heard, but do not know if it be true, that on the doctor's condemning a certain man to segregation among 1 his fellow lepers, a woman begged to be allowed to accompany hirn if hot as his wife, then as his nurse.

What was social life, the company of healthy folk, the common happiness of the everyday to her, if he were to bt> lonely and'suffering? - She would be happier ministering to him in a mutual Ibanishinenti: - '

Yes, among lepers. ' And that is marriage for love. ; . I