WHY I NEVER MARRIED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3134, 11 September 1922, Page 7

WHY I NEVER MARRIED.

(Bv a Romantic Bachelor.) Ever since I was five-and-twenty m\ friencfe, both men and' women, have been trving to find a wife for me. Now that they have all given it up as a bad job they avenge themselves by calling me a confirmed woman-hater. It is not true. From the day when my mother ceased to be the only woman in the world for me, I have adored women. And though 1 have never found the courage to take anv one of them to the altar, T have preserved for the whole sex that sentiment of mingled admiration, love amd terror which I shall take with me to my grave. . Looking back upon those hair-breadth scapes from the bonds of jnatrimony I realise now wlw T have never suecumbed to anv of those blonde and brunette temptations which fate threw in my way The reason why I have never married is that T am an idealist—one of those incorrigible idealists who nave never discovered their ideal woman in the llcsh. Is it, I wonder., because she does not exist? Before I had turned the corner of dU I used to console myself with ttio thought that somewhere in the world she was waiting for me—that woman with a life of her own, who would not want to live my life and to thmk my thought iust because she had married me My ideal woman was one who could stand on her own feet, and who would let me stand on mine without trying to absorb me, or expecting me to absorb her. I'm not railing against marriage. \> m onlv railing against the way of lookin" at marriage, which is, 1 bclie\e. responsible for half its frequent uuhappiness. So I came to the conclusion that to be too much married wa* worse than not to bo married at all. That is why \ am still a lonely baclic 01. "Too much married" just describes the melancholy fate of most of the men who used to be my friends, but whom I never see now because the average wife regards with distrust the friendships her husband has made before he knew her. .. Some take kindly to the process ol absorption. Those are the happy ones In becoming husbands they have ceased automatically to bo individuals. One or two have refused to be transformed into better or worse halves of their wives with cat-and-doggish results ending occasionally in separatum ov divorce. On the other blind there me cases where \\i is Wyc wowuyw \v\\o \vas Wen absorbed. - wedded, poor thing, to the point o) extinction \ ; In either ruse romance, the suit una savour of Viie, Yias died. At can't \v\e in that stuffy atmosphere where the windows of the soul are never opened U is not the institution ot marYv.\«e ttiat is to Wwkvc . It is our interpretation of it which in nine cases out of ten makes it a deadening and limiting chain instead of an inspiring audi stimulating relationship. Sitting alone with my pipe and my books I sometimes catch a glimpse of mv ideal woman whom I would .so gladly wed if only I could find her. She is not especially beautiful in this country ol' lovely women, but she is a real personality, not the submerged half of a couple. I. daresay she would "lead me a dance" as the saying is. But J like dancing. It keeps one young. How happy 1 should he if by a lucky chance her bright and challenging eyes should fall upon this article !