JEWS AND MARRIAGE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 71, 26 March 1910, Page 10

JEWS AND MARRIAGE.

PRICE OF HUSBANDS ADVANCING. Prices of husbands in the New York ghetto arc advancing to the highest levels ever known, being an indication of the prosperity that is prevailing among tho Jewa, who number about 800,000 of New Yoiks population. There are 5000 Jewish mairiago brokers in New- Yoik, and they assert that the old scale of doweu, no longer attract the Hebrew young "men to wedlock. The New York Timcß quotes a marriage broker as saying the common, uneducated man in business at a salary of not more than £5 a week can now reasonably expect to get £100 with his wife. .Saloon-keepintj ranks about the lowest of all on the trokei's list ; yet only a week ago a young man, '"two years out of Russia," an assistant barkeeper, "lefuneil even lo look at a match with £200." Ho expected £600. The broker declared this to be exorbitant, for, she explained, £600 is the regular price of a medical school graduate. An ordinary college graduate now commands £400 with his brido. A medical, legal, or dental beginner, with no practice at all, can obtain £600 in the marriage market, while one with an established business expects to receive anywhere from £1200 to £5000 through the broker It is a mistake to assume, the broker told the New York Times, that only the poor Hebrews arrange their marriages on a business basin. The custom is general among the classes. "It is a family affair, though," she explained. "A father comes to me and says he wants his daughter to marry. She can have £100 or £200, or this or that. Then I a&k him what kind of a man he wants— businets rrcfewion, how old — until I get aD idea oi the man he desires. Next I look over my lists till I find some one that seems to fit. I give his name, those of his family connections, his employer, where he works, what he earns,* and what his prospects arc. 'Ihen, if the father likes the description, he looks up the man's record from all the names 1 have given him. If this is satisfactory he can call on the matt. If it is still agreeable, ho aaks the man to call. Sometimes the girl knows what is going on, and sometimes she doesn't ; but generally she guesses. But if it is a man who wants to marry, and he- conies to mo, I do the same thing. H« tells me what he wants, and 1 give- him the names of thq family and relatives, and he can look them up. In this way you know what you are doing, and it makes a eery safe marriage."