BACHELORS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1926, Page 16

BACHELORS

FACTS AND CRITICISM,

It is commonly believed that a man who determines to bo a bachelor is playing for safety, and is entitled to all tho praise or blame which such a policy deserves. But an eminent physician has been making occasion to say that this is a delusion. "The advice once given to those about to marry," Professor Robertson assures us, "was wrong. Young men between 25 and 35 years of age' continuing bachelors die, on the average, four years sooner than married men, and run three times tho risk of becoming insane." So young men who believe ir^-afety first had better find wives w'4\out delay, says a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph." He continues: That ia advice so sound that I have great reluctance to criticise the argument. But let us have fair play, even, for bachelors. I would not hint a doubt that Professor Robertson's statistics are accurate. Let, us by all moans believe that bachelors are more apt to die and far more apt to go mad than married men. Yet logic compels mo to point out that wo are not entitled to infer that married life is safer. The men who remain bachelors, it is probable, are not physically or mentally the most vigorous of their sex. Some weakness, some disability, is in many cases the cause of their celibacy. It is, therefore, to be expected that the death rate and the rate of insanity should be higher among the bachelors than the married. To put it more briefly, it is not because he is a bachelor that a man dies or loses his reason; he remained a bachelor because he was likely to lose his reason or die.

This is obviously not a general rule, but it is true in a sufficient number of cases to make the statistics unreliable. And I observe that Professor Robertson seems to recognise this. "There has been a process of selection among the married, who may be regarded as a picked:lot," says he. "Both husband and wife have at least selected one another from among all others, apparently for very good reasons." Perhaps that is rather optimistic of the professor. The reasons are sometimes apparently very bad. Still, in a general way, a man who is unhealthy, physically or mentally, does not commend himself as a good match. The natural woman assumes that it is bad for a man to live by himself. Is there a married man whose wife is often away visiting? The other women in the neighbourhood (not only his relations and his wife's enemies) can be relied upon to pity Mm. When I was younger and more innocent that I am now I remember hearing one such referred to as '' that poor man.'' Since it was but too obvious that his wife and lie were not made for each other, I thought it all for the best that she liked living in the country while he had to live in London. But the idea was, of course, that lie had no woman to look after him. For tho man who wants that kind of attention I have no very cordial sympathy. I have never noticed that a bachelor of ordinary intelligence and modest means contrives to live loss comfortably than married men. It is, I regret to say, notorious that your bachelor keeps a very good table. To base the case for tho superiority of married life for the male on tho inability of man to take care of himself seems to me unwise. Millions of women no doubt marry for the sweet and dear delights of darning men's socks and tending the helpless creatures generally. If you have no other ■ reason this may do well enough. But it is not very flattering to the man, and as a theory of married life it seems undignified. Marriage surely ought not to be a system for encouraging incompetence. I would not deny the ancient maxim that it is not good for man to live alone. I only object to the interpretation that he must have a wife to sow on his buttons and order tho dinner. These things, as I was pointing out, can be done by other employees. But I agree that your bachelor, your confirmed bachelor, is apt to be an odd fish. If he were not, you may say, if there waa not some kink in him, he would not have chosen to be a bachelor. He began, perhaps, with a subnormal temperament. Or he had crotchets which made him "gey ill to live with," and he or a woman fortunately found it out without the disastrous adventure of marriage. Perhaps he was under tho thumb of somebody all through the years when he might have married. Perhaps he was afraid of his income, or thinking about his career — but these reasons are much like another name for coldness of temperament.

It is not reasonable to lay too much stress on that. Hosts of married men never were ardent creatures. Marriage was expected of them, and they married, and whom they married was matter of pure accident. So, too, many men must have remained bachelors by chance. "Never the time and the place and the,loved one all togethor." But who will deny, or what woman will deny, that the bachelor life does make a man a little odd. He may be a charming fellow, ho may make a very good friend, he may be full of worldly wisdom —but would you go to him for a sound opinion on any matter of men and women? We find his judgments crotchety. Ho doesn't seem to us to understand the obvious. He puts strange values, high and low, on things which seem to us insignificant. He cannot see the importance of what we feel matters most. And so though we may like him and advise him, we. would rather have another opinion when we want 'advice. I know this is not usually said. The old bachelor is reputed a wonderfully shrewd fellow. Queer he may be, like Scott's Monkbarns, but he has much more brains than the rest of men, and when a difficult situation comes you can trust him to act more vigorously, wisely, kindly than anybody. That is the conventional bachelor. But do you believe in him?