YOUTH IS THE TIME TO MARRY

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1928, Page 9

YOUTH IS THE TIME TO MARRY

True Happiness Seldom Comes in Marriages After Thirty... Revival of Dowry Custom Urged

SHE sane and wholesome views cn the subject of love and marriage, expressed by Dr. Will Durant, American author and philosopher, are all definitely tied up with an analysis of the breakdown of morals to-day. He unequivocally advocates marriage of the young, and places the blame for deferment of it on parents who oppose youhg matches and who do nothing to help their children financially in this age of economic pressure when, without assistance, marriage at the time of life when nature approves it is prohibitive for most young men.

The degeneracy of the age he traces to the inability of the young to marry, with the resultant laxity of morals. Thus he defends the much-abused “younger generation,” which, he says, is ■ ready and willing to marry, and directly fixes the blame for the breakdown of our moral code on their elders, who, he declares, “browbeat” them out of marrying when they should.

Dr. Durant urges (he revival of the old “dowry” system as a means whereby young love may be fulfilled and culminate in marriage.

“If a man does not marry before 30, he will become coarsened, and he asks • the girl he selects for a wife to come into very practiced arms,” says Dr. Durant. “Balzac points out that, after a man has had 10 years of promiscuity and then marries, he is likeT a gorilla learning to play the violin. I do not contend that a man cannot love after 30. But I do say that the finest and completes! form of love seldom comes to a man after he is 30.

“If a man amf woman marry young, I think there is more chance of their surviving the tribulations and unnatural* proximity of marriage than if they marry later on, because the early marriage is usually 'burnt in,’ so to speak, with a more intense emotion. It is evolved, not contracted. “I have no intention of indicating that a man can no longer—after 30 — love the woman he has been loving before. On the contrary, the most* complete love is probably the kind that comes from a lifetime together, where common experiences and difficulties borne together almost merge the two beings into one. The point is merely that the spiritual element in love is stronger in youth. “Deferment of marriage is a very serious matter. Our moral code was designed on the assumption that marriage would come early, and therefore that moral code reasonably demanded premarital continence. In an agricultural age marriage came early because it was an economic asset. A wife earned far more than her keep. Children earned their keep from the age of 5, and a man was economically mature at the age of 20 or 21. All he had to know was how to till the soil.

“But, in the cities, the male finds around him a life so intricate and difficult, with inventions and competition making existence more complex every year, that he hardly reaches

economic self-sufficiency until much nearer 30 than 20.

“At the same time, in this industrial age, most of the work which women once had in the home has been stolen from the home by the factory. So that woman, when she does not get out into the office and to recapture the work which is left her, becomes only a beautiful parasite, so expensive a luxury that only the poor can afford to marry.

“Finally, children are a great liability in the city. They must be educated until 14 or 16. By the time they are old enough to bring anything into the home they run away. These are the reasons why the male in the city postpones marriage. And in this postponement, of marriage, the old moral code, which was once so reasonable, becomes immensely difficult. Human nature will not be restrained for so long a period. “Therefore, the old moral code is breaking down. The choice between us is fairly clear. We must either restore marriage to the natural age, or we must abandon as impracticable and unreasonable the code of morals that has come down to us from our fathers. Personally, I would like to keep the old moral code.” 1 Here Dr. Durant . referred to the present-day inability of the young to marry, and the tragic way in which young men fall in love, and then, because of the economic situation, are forced to tear this first fine young love from their hearts and wait for financial progress. He said: “I consider it as one of th,e basic tragedies of our time that love must bo killed and killed and killed before we marry. ■ And I wrack my wits to find ways in which marriage may be. restored to an early age despite the delayed arrival of man at ecendmic maturity.” : “A man above 30 may go wild over a blond ‘chorine.’ That is not love. Love is absolute devotion, the desire to give full service to another.” In suggesting a remedy for what he termed “our moral degeneracy of to-day” Dr. Durant recommended that parents give every encouragement to marry at the “natural age” instead of the “financial” age. “If we wait for marriage until the financial age is reached —at 30 or above —love is in danger of being eliminated from the earth,” he concluded.

Dr. Durant believes that a man is not really happy in the company of a woman whose mind is equal to his own. THe loves that which is weaker than himself,” says the author of “The Story of Philosophy.” “A woman can love that which is weaker than herself, but she can also admire as well as love that which is stronger. ' ,

“In criticising the flounderings of our children we must remember their changed situation and meet them with sympathetic intelligence. Probably we shall have to face the dire alternative of either restoring marriage to the natural age or accepting a change of moral code. “Women who have, been accustomed to freedom up to the age of 30 or over cannot be expected to settle down to the quiet, humdrum'existence as their mothers or grandmothers did.”