German Girls and Dowries

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7240, 21 August 1933, Page 2

German Girls and Dowries

All over Germany young people are considering the Government's offer, announced recently, of a loan of £SO for buying furniture and other requisites., to couples who marry and set up house, (states the Daily Mail). There are some girls, however, who will not be tempted by the £SO .to give up their jobs, and that is a condition of the offer if the husband is earning as much as £6 2s 6d a month. ■' “We shall be able to manage very ■well dn what, we both earn, ” said one girl, "but if we took this loan I should have to give up my work, and wo should find it very difficult to make both ends meet.” ' She thought it wiser to wait until they-had saved enough money to furnish a home. ; Now it is exactly that sort of girl whom the Government desire to get away from a job so as to make room for a- man, and to turn her into a Hausfrau who will devote herself to cooking, cleaning, mending—and children. . "It is only furnishing on. the hirepurchase system, for you have to pay back the loan,” said another girl. That •is true, but the Government will give long credit. Couples whose incomes are between £3 15s a month and £6 2s 0d a. month will pay back 10s a month, taking more than eight yenTS to pay off the loan. “Marry or pay,” says the Government. The money to be handed over to happy couples is to be taken from, bachelors, spinsters, and widowed or divorced persons who have had no children, for all these persons will have to pav a special tax. But the bachelors are not'to' be rushed into matrimony. "It would, cost a lot more to keep a Wife than to pay the tax,” said one. • These incitements to marriage are partly due to the .Government’s desire for more children in Germany. There are more deaths than births in Berlin, and the population in the country will begin to decline if the birth-rate is not raised. The Ministry of the Interio: has formed a committee to see how tie quantity, and also the quality, of the nation’s children can' be increased' by imposing a suitable law.