AN EXCELLENT PROJECT.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 800, 29 October 1915, Page 8

AN EXCELLENT PROJECT.

Wives for Wounded Soldiers.

THAT maternal instinct, which, developed or undeveloped, lies in the heart of every woman, is no doubt largely responsible for the project put forward in the Old Country that unmarried women with means shall offer to marry wounded and comparatively friendless soldiers. The .joc-ular-minded may see in this a subject for uproarious mirth and much fun at the expense of the old maids who, it is doubtless assumed, will make one wild rush for the better-looking men. The project, however, is worth serious discussion. There are thousands of women in England, many of them women of fair education and possessing small private means who, under ordinary circumstances, have but little' chance of getting married, so great has always been the surplusage .of females in the Old Country. By marrying wounded. soldiers, not so seriously disabled as to render them permanent invalids, they would satisfy that feeling of pity, and answer that call for some object upon which to exercise their affection, which are amongst the noblest attributes of: womanhood.

It by no means follows that a marriage which is not preceded by what is generally; accepted as love-making is necessarily bound to be love-less. On the contrary, every year tens of thousands of_. French men and women marry whose marriages have been arranged for them by their respective parents, and the vast majority of French marriages turn-out a great deal better, than do many English marriages which have been preceded by a prolonged period' of flirtation and love-making. Many an Englishwoman who, in ordinary times, is doomed /to be "on the shelf," would be able to live a fuller, more useful, and probably much happier life were she to marry one of the many poor fellows who, partially disabled, stand specially in need of a woman's comforting care and love.