A TAX ON BACHELORS.
BT. VIVIEN.
Snares and traps and gossamer nets on every side; match-making mammas and designing girls; a deluge of social functions from which he can never escape, and endless parties with a marriageable daughter always hovering in the background—or the foreground!—as the case may bo! This is the lurid picture which the determined bachelor always sees, or professes to soo, floating before his worried eyes until he finally succumbs and takes unto him a wife. And now, in addition to all these terrors, there looms up before his hunted gaze another shadow —a shadow dim and vague and distant, it is true, but nevertheless liable to materialise at any moment, the shadow of a tax on his freedom I Truly, his life promises soon to become a hard one, so entirely bereft of he may yet be tempted to wonder whether the game is really worth the candle, whether he is not paying too high a price for his precious freedom, and whether, after all, the joys of matrimony might compensate for its trials and troubles, ita risks and uncertainties, its perplexities and anxieties. And after all, the bachelor really does frequently have excellent reasons for his "state of single blessedness." The high cost of living, the difficulty of finding sure, certain, remunerative employment, the problem of securing as well as of providing a suitable house- or flat as a home, the extravagance end independence and unreasonable demands of the modern girl—all these furnish perfectly legitimate excuses for the genuine lever as well as for the selfish philanderer. His mistake lies in assuming that, because some women are selfish and exacting, because some place supreme value on money and clothes and social position, it follows that all women are the same. He entirely fails to realise that it is always dangerous to indulge in generalisations where human beings are concerned, and that it is still possible to find some women in the world who possess the art of sympathy, the faculty of home-making, and " God's good gift of understanding"; whose happiness is irrevocably bound up with ideals essentially true and sweet and womanly, and whose beautiful maternal instinct is being cruelly, criminally, wantonly wasted. Again, there is a type of man whose diffidence shrinks from offering marriage to a woman whose social position or unusual mentality, artistic gifts, or Brilliance and charm seem to set her far above him; and still another type, whose pride revolts at the thought of asking the hand of a woman earning a salary or possessed of an income noi far short of his own. Each, therefore, arrogates to himself the right to assume that he can give the woman nothing she reallv wants. The one aspect of the matter that he entirely forgets to consider is the woman's point of view. The one point that he entirely eliminates in his consideration of the position is the one that matters most of all— the human element. The one simple but tremendous fact that he completely overlooks or ignores is that common j&etice demands that the woman shall at least have the chance to choose, the chance to decide for herself.
Apart from all these considerations and extenuating circumstances, however, the unpleasant fact remains that many men are frankly and undeniably selfish, obviously anxious to avoid sacrifice, shirk reresponsibility, and maintain their freedom at all costs. Why, indeed, should these not be made to help relieve the burdens of married men who are perhaps unduly, handicapped by ill-health, straitened means,- and large families, but who are at least honest enough and brave enough to take their full share of life's responsibilities, to play their part in the battle of the race, and to suffer the uncertainties and sacrifices of marriage gladly and uncomplainingly, whether "the joys outweigh the troubles or not? Certainly, one might concede one point in such cases—that every bachelor should be immune from taxation until he reached a definite " age limit," and that everv man should therefore be given a reasonable time in which to find him a wife!
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18197, 16 September 1922, Page 4 (Supplement)
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680A TAX ON BACHELORS. New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18197, 16 September 1922, Page 4 (Supplement)
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