THE MODERN MARKET.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1316, 20 May 1897, Page 12

THE MODERN MARKET.

Under this title Marie Corelli fiercely attacks the manner of arranging marriages which prevails among the upper classes of English society. Here is an extract from her article. We quote from the current issue of The Lady's Realm : Bargain and sale—sale and bargain—it is the whole raison d'etre of the " season " —the balls, the dinners, the suppers, the parties to Hurlingham and Ascot. Even on the dear old Thames, with its delicious nooks, fitted for pure romance and heart betrothal, the clatter of Gunter's luncheon dishes and the popping of Benoist's champagne corks remind the hungry gipsies who linger near such scenes of river revelry that there is not much sentiment about —only much money being wasted. Here, for instance, is a little river study taken from life : Time: late evening. Scene : Cookham. Sky effect: moonrise. Dramatia personce : He and She, lolling each in a deck chair on a luxuriously fitted house boat.

He : I heard a lot this season about the way you were going on with that poor devil of a So-and-So. People said you were fond of him, dontcherknow. She (casually) : Did they ? So I was. Awfully fond. But he hadn't got any oof-bird. He : Oh ! Then I suppose he's " off ? " She : Off ? I should think so ! Why (this with deep contempt) he's become a digger. He (laughing) : Costume will suit him down to the ground. Bather good-looking fellow—fine figure and all that—jolly sort of chap. I say, then, if he's "oft" I'm on —eh ? She : If you like. I told you it would be all right when your governor died. Couldn't settle up till then. He might have lived ever so long. He: So he might. But he hasn't. He's gone, sure enough. Then it's a tie ? She : It's a tie. No —don't kiss me — I don't feel like it. He (chuckling) : Don't you ? Well, I suppose you have got to be taken in the humour. I don't feel like it either, now I come to think of it. She : I am quite sure you don't. It's so idiotic, you know. He : I bet you kissed the digger fellow. Come, didn't you. , She; I may have done, I don't

remember, fliyhow, it isn't your business. I want some ices. He : Waiter ! Ices ! And a brandy-and-soda! (Slow music. Song by niggerminstrels—" Won't yer ketch 'im whfn yer sees 'im.") (Curtain.)

This kind of wooing is the way Mammon teaches his sons and daughters to jest with the most divine emotions of life —and the spirit of Jin de siede cynicism and mockery pervades all the preliminaries of marriage and marriage itself, to work dire results of discontent and wretchedness hereafter. For Nature will not be balked of her rights, She gave us brains wherewith to think —hearts wherewith to feel—emotions to respond to every touch of human tenderness and sympathy—minds to educate in such wise that they should be able to grasp and realise all the dear and holy responsibilities of fife; and when we will , neither think nor feel, nor respond, nor . be educated, nor realise what we were made for, she takes her vengeance upon us—and an appalling one it sometimes is. There can be nothing more hideous, more like a foretaste of hell itself, than the life-to-life position of a man and woman who have been hustled into matrimony, or rather, as I prefer to put it, sold to each

other for so many thousands per annum, and who, when the wedding-fuss is over, and the feminine "pictorials " have done gushing about the millinery of the occasion, find themselves alone together, without a single sympathy in common — with nothing but the chink of gold and the rustle of bank-notes for their heartmusic—and with a barrier of steadily ! increasing repulsion and disgust rising between them every day. And this is what happens in nine cases out of ten in fashionable modern matri- j mony. " A marriage has been arranged " is a common phrase of newspaper parlance ; and it has one advantage over most newspaper forms of speech, namely, that of being strictly and literally true. A marriage is " arranged " as a matter of convenience or social interest; lawyers draft settlements and conclude the sale—and a priest of the Most High God is called in to bless the bargain. But it is nevertheless a bargain—a trafficking in human bodies and souls, as open and as shameless as any similar scene in Stamboul.

And yet there is liberty in our land if we- will only avail ourselves of the glorious privilege. Women are free to assert their modesty, their sense of right, their desire for truth and purity, if they only will. Is it too much to ask of them that they should refuse to be stripped to the bosom and exposed for sale in the modern drawing-rooms of the "season?" Is it too much to ask that, in their natural and fitting desire to be suitably wedded, they should look for men rather than money —love, rather than an " establishment " —mutual sympathy and understanding rather than so much heritable property in houses and lands ? And may not it even be suggested that men should be manly enough to refuse to set themselves forth in the market as "Heir to the estate of So-and-So, worth so much in hard cash" —or " Only lineal descendant of the Earl of So-and-So ; anxious to sell title, with body and soul attached to it, to any woman who can give the adequate millions necessary for immediate purchase."