LONG ENGAGEMENTS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 24

LONG ENGAGEMENTS

The question of a long engagement is one which is almost certain to arise in the life of every man and every girl, unless they happen to belong to the fortunate class to whom money is a matter of no concern. It is such an exceedingly easy thing to fall in love, or, at any rate, to fancy that this crisis has occurred. The inevitable sequel appears to be an engagement, and to start with thaf also seems quite simple. It costs so little to "become engaged. A man needs a very small balance at his banker’s to enable him to buy an engagement ring. There is a strange kind of faith in fate or Providence which is given to young people in this condition which makes them believe that some extraordinary miracle will take place that will enable them in a short time to marry. They may look round at their friends and acquaintances, and see many of them wearing their lives out under the stress of a long engagement, hut the happy pair of lovers wiil in come way ex main all this away, and assure themselves that for them there will be no long wait, and that even if they must wait, this will be better than separation—a state of mind that may prove, however, a great mistake. No man lias a right to ask a girl to many him unless he can see a good chance of offering her in a reasonable time a home equal to the one in which she has been brought up- And for this statement there are many reasons. It is an undoubted fact, hard though the statement may appear, that a girl who is engaged does not usually have such a good time as a girl who is quite free. It is true that in ordinary social life a man does! not desire to fall in love with or many every girl ho meets, but he certainly takes a greater interest in her if he realises that there is no impossible barrier to such an eventuality. The girl’s faith, too, in the man to whom she is engaged may be unbounded, but after a time she will be conscious of a feeling, which perhaps she will not admit even to herself, that the other men whom she knows have been able to marry the girls of their choice, while her fiance has failed to make a position in the world which would warrant him in giving her a home. Then the man, after the first flush of excitement is over, will begin to face the conditions of the oositiem. Instead of feeling free to take any chance that offers in any part of the world, he will ahvays have an added responsibility upon him that he must do nothing which will make the engagement longer. Before long he will begin that endless and tiring addition sum of how to make two and two equal five. The income which up to the time of his engagement was more or less sufficient for his own needs will appear startingly small when he considers the possibility of having to support someone else on it as well as himself. There is nothing that takes the ]>oy of living out of a man’s heart so much as tlie fear of grinding poverty. And what does poverty mean? It implies going without certain things which are absolute necessities of existence, and to the engaged man marriage soon becomes one of the absolute necessities. In two or three years the hero of the story may find that marriage is as fay off as ever, and the question may arise, however loyal and true to the heroine he may be, "Have I not been unwise? Have X not made a mistake?” Once such a. question as this comes into a man’s mind, he is on the high toad to the termination of his love story. It is/ because those who have passed a little further along the road of life have seen .the tragedy that then results happen again and again that fathers and mothers usually set their faces so sternly against long engagements. What, then, is the practical outcome of all this? Surely it is that every man should come to the strong determination to make the home first before he asks any girl to enter it. He ought not to reverse the process, and say to the girl, “Will you share my home if ever I have one to offer you ?” Neither this decision nor the strength to keep it will he obtained without a struggle. Apart from an engagement, if a man is seriously interested in some girl of his acquaintance, and is thinking of proposing to her, although he is gloriously indefinite as to his chances of marrying her, two courses open to him. If he hag hn - self well in hand, and he thinks that he has not gained the girl s a? 6 ? 41 ??® (though that is not the Inst thine m the

world about which any man can be cer. tain), and if he thinks that lie can go on meeting her without the friendship getting the better of him, he. may make up his mind that friendship is the only possibility for him, and may strive to put love out of liis head. But this is a dangerous course, and will almost certainly lead to complications. The otlieJ 1 alternative and the wiser one is flight. I do not necessarily mean the actual packing up of his goods and rushing away to some distant part of the world. Probably the circumstances of his life and liis business render such a course out of the question. But lie may make up his mind steadfastly to adhere to tho practice of never seeing or meeting the girl except when absolutely necessary. lie may strenuously endeavour to fill up his life to the full with other interests. In that case, he will probably find, after a short period of mental depression, that there is more truth in the cynical statement of “Out of sight, out of mind,” than he at present dreams. Though the influence which the girl hag exercised on liis life may have a lasting effect, he may eventually come to tho broader wisdom that years bring, and be devoutly thankful that lie did not mar a girl’s future, and perhaps that of his own, by unwise precipitancy.