PENALTIES FOR MARRYING

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5229, 19 March 1904, Page 13

PENALTIES FOR MARRYING

Matrimony is considered a punishable offence in some communities. i/nese circles of society are small, but their edicts are strong. The larger community, if it takes cognisance of a mans feirmlo state, usually imposes a fine for not getting married, as in Argentina, where bachelorhood' requires the payment of an increasing tax to the Government.

Rut in certain circles marriage is regarded as an offence. At Oxford University, for instance, a fellow of A\\[ Souls’ College forfeits his fellowship if he takes to himself a wife while ho is supposed to bo studying tho classics. He not only must pay a penalty, but ho infust present his college with a memorial in the shape of a silver cup, on which is inscribed tho words, “Descend! t in matrimonium” —“Ho backslid into matrimony.”

Tho aristocratic Bachelors’ Club of Piccadilly, London, t ostracises members who* forget themselves so far as to marry, instant expulsion is the punishment for this offence. The backsliders must leave tho company of the bachelors for ever. As an act of grace, they pay a fine of £2O, and become honorary members of the club, bub that is their own salvation.

Not only England has these antimatrimony clubs. Their formation in Chicago lias been treated as_a joke, as it has in other American cities. Bachelors in other countries have lent an air of seriousness to their endeavours. It is serious for a member of a certain Jnnggcscllen Club in Germany to lap-o into matrimony. As soon as Ins intention becomes known lie is tried in the club court, with the president as judge, when ho is allowed to plead in extenuation of his offence. On the skill of his pleading and his excuses depend his fine, from £2O to £SO. This fine is devoted to a dinner, at which all members appear in mourning garb. At its conclusion tho president reads tlie sentence of expulsion, and the delinquent is led from tho premises to an accompaniment of groans and lamentations-

Only last winter a recreant was condemned to swim twice across the Seine at midnight, with tho result that a severe attack of rheumatic fever nearly robbed him of tho bridle ho had paid tho heavy price- to wed.

While tho bachelor sometimes lias to pay dearly for a wife, in at least one country it scarcely pays to remain celibate. In Argentina tho man who prefers a'nglo to duplicated bliss has to pay a substantial and progressive tax. If ho has not taken a wife by tho time ho lias reached his 25th birthday ho must pay a tine of five dollars a month to tho Exchequer.