THE ROMANTIC MARRIAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6072, 8 January 1898, Page 3

THE ROMANTIC MARRIAGE.

(Tlie Lady's Realm.) To look afc marriage from its purely romantic side, or, on the other hand, to bring its utilitarian aspects into too greatrelief, is unskilfully to mix the ingredients which go to form that compound of experience and intuition which we call a ripened judgment. Marie Corelli draws a pretty picture of simple loving hearts in Capri, but is she very sure thafc those whom she so touchingly describes as passing rich on over twice as much again as forty pounds a year, exhibit more than the negative virtue of content ? Would they refuse comfort and affluence if offered them ? Comfort, which might mean life or death to either in ill-health, affluence which would certainly afford advantages to their children such as they could not hope to obtain under present circumstances, and such as they would scarcely have the right to decline? The sum, in truth, we have to spend is nothing; the all-important question is, What must thafc sum be made to buy ? What are necessaries ? What are luxuries ? For I need hardly point out to any one who has felt the grip of an English winter, that what constitutes riches in Capri, would mean poverty and privation in a climato like ours. So much depends on the class we happen to associate with, and the sky under which we live. The deprivation of accustomed luxuries, or such easements as we have enjoyed in life, is so serious a matter that it is a well-known factor in punishment as administered to criminals. Are we, then, purely mercenary if we urge these considerations on those who have yet to grapple with reality, and have never known the crushing hug of want ? To turn to another point : is there a mother in this world who, if sho could prevent it, would allow her daughter to give herself "without conditions of any sort to the first man for whom the woman nature in her breast had faintly stirred in that slumber where it lies bound by the opiate of custom, education, and hereditary proclivities ?". To such dreams of heaven, natural though they be, there is a cold awakening in the chilly dawn of human experience. Few men, worthy of the name, would accept such a sacrifice, or undertake such a charge. Those who have done so, for selfish reasons, have forged f ettbrs on their limbs, of which they sometimes hear the clanking all their days. Not the most advanced woman among the vanguard which leads that section of our sisters can live happy and content under the disapproval and avoidance of those she has been accustomed to associate with. The enthusiasm which armed martyrs for the rack or death is sadly cooled by the daily pin-pricks which accompany any irrevocable step taken in defiance of custom and society, just as a heavy shower of rain will do more to disperse a mob' than more heroic measures. No woman, whose heart is single, would recommend another to follow in such a thorny path.