PEOPLE WHO ARE FORBIDDEN TO MARRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7505, 12 September 1902, Page 3

PEOPLE WHO ARE FORBIDDEN TO MARRY.

A large firm of shopkeepers recently created some consternation, among iis assistants by issuing its fiat that they should not marry, on. pain of dismissal (says the writer of an article i entitled " People Forbidden to Marry," in " OasselTs Journal" for July). If any man contemplated entering matrimony, the decree stipulated, he must wait till he had obtained a managership end was in a position to support a wife. , In justification of its apparent harshness, the firm pointed out that marrying on an inadequate income frequently resulted in dishonesty and* consequent imprisonment. The poor assistants are to be pitied, though many of their fellows are under precisely the same disability. For 6eH-protectk>n and other reasons a law forbidding marriage is in force in many establishments. There is a hard-and-fast rule of long standing in at least one bank that no clerk shall take unto ihimself a wife till he is in receipt of a certain salary. And only once, co far as is, known, has itt Been broken. The transgressor was a junior clerk, who, with some help from this parents, secretly married a girl whom he had known from childhood. After the event he amazed his co-workers by suddenly developing a passion for the country, and getting lodgings in a secluded spot some twenty miles from town, with the result that they saw nothing of ihim except .in business hours. After he had led this bfe fou two years the bank had a sensation. By some means the manager discovered that the young fellow was married, and, instead of shutting his eyes to the fact, gave the rash and venturesome mortal walking orders. In a large establishment employing some hundreds of clerks a similar rule is strictly enforced. Several offender* have been dismissed for infringing it, though, on the other hand, a number have broke^it Without being found out. One man reached the mature age of thirty without getHng the salary which, in the opinion of his employers; sufficed to set up housekeeping Thinking thf n that ihe was quite old enough to know what he was doing, he tock advantage of a holiday to get married very quietly Nobody in the office discovered his eecret until he was a family man. At that time— about eighteen months after the happy event— he had got such an increase of salary as entitled !him lo marry rf-*» willed, and there was no reason, therefore, why he should make any concealment of the real state of affairs. Women are forbidden to marry mucn more often than men. In cotton, woollen and other factories no such prohibition is in force. A girl is perfectly free to make eomebody supremely happy whenever she likes, no matter how small • may bo her earnings; and if she choose to come to work afterwards, !her employers will not say her nay— her situation remains open fon her. But in other industries, even in some where the general conditions are practically the same, this is not permitted As soon as a girl is married she is obliged to leave."