Is Marriage a Lottery?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue X, 8 March 1902, Page 474

Is Marriage a Lottery?

YES OR NO, AS YOU MAKE IT

And to judge by most of the marriages those girls see about them, they might well be tempted to beiieve it the truth. For one marriage that come? under their observation as really happy and satisfactory, how many scores' do they see that are either miserable or pathetic attempts at "making the best of it?”—the most deplorable confession of failure thal tii ere can be. I.- it lottery? Does one put one’s trembling hand into a kind of lucky bag, and draw < ut happiness or sorrow haphazard, i s the chance may be? Not at all; there is no blind chance in marriage any more than in any other walk in life. Cause leads to effect, choice has its consequences, and we blame the cruelty of Fate when we have only curselves to thank. Marriage is a mutual contract between two presumably rational ami responsible persons, who must look further down the vistas of its issues than the mere wedding cake and marriage bells. It is the agreement between a man and woman to join into close and lasting partnership their lives, their interests, their possessions, both material and spiritual—their hopes and their characters.

It is not to be entered into lightly and inadvisedly, as the Marriage Service warns those over whom it is said. It is perhaps the most vital step that either man or woman can take in life, and unless it is taken for the only reasons that can possibly spell success and happiness all through.-it is better left alone altogether. There are such varied reasons which bring about the marriages of girls in general, and so many of them are such absolutely mistaken ones, that it would be as insane to expect a happy result from the marriages they are accountable for as to look for milk in a stone. Yet the girls themselves seem surprised when their venture turns out a miserable failure, and their dip into the matrimonial bran-pie brings out only discontent and heartache and tears. Let us run over a few of the things girls really marry for, whether they have the candour or not to admit it to the world and to themselves, and the number of marriage failures that fill the world about us may not be so hard to account for after all. A vast number of girls marry for money.

Perhaps they refrain from putting it plainly in so many words. They don’t say with brutal frankness that the man who is able to bid highest has the best chance of winning them, but it comes to that all the same.

A sufficient income, a big enough banking balance, will secure their consent. They feel quite assured in their own. minds that a man who can give them everything that pounds, shillings, and pence can buy, is the man most certain to make them happy, and they take with alacrity the income, no matter what manner of man be attached to it.

Gladys marries Simeon because he is rich. No one richer has yet asked her, or is likely to ask. She sees before her dazzled eyes the prospect of unlimited fairy-land. She will have a country-house, and a London season —endless frocks and hats and enjoyments; perhaps, even if she is not too bad a sailor to make that a temptation, she will have a yacht. What could any girl desire more to make her happiness complete?

Well, she marries the fortune and Simeon, and for a week or two—perhaps a month or two —her soul seems satisfied. The novelty of her new possessions and powers dazzle her. In the excitement and novelty she forgets a good deal else. Then with a suddenness which is like the turning of the fairy gold into leaves, she begins to find, wondering, that one grows appallingly soon used to having money, and, though one might miss it if one lost it, one loses almost in the moment of gaining it. the pleasure it brought at first. She grows used to it and indifferent. What she cannot grow reconciled or indifferent to is the man she took carelessly with it —for better, for worse. It is so much of the worse, and so little of the better, in any marriage where love has not been the prompter and guide. She thought she liked Simeon, or, at least, that she did not mind him. That was before she took him till death them should part. He may not be in himself a man to

dislike and despise. He may have his many virtues and his excellencies. Another woman might have found life with him both endurable and attractive.

Gladys cannot find it so. She did not marry him, but his income. He was only a secondary matter all through. She married the money, and it makes her as poor a companion and friend and husband as it has done since the world first began. Alas for the evil days that come surely, surely, when ’ boredom begins! When Gladys may look from her carriage with a hunger of longing at two humble, happy people sitting under the hedgerow with their noonday crust as she drives by! When she gets up to another dreary day spent in trying to buy happiness. and finds it for ever beyond her r.rice! When she realises that she has sold all her chance of ever knowing what marriage might have been for the mess of pottage That no longer tempts her satiated taste! She has what she asked for in her marriage, and she knows, with a regret which can avail her nothing, that she felt round in the lucky-bag with cheated fingers when she deliberately: chose the blank.

The Treatment of the Infant Chinee.

The Heathen Chinee has curious ideas as to the rearing of children, and especially on the amount of cleanliness desirable for them. "A Chinese babe is washed on the third day after its birth, and, generally with warm water. Occasionally a newborn infant is rubbed all over with raw eggs, but not washed till it is three months old. On the thirtieth day of its' life the

infant’s head is shaved. This ceremony, among wealthy people, is accompanied by feastings and rejoicings, and poorer folk are as festive as their means will allow. A boy is allowed a birthday feast once in ten years. Evil spirits are held in great awe by the Chinese, who do their best + o protect their offspring from them. With this end in view a baby is sometimes dressed as a priest, and sometimes decked with all manner of charms, one queer idea being to attach a piece of lamp-wick to its clothing. As boys are more valued by their parents than girls, they are supposed to be most under the eye of evil spirits, and accordingly parents often dress their infant sons as girls, and give them girls’ names, hoping thus to deceive the spirits. Often the poor little things are treated to harsh words and even blows, to assist in the work of deception. Chinese mothers are. as a rule, loving to their children, but superstition often makes them cruel. For instance, a fortune-teller will infor ■> a mother that her child—usually a girl—is inhabited by a devil. Then it becomes the duty of the mother to beat, starve, and even to put her hapless little one out of doors. Its little face may be blackened, and its hands cut off. in order to scare awav the demon. The child is left to die outside the dwelling, for the mother, believing in the transmigration of souls, fears that this demon - child may be re-born to her.

The Care of the Teeth.

Mothers should early impress upon the little ones the use of the tooth brush, for by so doing many subse quent ailments are prevented. , Most of us know that to ensure a healthy digestion proper attention

must be paid to the teeth. Clean them twice or thrice daily with a reliable preparation—for preference, prepared chalk, powdered magnesia, or charcoal. Of liquids in use cam •phor-water should rank highest. Choose a soft brush, wash carefully after use, and keep in an open ves sei. When the teeth are decayed, however slightly, there are present therein many virulent germs, and we can easily imagine the resul* <>t keeping the toothbrush in those closed brush-trays we so often see on the various washstands. To resume the question of the teeth in regard to digestion, these germs, or organisms, when swallowed, are productive of chronic gastric catarrh. The stomach is capable of destroying them in the beginning of the disorder, and when digestion is at its full tide, but later on the catarrh makes the process of assimilation so feeble that permanent mischief is set up. and we get in consequence chroniQ dyspepsia, accompanied by anaemia, and sometimes simple or ulcerative stomachs. Many people attribute these evils entirely to the loss of chewing power. instead of the presence of toxins, or poisonous matter. ft is not unusual to see amongst the outpatients of any hospital a diseased condition of the jaw-bone, called necrosis, or death of the part affected, and to trace its origin to absolute neglect of the teeth. Of course, it is often due to other causes —e.g., the taking of acids in medicine without washing the mouth afterwards, or pierhaps hereditary constitution, in which case a dentist will prescribe treatment or at least advise what to do; most likely he would suggest the consulting of a physician. Gum-boils, which occur most frequently on the upper jaw, are generally caused by decaye

teeth. If the teeth have been extracted. more should be inserted as soon as possible; the reason for this is obvious, for without teeth we cannot chew, and when we do not do this we check the flow of saltv which mixes with the various juices of the alimentary eanal or digestive tract, and converts food into its nutritive value.

A Lady Nurse in South Africa

Feminine society throughout India is reported (says “The Sketch”) t“ be clamouring for the life-blood of a Calcutta editor who inserted the following story in a recent issue of his paper. Among the contingent of volunteer “nurses” in South Africa was (so runs the anecdote) a certain lady from Simla, who. for her constant defiance of the medical regulations. was not greatly beloved by the military medicos with whom she came into contact. Serenely indifferent to this, however, she continued to feed enteric patients on chocolate-creams and smuggle cigarettes into surgical wards to her heart's content, and generally contrived to make herself an anything but “ministering angel” to the unfortunate invalids. Going one afternoon to the bedside of her “favourite hero” (a stalwart Highlander, by the way), she found him snoring blissfully, with a piece of paper on which was scrawled “Too ill to be nussed to-day” pinned to his pillow.

o o o o o How to Have a Beautiful Neck.

A beautiful neck makes a woman look fairer and younger than any toilet dressing, and the majority of women know it, and their worry is greater on this score than any other in the beautifying line.

There is a way—in fact, there is always a way when a woman wills — and a little patience and perseverance will make the ugliest neck look, not beautiful always, but presentable. "Gymnastic movements tor ueveloping the muscles of the neck,” says a well-known beauty expert, “are: (1) Slowly bin firmly bend the neck forwards until the chin nearly touches the neiXc; then gradually raise the head (2) Slowly but firmly bend the head backward as far as you comfortably can. Repeat this movement t wenty times. (3) Bend the head side-ways to right twenty times, and to the left the same number of times. ;4) Roll the head slowly to the right, then to the It ft, twenty times.” After there exercises the neck should be bathed in warm water and olive oil soap, and rubbed with a soft towel. Follow this by anointing the i eck with emollient cream, and, if ; ersisted in, the fair patient will soon ne rewarded by being the proud possessor of a beautiful white neck.

Wanted— A Beautiful Complexion

The latest cure for a thick or spotty complexion is to wash it wiih parsley-water. It is done in this way. You must take half a pint of rainwater and soak in it a large bunch >f parsley, letting it remain in the water all night. In the morning when you dress you must rub the face well with, a dry cloth, then dip your sponge in the parsley-water, and pass the damp sponge over your face, leaving it on without drying it. You must do this three times daily, and at the end of a fortnight you will be surprised to see that there are no more spots or roughness on your face.