world and about each other than they used to. “Knowledge is power,”
they say, but to my mind knowledge is warning in matters of sex. I
am not speaking of the ideal man and woman, nor of those delightful
exceptions to the rule among whom I cheerfully class your best beloved
and my own, but with regard to the general run of men I freely confess
that an intimate acquaintance with their peculiarities, “their tricks
and their manners,” their standards of morality and of conscience,
their tastes and pursuits, is liable to make a thoughtful woman a
little cautious about intrusting her life to any man. And I dare say
that the young men who get their ideas of womanhood from Zola and
his living models, or from the conversation of their club associates
after club hours, are less anxious to bind themselves in the chains of
matrimony than were their grandfathers. In that day--that is, in the
grandfather’s day, a young girl was in the eyes of young men a holy
mystery, a something to be protected, admired, delicately shielded
from the knowledge of evil, a being intended to lead the man she loved
to higher and nobler life, to be his blessing on earth and his guide to
heaven.
But the clubman of to-day laughs in gently pitying scorn at such ideas,
and tells you with cynical frankness how the reality differs from his
grandfather’s ideal. When you have listened to him for a few moments,
you no longer wonder that he does not care to marry. You only wonder
how any decent woman can be found to marry him.
To sum it all up in the moral of the old allegory of the garden of Eden:
“Man and woman have eaten of the tree of knowledge and see each other
as they are, and they are afraid.”
More reasons there are, and more intricate ones, but with a little
thought you will see them for yourself, and at the end, instead of
asking “Why don’t they marry?” you will inquire,
“Is marriage becoming obsolete?”
Transcriber’s Notes
Obviously incorrect and omitted punctuation has been silently corrected.
Page 55: “Boston or Phildadelphia” changed to “Boston or Philadelphia”
Page 83: “hastn’t yet got it” changed to “hasn’t yet got it”
Page 189: “her own age, dan” changed to “her own age, and”
Page 267: “athough you have not” changed to “although you have not”
Page 272: “tell me if unless” changed to “tell me it unless”
Page 275: “snow its resentment” changed to “show its resentment”
Page 373: “makes it appearance” changed to “makes its appearance”
Page 406: “tired to cry off” changed to “tried to cry off”