When Men Should Marry

1895

It was clearly meant that all men as well as all women should marry, and those who, for whatever reason, miss this obvious destiny are, from nature's point of view, failures.

It is not a question of personal felicity (which in eight cases out of ten may be more than problematic), but of race responsibility. The unmarried man is a skulker, who, in order to secure his own ease, dooms some woman, who has a rightful claim upon him, to celibacy. And in so doing he defrauds himself of the opportunities for mental and moral development which only the normal experience can provide. He deliberately stunts the stature of his manhood, impoverishes his heart and brain and chokes up all the sweetest potentialities of his soul.

To himself he is apt to appear like the wise fox that detects the trap, though it be ever so cunningly baited; that refuses to surrender his liberty for the sake of an appetizing chicken or rabbit, which may, after all, be a decoy, stuffed with sawdust, while, as a matter of fact, his case is that of the cowardly servant in the parable, who, for fear of losing his talent, hid it in a napkin, and in the end was deemed unworthy of his stewardship. — North American Review.