Posted By:	Clara Jacobson
	Email:
	Subject:	Modern girls
	Post Date:	July 03, 2009 at 18:53:10
	Message URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/memorylane/messages/25956.html
	Forum:	Memory Lane Forum
	Forum URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/memorylane/

I was looking for an old obituary from February 1884 on microfilm and came across this article: from "The Olympia Transcript" of February 1884; Olympia, Thurston County, Territory of Washington (now State of Washington) The Duty of Marriage The girls of today are not brought up as their mothers and grandmothers were. They insist upon beginning married life in the same style that their parents are ending theirs. They will not think of occupying less than a whole house on a fashionable street, and must have servants to do the housework. They will not only refuse to cook their husbands' meals, but in too many cases do not know how to do so, even if they had the desire. Of course, this is the old, old story, but there is no visible improvement in the domestic education of our girls. Thirty or forty years ago a married man could keep house and "go into society" for what it now costs to provide for bachelor necessities. In a word, marriage is today a very expensive luxury, while as a rule young men just starting out in life are no richer nowadays than those of a century ago. Nine out of ten have their fortunes to make. It is safe to say that not one fashionable young man in fifty under 25 years of age is in pecuniary condition to seriously contemplate marriage with a young women of his own sphere in society. It has been suggested that bachelors should go into the country to find wives. If they do they must live in the country forever after, for the most extravagant woman on earth is one that has been brought up in simplicity, and who, leaving her old associations, comes to town. She has no idea of the value of money, for she has never had any to speak of. Her youth has been spent in thoughts of brilliancy of city life, and her ideas are founded on novels treating of fashionable life. She would ruin a millionaire. The reality never comes up to her old ideal, and, in seeking for the latter, she would, if permitted, beggar a Croesus. Now, what is a bachelor to do? He cannot afford to marry a city girl, and if he marry a country girl he must live in the country or be absolutely ruined. Albany Times