Annie Laurie

San Francisco Examiner/February 4, 1909

AND so they were married.

“Despite the opposition of parents,” the headlines tell us.

I hope it was “despite” the opposition and not because of it—that marriage.

If I wanted my daughter to marry a commonplace grocer with a big hank account, I would begin to “oppose” him with all the opposition I could muster.

I’d tell her he looked cold and cruel.

I’d say that he had secretive eyes and a deceitful nose. I’d swear I’d seen him somewhere In another country under another name. I’d hint that he was a Bluebeard. And that nobody could possibly find out how many times he’d been married. And some fine morning I’d wake up the proud mamma-in-law of a prosperous person who would let me run a bill for coffee and sugar for quite a while.

“In spite of opposition”—how many, many marriages have been made that would never have been even dreamed of if some one had not gone to work to try to prevent them!

AND the bride in this case, it appears, has $30 and the groom has but seven.

Well, what of it?

How many dollars did you have, Mr. Doting Parent, when you and the woman who’s worn your ring for so many years slipped down to the preacher’s and were married back there in the plain farming country?

You weren’t rolling in riches before you dared to fall in love, were you? And your sweetheart didn’t know and didn’t care whether you had $5 left, when you had paid the minister or not.

Your girl is no better than her mother and no worse, either.

She has just the same courage, and the same loving heart, and the same good sense that her mother had before her—and who are you to teach her to be mercenary and grasping, and self-seeking?.

EVERY once in a while, some one rises in public gathering and denounces the young people of today.

“The young men are selfish and the young women are mercenary,” declare the denouncers.

Fudge!

The young men and the young women are all right.

It’s the old men and the old women who are all wrong.

“My dear,” said a woman to me the other day, “you know how Genevieve was brought up petted, spoiled, indulged. Well, this man she’s married took her to Philadelphia on a business trip with him, and some one called on them and do you know that they had a back room at the hotel, and had worn the same dress to dinner three days in succession?”

And not all the arguments in the world would have convinced that poor old woman that Genevieve was so happy that she didn’t know whether she lived in a front room or a back one, and that she was too busy having fun to worry about her clothes.

MONEY—that’s about all you have when you’ve passed forty—money, and the poor substitutes for happiness that money buys—fine clothes, rich fare, soft living.

Let the poor old forties have the money, girls and boys; you take the real things of life, and take them gayly, with light hearts, as your mothers and fathers did before you.

There’s time enough for you to earn for the fol de rols and fil dols when you are so faded that can’t look neat in a myrtle gown and so jaded that a plain mutton chop and a stick of celery isn’t a good enough dinner for a king.

Walt till your own daughter is growing up before you let the little yellow money demon get you in his clutches. You’ll be past any particular harming by him by that time.

As for you, you newly married young people, a long life to you and not a day of regret in it.

You’ve set all the grumbling old fogeys a good example—an example of youth and courage and sincerity—and in my opinion the world is the better off for all such natural, simple, real people as you seem to be.