Today I ran across a San Francisco Examiner from 1909 with an article about marriage in it.

"SINCLAIR SORRY HE IS MARRIED TO WIFE: Thinks Nuptial Law of the Present Day Is Relic of Barbarism."

(nothing like an opinion, is there?)

The article (by Annie Laurie) is about Upton Sinclair and his views on some guy named Robins who refuses to marry his mate but prefers to live in sin (as she does as well) in 1909! They're meeting in a restaurant where a very disapproving waiter is overhearing their conversation. They are also eating "a handful of California raisins thrown into a dish of Waldorf salad which matched with quite evident pleasure the contrast of the purple of the raisins with the pale silver of the celery and the gold of the mayonaise." He later "contemplated an amber sphere of San Diego honey with distinct lightening of the eyes."

Sinclair is wishing he and his wife had also not married. "I wish now we had done as these Robins people have had the courage and the fortitude to do - lived together without the farce of a foolish and obsolete ceremony. The world would have been that much farther ahead on the road to progress." Later he says, "Marriage - Faugh! It really isn't a subject to be discussed at the table."

At one point "the waiter's elbow expressed more virtuous disapproval than any elbow ever dreamed of expressing or will ever express again." He also on at least one occasion "turned an unmistakable and distinctly horrified ear."

Sinclair goes on to say that "Mrs. Sinclair's father and mother would go raving crazy if we did what our conscience told us was right. So to ease their minds we let someone mumble a few words over us - and made them happy." And then, "We were young and foolish then, and now we have seen the world and know a great many married people - so we are a good deal ashamed of being married ourselves."

And the waiter "almost dropped the butter plate, well trained as the particular waiter who happened to be leaning over the back of Mr. Sinclair's chair with this particular butter plate happened to be."

1909 and all.