An Outing to Stratford Ontario

By Artur Suski, S.J.

Recently, I had the opportunity to go see a play at the “Festival Theatre” in Stratford, Ontario; the play that I saw was Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, a very entertaining comedy. After seeing the play, some interesting points for reflection emerged, but I will limit myself to only one of these with the limited space.

This point might have been very obvious in the 1930s – when the play was written – but it is not so obvious today: when couples dated, they went into the relationship with the hope of finding a companion for life; that is, with the hope of finding a good husband or wife. When people dated, the partner that they dated was closely “scrutinized” because the goal was marriage. Good habits were sought after: whether the person loved family life, or whether he or she came from a good family, what are his or her religious views, etc. All these were because they had the long-term goal in mind. In short, a relationship was formed with another for the sake of a possible marriage.