The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-03-04
MARRIED LIFE.
It's Jars and Its Troubles--A Bit of Advice
from n Supreme Court Judge.


In denying the preliminary application
of wife to enable her to bring a suit
for divorce against her husband, Judge
Donohue, of the New York Supreme
Court, gave some very sound advice to
married people who are troubled with
incompatibility of temperament. {"
The case, whose abrupt termination af-
forded the occasion for these remarks,
appears to have been a very frivolous one.
T "cruel and inhuman treatment >"
complained of by the wife seems to have
mainly consisted of occasional exhibi-
tions of boorishness on the part of the
husband. On one occasion he was bored
with her piano playing, md attempted
to summarily stop the annoyance by
closing the lid of the instrument. His
wife resisted, and got her fingers
pinched. At another time he refused to
bulge from the two chairs he occupied
before the window to enable her to re-
move some pet birds which were hang
ing outside. A third specification re-
lated to the violent ringing of the door
bell at night by the defendant Acts like
these were the head and front of the
husbands offending, and yet they were
deemed sufficient to warrant demand
for alimony and an allowance for counsel
fees, to enable the wife to prosecute n
suit for divorce from bed and board.
There seems to have been evidence
enough in the case to secure verdict
from any female jury that the husband
had behaved like brute" But then,
had his wlfe's temper and conduct no
share Ill making him so? 1t was very
wrong to close the piano ON his wifes
fingers, but was it quite right to insist
on compelling n man to listen to music
that he did not want Is it wise to make
mans home SO disagreeable that he
must either seek quiet and repose out
side of it, or resort to force to secure
them inside ! AS to the pet-bird episode,
it would be interesting to hear in what
kind Of tone the wife asked her husband
to sit on one side and before condemn
ing without reserve that morose and
surly person, it might be only fair to
give him some credit for a dim feeling
OF regret that the woman he had courted
IN days gone by had love to spare for her
canaries, but none for him. Again, why
should wife's nerves be Jared by her
husbands ring at the door bell, even if
were late at night There are women
who find more melody in that sound than
is contained in all the seven-octaves of
their pianofortes, or all the artless trills
OF their pet canaries. Was it not partly
her own fault that the plaintiff in this
case found the midnight ring so dis
agreeable to her nervesl
We submit these points less with refer
ence to the litigant Thompsons than to
the scores of married couples whose
difficulties " are fairly illustrated by
the complaint i'll the case in question.
Ihe old fashioned theory of mutual obi.
deal lost sight of in these days. Men
are too apt to carry their business faces
and their business thoughts home with
them, and SO bring nothing but coldness,
hardness, and reserve to the society of
wife and children. On the other hand.
women are not ready enough to make
allowance for the wear and tear of our
commercial life upon the nerves and
temper of the man who has to bear the
brunt of the struggle. 1t is to very
large extent for their wives and children's
sakes that men are tempted to overtax
their energies, and to make themselves
prematurely old, i'll the endeavor to get
rich or to maintain q certain social posi-
ton. There are many things that cloud
q mans brow and sour his temper, about
which he cannot take his wife into his
confidence. She would probably not
understand them if he did, and the at
tempt to translate these troubles into
definite speech is to many men o more
acute pain than to simply endure them.
Women may have noticed the fact that
the boiling kettle continues to bubble
for little after it has been lifted from
the fire. In the same way the active
brain OF the hard-worked professional or
business man will, in spite of himself,
run on the affairs of his office after he
has come within the precincts of home.
A wise wife will make allowance for the
occasional gruffness whose source she
cannot understand, and will make it her
business to smooth out the hard lines of
the troubled face, and gently to allow
the soothing influence of pleasant home
to work its gradual but certain cure.
OF course, deeper than all faults of
heedlessness or want of heart is the
radical moral error of forgetting what
the marriage covenant is. AS Judge
Donohue reminded the sensitive Mrs.
thompson, people take in marriage
certain duties on themselves, and un-
dertake to bear the infirmities of hu-
manity which each possesses" Whether
"for better or for worse, for richer or
poorer" is expressly convenanted or
not, the conditions are distinctly under
stood, and married people are as OBJ
vlously bound to accommodate their
tastes and tempers to each other as they
are to respect the inviolability of their
neighbor's property. They have no
right to subject their children, if they
have any, to the demoralizing influences
of contentious home, or to the shame
inseparable from q broken marriage
bond. They have just as little right to
weaken the tie which holds society to-
gether by treating the marriage VOW as n
thing terminable at the caprice or the
vlndictlve impulse of either of theparties
to 1t. There has been a great deal too
much twaddle talked and published
about the sentimental side of this ques-
ton. On the stage, in the court of JUS
tlce, III the church, even, we have had
too many exposures of the morbid an
atomy of the minds of vain or vicious
people, who chafe under the ties of
matrimony. 1t is about time that the
simple and imperative duty of married
men and women should be little more
insisted on, and as a contribution to
what is in danger of becoming rather
scanty department of literature, we COM
mend Judge Donohue's brief remarks to
public attention