The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-08-16
DECAY os MArRlMonY.
A Charge Which Arises from tho Mental
Disease of the Accuser.

Disease of the Accuser.
Another cry that is of frequent occur
rance Is the decay of matrimony, and
there, too, the fault is laid upon the
woman. Her extravaganza, her love Of
luxury and show, make her an expensive
prize; but, worst of all, che is prize
which in itself Is not worth tho win
ming. She is foolish, vacuous, worldly.
minded she Is unfit for the companion.
ship OF sensible and industrious man.
Now, all this is not true of any save a
very small proportion of the sex. There
never was a time when men with small
incomes might find it easier to discover
and marry wives such as they profess
to admire. We do not deny that in
most of our great cities there Is a class
of girls whose chief idea is show; who
marry Mother for love nor liking, but
mainly for an establishment; who are
wretohed If they have not maids of their
own, and are more extravagant after mar
riage than before; who have many ac-
complishments and no knowledge;
whose god is not even the world, but
something indefinitely lower, lie monde.
There grows up in them a hardness of
suit of luxury and amusement, which is
worse for their husbands than even the
''fastness" of which they are, often un-
justly, accused. But they are a limited
class; they do not even comprise the
majority of the girls in what is known
as Society" they are not 50 much as
one per cent. of the entire sex. The
great majority of manageable women
in the United States are neither fast nor
greedy nor unreasonable; they are as
nice and moderate and modest as their
mothers and grandmothers, and great
deal better informed; they are willing
to accept any drudgery not involving
the entire extinction of refinement, and
ready to worship their husbands to their
hearts content. And as to extravaganza,
the charge, even as regards the society
girl, is overstretched Women are not
extravagant by nature. On the contrary,
they are penurious; they are even mean;
they have microscopic eyes. But, unfor-
tunately, many of them are brought mp
to know nothing of money; their fathers
never give them the slightest hint of
their affairs, their husbands never talk
business, and so their demands for
money become mere experimental ef-
forts to understand, through induction,
by the higgling of the market, how
much they may spend. Let n man tell
any woman alive, in close relation to
him, that he has so much and wants to
save out of that, then be as just as he
can about dress, and it will not be her
fault if he does not save, but his But,
after all, there is no use fighti"g with a
shop dummy. These lachrymose com"
plants about the dress and conduct of
women, and their untitness for WIFE
dom, have always formed part of the
stock in trade of certain writers, and
are to be regarded as so much stage busi-
ness. Here and there the mimetic
muse seizes upon some real feature
some chance extravaganza of fashion
for the purpose of travesty and condem-
nation; but, for the most part, she raises
her man or woman of straw, and pre-
tends to weep over the absurdities and
vices of the being she has created. The
exhibition would be more interesting If
it were less obviously theatrical. We
can no more believe in the horrible de-
pravity and shamelessness of modern
women than in the sincerity of the gem
tlemen who talk about it. The accusa-
ton, like the old accusations of witch
craft, does not arise from the guilt of
the accused, but from the mental dis
ease of the accuser.---Il Ameri-