The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-03-18
MANS IDEA OF MARRIAGE.
"eAB" SECURES SOME INFORMATION
A Doctors View OF Matrimony-whata Club
Man ThinlKs-Why Some Men Do Not
Merry-Widows-The Girl that
Ereck1es.

New York, March Especial. II have
| had three or four letters lately. asking me,
| in different ways, what was my opinion OF
marriage. 1t seemed right that they
should be answered. and so | started out
on a journey of discovery, seeking for
| knowledge from wise men. Go not think
that women are capable OF deciding this
! question, for each one is certain to judge
from her own standpoint and that alone,
and so she cannot be said to look at the
question in an unprecedented way.
The first man l met Is man OF clubs. L
| looked at him and l said, "Mr. Bachelor,
is marriage failure?" and he said, Mrs.
Bah, will answer you just as l did man
at my club the other night, who pro-
pounded the same question. l said, Look
around this room, crowded with men !;
three-quarters of them are married ones !;
now. either the wife has gone her way and
the husband his, or the woman is at home
lonely and in any event there Is some
thing wrong. If everything was right the
married man would be at his home. salts
fed there, and happy with his wife," lie
gave his hat most beautiful lift, smiled
sweetly at me, and left me impressed with
his great knowledge OF the world.
The next man whose fate it was to meet
my question was a doctor. Said he,
Marriage failure? No, it isn't failure
when the man gets the right sort of a
| woman-and that woman is best described
as a combination of the ideal and the
material. That combination makes per-
feet wife. But how many men find her?
Usually, as Balzac said long ago, we 60
round the world looking for this woman.
We want to find combination OF COM
rade and wife in one volume; but we sell
dom succeed. We have to choose two
and the world frowns at that"
The next man / asked had thought it
all out had seen it from both sides, and
had concluded that the holy state OF mat
rimony was one in which he did not wish
to enter; and these were his reasons: "a
man and woman get married, expect to
be together three hundred and sixty-tive
days in the year, and never take the
trouble to find out whether they are cal
culated to be happy together. The man
doesn't know whether the woman can
control her temper when he loses his. and
Utce versa, and they grow desperately weary
of each other. A man has a right to
claim in marriage all thatfriendship would
give him, and great deal more. Nine
times out of ten he gets thoughtless
affection and no consideration. ''fhen
answered here: "Yes, but a woman
has some claims. She has a
right to all that lover would
give, to the consideration of q brother and
a certain amount of psternal care. am
not inclined to excuse women, for think
that while men may commit all the sins
of the decalogue, woman can nag a man
into fury that could not be surpassed by
q raging lion. think, too, ii women were
more wives and less mothers, marriage
wouldn't so often be failure. Now, don't
mistake me about this. for l am devout
believer in babies; and don't think that a
married woman has any right to shirk
either the joys or pains of motherhood !;
but too often the interests of the babies are
thought of first; the husband is neg
leeted, or, at most, counted as a neces-
sary evil. Women are undoubtedly crea-
lures of habit, and once they drift into
that dangerous sea of thoughtlessness
they are very apt to let the little bark
| marked husband drift away, and very
often it cannot be lured back"
YES" said the man, "a long time ago a
clever somebody's Frenchwoman-said
that when passion and habit lie in COM
panY too long, habit wakens up to find
that its companion has fled. Personally
think that the average woman sees too
much of her husband; next, that she
doesn't have sufficient number OF out
side things to interest him. She can't I'M
derstand this, for she knows that he found
her interesting before she was married.
and she doesn't realize that being away
from the people he is among, reading
books and seeing plays he doesn't see will
give her no end OF bright topics. and will
make her talk well and Interestingly to
him. For my own part, as man, l be-
lieve that / agree with Disraeli, who said
that the perfect friendship between man
and a woman consisted in their going in
different sets, meeting at II o'clock over
bit of supper, and discussing all they had
seen as a solution of the secret of mar
riage."
zone reason why men don't marry, es-
pecialiy in large cities, is because bache-
Tor with moderate income can enjoy the
theatres, the races. the little suppers and
dinners, his cubs, his purple and fine
linen, aud the society of women. Mar
ried, that income would have to be divided
by two, and within six months marriage
would be a failure" That was another
mans opinion. For myself, just gasped.
They all knew So much. i thought little
about love; thought little about Verona
and Romeo and Juliet, and then it
dawned on me that If the ardent Romeo
had welded his beloved one, perhaps their
marriage might have been a success, be-
cause house rents were not high in the old
Italian town; people didn't wear the same
expensive lingerie that they do nowadays.
Romeo probably didn't require the best
brandy. and Juliet wouldn't have wanted
Worth to have made her frocks. We like
to read, write and talk about the en-
nobling influence of poverty. 1t may be
enuobling when you go around with
basket begging, or when you sell lead PEN
ellis on the street; but defy anybody to
prove that genteel poverty is desirable.
But to return to matfimony-which
great many people do when they have
once tried it. The English arguists main
tain that the happiest marriages have re-
suited from men marrying widows.
There's good bit of reason in this. The
woman who has had one husband has
discovered that the proper study OF woman
kind is-man and experience has taught
her how to make life smoother, just as
matrimony has taught her restraint. She
doesn't do as she did at first. She doesn't
bother mans life out of him by asking