The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-06-09
WIVES OF GERMANS.
AN AMERICAN GIRLS POSITION WHEN
SHE MARRlES A BARON.

Few questions have been put to me as a
tsst of my foreign experience oftener than
the familiar: Ought American girls tt
marry German mem Are such unions
| happys Do they turn out well? What
class Of men is it that step outside the
beaten track of home matrimony to seek
American wives and transplant them into
the life of the fatherland?'
In respect to the marriages Of American
girls with German men, they may be ap-
proved of safely in the cases Of practical,
worldly minded women and of very young
or of very gentle tempered girls. Wives
who possess little sentiment or only soft
sentime. It's yield readily to their environ
ment, the latter giving way unconsciously
and hence without pain; the former with
foresight and with purpose selfish
enough, as we may assume, to recompense
them for their renunciations.
As for the class of wiHful, silly, preten-
tious women, they are happy nowhere.
German society should not be called too
harshly to account, therefore, if they are
wretched in marrying into it. We must
concede, if we are fair minded, that they
would have been just as discontinued in
any other geographical position as in the
fatherland.
The inquiry begins with our average
girls They represent American wives
whose happiness is influenced by the spe-
cifically foreign traits in their husbands
and their husbands society and surround
ings. However they may vary in character
they are alike in their Americanism, and
it is republican principles which are OPP
posed in them to the aristocratic education
of the men of their choice.
1t is false prejudice to suppose that
these, or the titled gentlemen who take
American wives, are mere fortune hunters
and degenerated specimens of nobility.
They are often men, 1t is true, who could
not marry women without dowrieS: for
gentlemen on the Continent, as it must be
kept continually in mind, are excluded
from the chances of making money.
Where cases of dissipation of the great
fortunes of American wives occur and are
dulyreported, twoor three things are some.
times overlooked. The first is that if the
cases were not rare they would hardly be
considered worth offering to the public as
shocking facts, the second is that the for
tune evidently was limited. The next may
s .rprise US, for it is truth that has not
Uccil ny OuE HOIllc Liz
men-I mean the fact that foreigners lay
the blame on the American wife. Why,
the relatives ask, did she not bring more
money into the connection?
What they mean, and what they feel
justified by the usages of their class in
meaning, is that young noblemen do moth
ing unusual in being extravagant. If
the consort of such a man brings wealth
enough for her to be luxurious, too, no OBJ
lection to that is valid. But the head of
the house is the member who is the repre-
sentative Of his rank, together with the
munificence that is suitable to it, and
where the mutual fortune is circumscribed
it becomes the duty of the wife to retrench
her OUTLAWS in order to allow him to con-
tinue representing their station without
too much danger of bankrupting the fam
lily means. German wives economic the
more in proportion as their husbands
spend.
American born wives, on the contrary,
have drawn the reputation upon them
selves of being incapable of this sort of sac,
rifce
have learned to look for the real trag.
edies among foreign marriages in tile silent
cases. These women of character and am
bition, united in a fervid temperament,
keeping their post like soldiers, are adj
mirable wives, often of admirable men, yet
they endure the constant realization of the
chosen places of their thoughts being for
eign to the ways and thoughts of their hus
band and the world about them. There
are modern women of strong and distinct
lives whose inner principles are supreme
protests against the system of living which
their marriages unknowingly drew them
into, exiles from the soil, and above all,
the soil of republicanism.
For examples one need not go far. In
one case which / recall as fair example
the heroine was an Ohio girl. She became
the wife of a nobleman in Posen.
One incident that glimmerea in her heart
like beacon fire to illuminate for once
and always the difference between the free
path of republican Judgment and the rigid
highway of class tradition concerned a
little nursery governess.
The young Swiss girl was an orphan,
sixteen years old, and ailing, when l saw
her. of homesickness. Perhaps it was due
to her "reminiscences of Switzerland, all of
which might have been called up by the
sight of his flocks following him-what-
of speaking with the shepherd boy while
returning with the children from their
afternoon walks.
The head governess announced the fact
to my friends husband, who promptly paid
the girl a quarter wages in advance and
told her carriage would take her to the
railroad station that evening. At family
prayers he thanked God that the precious
children We're saved from witnessing an
unsuitable intercourse.
When the family chartered special slow
train for bringing home the head govern
ess, who had met with an accident in a
distant town some months later, my friend
wrote IN bitter comment: I'VE value this
woman, you must know, for the simple
reason that she has become infected with
dignity through having had the honor of
long connection with US As for valuing
persons who have had only brief inter
course with US, who are orphans, helpless |
or young, or such as have intercourse with |
art, nature or God only. don't fancy We de- |
mean ourselves to it ever"
Both law and custom grant men au-
thority over women. The bride passes |
from the parental control into the control |
of her husband, and, if she live TO be a |
widow, into that of her son
Our girls know theoretically before mar |
rage that they must be subservient TO |
their husbands as German wives, and that |
most OF the obstacles TO happiness lie Ia 1
the path of wifely Independence The gen /
tie foot path Of submission is free from him /
ORANGES -Baroness Won " edel IN CosIno-
poIitan-