Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-06-03
WIVES OF GERMANS.
AN AMERICAN GIRLS POSITION WHEN
SHE MARRlES A BARON.

AIN f1iuGE1lSfIN NtnE = fOOl I0IN tvI1GIN
SHE MARRlES A BARON.
An Authority on the Subject Writes
Plainly for the Benefit of the Young
Women in This Country-German Wives
Have to Economic at Times.
Few questions have been put to me as
;est of my foreign experience oftener than
;he familiar: fought American girls to
marry German men? Are such unions
happy? Do they turn out well? What
class of men is it that step outside the
oeaten track of home matrimony to seek
American wives and transplant them into
The life of the fatherland?"
In respect to the marriages of American
Urls with German men, they may be APP
proved of safely in the cases of practical,
worldly minded women and of very young
II of very gentle tempered girls. Wives
Who possess little sentiment or only soft
sentiments yield readily to their environ
nent, the latter giving way unconsciously
md hence without pain; the former with
| foresight and with purpose selfish
.nough, as we may assume, to recompense
! hem for their renunciations.
AS for the class of wiRful, silly, preten-
| ;ious women, they are happy nowhere.
| German society should not be called too
larshly to account, therefore, if they are
| Xretched in marrying into it. We must
,oncede, if we are fair minded, that they
would have been just as discontinued in
| my other geographical position as in the
| ;atherland.
The inquiry begins with our average
girls They represent American wives
whose happiness is influenced by the spe-
;ifcally foreign traits in their husbands
ind their husbands society and surround
ngs. However they may vary in character
hey are alike in their Americanism, and
t is republican principles which are OPP
posed in them to the aristocratic education
If the men of their choice.
It is false prejudice to suppose that
;hese, or the titled gentlemen who take
American wives, are mere fortune hunters
md degenerated specimens of nobility.
They are often men, it is true, who could
aot 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
July reported, two or 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
June evidently was limited. The next may
surprise US, for 1T Is a truth that has not
been realized by our home staying country
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 connections
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 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 outlays in order to allow him to con-
tinue representing their station without
too much danger of bankrupting the fam
| ily 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.
I have learned to look for the real trag-
edies among foreign marriages in the 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 l recall as fair example
the heroine was an Ohio girl. She became
| the wife of nobleman in Posen.
One incident that glimmered 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
little nursery goyerness.
| The young Swiss girl was an orphan,
| sixteen years old, and ailing, when / 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 focks following him-what-
ever it was, the girl committed the fault
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 quarters 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 were 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: "We value this
| woman, you must know, for the simple
| reason that she has become infected with
| dignity through having had the honor of a
| long connection with u.s. AS for yaluing
persons who have had only brief inter
| course with us, who are orphans, helpless
or young, or such as have intercourse with
art ndpufe OF dOd only uon Iaucy we ue-
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
riage that they must be subseryient to
their husbands as German wives, and that
most Of the obstacles to happiness lie in
the path of wifely independence. The gen.
tie footpath of submission is free from hin,
ORANGES. Baroness Won Wedel in Cosmo-
politan.
How Peanuts Are Grown.
The peanut magnates grow the edible
tuber in Nansemond, Isle of Wight, Stlrry
and Southampton counties, but the com