The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-12-02
WOMEN AND DRESS.
How Clothes Can Conduce to Perfect Con-
jugal Harmony.


Husbands are continually censured
for spending so little time under their
own roof. The censure is often de-
served and often it is not. Before ad-
ministering censure rigorous justice
might demand whether the recreant
husbands. if they stayed under their
own roof. would have companionship;
whether their wives, being the vassals
of vestments. are not generally abroad
on dress parade The woman who
dresses for women must expect her hus-
band to seek other society, II he cares
for any. Her absorption in finery
liinders her from granting him much
of hers If she has grown weary of
him she looks for refreshment in new
garniture. and he for consolation in
clubs and their consequences.
Myriads of connubial pairs live with
out connu biality, because the wives
have ceased to bedeck themselves for
their consorts, who resent this as
kind of Inconsistency and repay it with
their own manner. When a woman
dons her clothes for outside ap-
probation, when she no longer
thinks of her husbands edmira-
.tion of them, he has become q
subordinate object of her regard. She
is Indifferent in other things. and in
difference in matrimony is more to be
feared than misunderstanding or ran
cor These seldom last, and indifer-
ence is selom healed.
Conjugal accord may to an extent be
measured by the woman's apparel and
it's relation to the main issue. So long
as she desires to show everything to
her husband. to elicit his approval of
the smallest trife, all goes well. Her
childlike. ingenious. pellucid vanity
about what she wears, her repeated
appeals for his admiration, her dis
closures of her secret self in their
precious privacy are charming, even to
the most world-weary man. But
when she puts on her trappings in
silence, and appears, after the last
touch, in all her paraphernalia, say
ing, ''I am ready" and descends.
voiceless, to the carriage, the signs are
portentous; calamity is in the air.
The storm may break and clear, but it
is bound to come, and the sooner per-
haps the better.
What grave questions, social, funda-
mental, moral, are bound up in wom-
ans clothes! 1t may be that she does
not and can not attach over-importance
to them; but the over-importance is in
the wrong direction. They frequently
have significance she does not appre-
hend-an influence she can not fore
cast. Trivial as they seem, they may
assume momentous shape, and conduce
to momentous results. If the inward
history OF all the unfortunate mar
riages of the day could be written. it
would be seen that the first discords Of
many were spawned in clothes.
Happily, large number of women
are saved by their circumstances, their
good sense, their temperament, from
the vicious and common habit of dress
ing for their own sex. But even they,
should they carry their proclivities too
far, should they not be guarded against
their inborn tendency. might arrive at
i'll. As a rule a woman is best dressed
when she looks best in the eyes of him
who loves her. And then, surely. she
has no thought of arousing envy in any
Of her sisterhood. Clothes are safe
enough while they are means. net an
| end, while they are entirely ubjsct to
| the wearer: Otherwise they are full of
peril.-Worthington's Magazine.