St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-02-05
Divorce a Mean, Cowardly
Way Of Running From
Difficulties.
Our Husbands and Wives Live
Too Much in Different
Worlds.
Americans Who Owed Much
Of Their Success to Their
Wives.

you would suppose the word wife must
mean about the same thing the world
over. An American girl always APP
proacheS marriage with certain sense
of claiming her rights. She may not
wronged, or likely to be wronged,
but she puts herself instinctively
in fencing attitude; and her first
quarrel will probably be to show that
nobody can lord it over her. This sehtl
ment is caught in the schools, especially
in girls schools; and while it is aSso-
ciated with very proper sense of free
dom, it can also do great deal of mis-
chief. The English wife makes no
claim to know anything about her hus
bands affairs; the American girl eX-
poets to be taken Ill full
confidence, and in this | be-
know, and she ought to share the con-
sequences of knowing. But, so far as |
can observe, American wives have not
yet come to conviction that they are to
share in the responsibilities OF home
building. They recognize certain
amount Of duty ABOUT a house; but II
bankruptcy occurs not one woman in
a hundred feels any responsibility as to
the occurrence, OF to the debtors: she
simply intends to hold to all the
fragments that she can under the
law. In other words. and all around,
the American wife does not GO into
the partnership with full surrender of
herself. Divorces are one to every ten
marriages; and she has a half-fOrlned
or quarterformed sentiment that she
may some day escape the wedding bond
If she finds it diSagreeable. Of course
this reserve of the fuilnesS of the gift.
this not quite contaminated union, leads
directly to mischief. 1t is likely to breed
quarrelS, if not divorce. AS a rule, I'VE
may set it down that divorced woman
is husk without soul. Oh, yes,
there are exceptions, but not many.
Our true hope for ourselves is to
enter into an honest, full mar
riage; not to love only, but
to do our duty. You cannot crawl out.
of the wreck Of shattered home fit to
begin the experiment of building an
other. There has been vastly too much
emphasis placed on divorce. it is gen.
orally mean, cowardly way of running
away from difficulties rather than fac
ing them and conquering. Our educa-
ton needs a new element to impress
on girls the need of wise selection of
husbands and the necessity of conquest
of life work and life difficulties as well
as men. There are three applications
for divorce from women to one from
man. This does not represent the rela-
tive purity and dutifulpess of the
sexes; it represents the relative
readiness of the sexes to run
away from burdens. | expect to
be taken to task for this assertion.
But believe the chief difficulty with
marriage is not the tyranny and brutal
ity, nor the lust of men; that is bad
enough. but even worse is the unpre-
pared state OF the minds of American
girls to wholly give themselves to the
duties of home building. [ ask only
that the woman shall do this as unre-
Servedly as the man. The really mar
ried American woman makes as near
model wife as the world can show. |
think the French wives of the middle
class are on the whole the best product
of Christian marriage.
Then have an idea that husbands
and wives live too much in different
worlds. This is not so with English
people, and especially not so with Ger
man and French. There the wife at
least understands on pinch how to do
her husbands work. 1 do not know one
wife in twenty who can harness or I'M
harness horse OR milk a COW; most of
them consider it a shame to do so. When
| was first married | had, on occasion,
to drive horse home, and either leave
it all night in harness or undo the
harness myself. John told me next
day that | had pulled the harness into
pieces-had unDuckled every buckle but
the right ones, etc. L felt veXed, and
resolved to learn the art, and | have.
fancy can put on and take off horses
jacket as neatly as L can do it for Ned.
But. of course, Ned is almost always
my horse boy, ready to harness and to
drive for me. Only will you tell me
why farmers wife should not be able
to milk COW, or a groceryman'S wife to
take his place for day, and sell and
keep books? | have watched the effect
of this full co-oUeratiOn, and it works
admirably. | know a Welsh merchant
who keeps a corner grocery and fruit
store, and the next door is his wite's
millinery store. She keeps the books,
band pushes all moneys and &C
counts through the glass Win
dows between the two stores. The
Englishman would not agree to
this; he and his wife work together in
all but money matters. Cash and ac-
counts lie holds to be sublime affairs
QIite beyond the comprehension of the
female sex. Another friend of mine is
a commission merchant, and is working
on small capital, but his wife takes the
place of clerk, and so they make the
years pull through. always gaming
little.
Do mean to say that it is the duty of
an American wife to milk cows and run
l-F,f ll-s,
hay? Then another class shouts quite
as loudly to know if l think a man has
a right to marry woman and turn her
into a cook or a servant. My dear
darlngS! it is all in a nutshell; you
have just as much right TO take right
hold. according to your circumstances,
and make ends meet as your husband
has. He has no more right to make a
drudge of you than you have to make a
drudge of him. But it so happens in
this life of ours that very few of US es-
cape doing, or having an obligation to
do, great deal of work, and some or it
is not pleasant. l conceive tue real
American wife is the one who cheer
fully turns a duty into pleasure.
1t is not in the nature of things
that most of husbands can support wives
without work. | am sorry to believe
that we are not growing in our respect
and honor for work. The old-style New
England woman had as hard lot as
any one ever had; but she honored it,
Now believe with W. T. Harris that
we have to do less work than formerly,
and machinery is still going to
lessen it, Tor both man and woman,
in the future. We need not "be slaves"
but we shall never be able to live
soundly and womanly without earn
ing our bread. Perhaps my ideal is best
expressed in that word cooperation; a
family should be fully cooperative
body. Don't think you are rising above
your level by showing signs of idleness,
and freedom from toll and care; or that
you are lowering yourself by any possl-
bic work. like 10 make hay. We only
demean ourselves by being ashamed Of
work.
The American wife is always amb- !
tious: this must be set down for Ger
tainty by the man who marrieS her. She |