The Somerset reporter., 1896-11-26
WIVES OF GERMANS.
AN AMERICAN GIRLS POSITION WHEN
SHE MHRRIEs A BARON.

How She Hns 10 Lcounmihe In the -, Of
Her Own Money IN Authority on the
Subject Write For thu Benefit of Young
Women In This Country.
Few questions have been put to me as
test to my forIgn experience oftcner
than the familiar: Ought American
girls tn marry German men? Are such
unions happy Do they turn out we'll.
What class Of m0n is it that step out
tide the beaten track Of home matri-
mony 10 seek American wives and
transplant them into the life of the fla.
therland@' writes Baroness Won Wedel
IN Cosmopolitan
In respect 10 the marriages Of Ameri-
can girls with German men, they may
be approved of safely i'll the cases of
practical. worldly minded women and
of very young or Of very gentle temper
ed girls. Wives who possess little senti-
ment or only soft sentiments yield read.
lily TO their environment, the latter Civ
ing way unconsciously, and hence with
out pain, the former with foresight and
with purpose selfish enough, as We
may assume, to reeompense them for
their renunciatious
As for the class of willful, silly, pre-.
tentious women, they are happy no
where German society should not be
called too harshly to account, therefore,
If they are wretched III marrying into
it. We must concede, if we are fair
minded, that they would have been just
as discontinued Ill any other geograph-
ical position as i'll the fatherland.
The inquiry begins with our average
girls. They represent American wives
whose happiness is influenced by the
specifically foreign traits i'll their hus-
bands and their husbands society and
surroundings. However they may vary
! i'll character, they are alike in their
Americanism, and it is republican prin-
ciples which are opposed i'll 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 hunt
ers and degenerated specimens of nohil-
ity. They are often men, IL is true, who
could not marry women without dow
ries for gentlemen on the continent, as
| it must be kept continually III mind
are excluded from the chances of max
ing money
Where cases Of dissipation of the
| great fortunes of American wives occur
and are duly reported, two or three
things are sometimes overlooked. The
first is that, if the eases We're not rare.
they would hardly be considered worth
offering to the public as shocking facts
/ The second is that the fortune evidently
was limited. The next may surprise us,
| for Wis Il truth that has not not been
realized by our home staying country
men-l 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 i'll
meaning, Is that young noblemen do
nothing unusual III being eXtravagant
If the consort of such a man brings
wealth enough for her to be luxurious,
too no objection To that is valid. But
the head Of the house is the member
who is the representative of his rank, to-
gether with the munifiCence that is suit
able to it, and where the mutual fortune
Is circumscribed it becomes the duty of
the wife to retrcnch her OUTLAWS i'll order
to allow him to continue representing
| their station without too much danger
of bankupting the family means. Ger.
man wives economic the more i'll pro
| portion as their husbands spend.
American born wives, on the contrary,
have drawn the reputation upon them
selves of being incapable of this sort Of
sacrifice.
| have learned to look for the real
tragedies among foreign marriages i'll
the silent cases. These women OF char
acter and ambition, united in fervid
temperament, keeping their post like
soldiers, are admirable wives often of
admirable men, yet they endure the con-
slant realization of the chosen places of
their thoughts being foreign to the ways
and thoughts of their husband and the
world about them. There are modern
women of strong and distinct lives
whose inner principles are supreme pro
tests against the system of living which
their marriages unkuoWiHgly drew them
into-eXlles from the sell, and, abose
all. the soil OF repubi"aLlsm
Both law and custom grant men au-
thorlty over women he bride passes
from the parental control into the con
troll OF her husband, and, il she live to
be widow, INTO that Of her son.