The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1896-11-25
WIVES or GERMANS.
AN AMERICAN GIRLS POSITION WHEN
SHE MARRiES A BARON.

How She Has to Economic In the Use OF
Her Own Money-An Authority on the
Subject Writes For the benefit of Young
Women In This Country.
Few questions have been put to me rs
test to my foreign experience oftener
than the familiar: Ought American
girls to marry German men? Are such
unions happy? Do they turn out we'll?
What class of men is it that step out
side the beaten track of homo matri-
mony to seek American wives and
transplant them into the life Of the ia
therland?" writes Baroness Won Wedel
in Cosmopolitan.
In respect to the marriages Of Ameri-
can girls with German men, they may
be approved of safely in 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 herce with
out pain, the former with foresight and
with a purpose selfish enough, as we
may assume, to recompense them for
their renuuciations.
AS for the class of wiIlful, silly, pre-
tentious women, they are happy no.
where. German society should not be
called too harshly to account, therefore,
il they are wretohed in marrying into
il. We must ooncede, if we are fair
minded, that they would have been just
as discontinued i'll any other geogrnph-
ioal position as in the fatherland.
The inquiry begins with our average
girls They represent American wives
whose happiness is influenced by the
specifically foreign traits in their hus-
bands and their husbands society and
surroundings. However they may vary
in character, they are alike in their
Americanism, and it is republican prin-
ciples which are opposed in them to the
aristocrstic 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 nohii-
ity. They are often men, it is true, who
not marry women without dow
Ees for gentlemen on the continent, as
y must be kept continually in mind,
ARE excluded from the chances of MAX
n 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 cases were not rare,
they would hardly be considered worth
offering to the public IS shocking facts.
The second is that the fortune evidently
was limited. The next may surprise US,
for it is q truth that has not not beer
realized by our home stayieg country
men-I mean the act that foreigners
Jay the blame on the American wife.
Why, TIE Relatives ask, did she not bring
-=aore money into the connection?
What they mean, and what they feel
justified BY the usages of their class in
meaning, is that young nobIemon do
nothing unusual in being extravagant.
II 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 munifcence that is suit 4
able 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 continue representing
their station without too much danger
of bankrupting the family means. Ger
man wives economic the more in 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. 4
| have learned to look for the real
tragedies among foreign marriages in
the silent cases. These women Of char 4
acter and ambition, united in a 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 unknowingiy drew them |
into-exiles from the soil, and, above |
all, the soil of republicanism.
Both law and custom grant men au-
thority over women. The bride passes
from the parental control into the con-
troll Of her husband, and, if she live to |
be widow, into that of her son.
Our girls know theoretically before
marriage that they must be subseryient |
to their husbands as German wives and |
that the obstacles to happiness lie in
the path of wifely independence. The
gentle footpath of submission is free
from hiudrance
Philadelphia Chickens.
al -.