The record-union., 1896-04-12
DISCONTINUED WOMEN.
How Many Married Women Make Their
Lives Miserable.
Consolation That May be Found bv
Them in Attending to the
Duties of the Home.
Special Correspondence of Record-union,

PORTLAND (Or.), April 9-Mrs.
Amelia E. Barr, the novelist, writ
ing in the North American Re-
view.' has this to say of discontented
women: Discomfort Is vice 5000
years old, and it will be eternal because
it is in the race. Every human being
has a complaining side. but discomfort
is bound up in the heart of woman. 1t
is her original sin, for If the first
woman had been satisfied with her
conditions, if she had not aspired to be
as gods" and hankered after unlawful
knowledge, Satan would hardly have
thought it worth his while to discuss
her rights and wrongs with her. Thatun-
happy controversy has never ceased,
and with or without reason, woman has
been perpetually subjected to discomfort
with her conditions, and according to
her nature has been moved by its influ-
ence. Some it has made peevish, some
plaintive some ambitious. some reck-
less, while a noble majority have found
in its very control that serene COM
posure and cheerfulness which is grant
ed to those who conquer rather than to
those who inherit
Another woman writer thinks discon-
tent is "a certain kind of inherited dis
ease brought about through long ages
or abuse and misunderstanding.
In the dark ages women We're treated
as worse than slaves. owing to what
men called their physical weakness and
mental inferiority. Happily for woman
kind this barbaric state of things was
practiced only in few Old World ma
tions and in mediaeval times but it has
laf itc N an n Hay
in the spirit of discomfort which hangs
over them. l do not question the mo-
tive of discomfort, but 1 cannot help
but deplore the necessity for it. That
II is an impotent factor among mar
ried women, rather than among her un-
married sisters, is a lamentable fact
It's the little things that worry
women; fret them into premature old
age and early graves. It's because
their lives are SO necessarily restricted;
because they cannot rise superior to the
housekeeping trials, tc the sickness of
their children and the moods of their
husbands. There are women who con-
slider housekeeping inferior and de-
grading; who consider themselves
abused and injured because they have
to tell their hired girl what to have for
breakfast, lunch and dinner; they never
stop to consider while they are fretting
over a few petty household trials their
husbands are down town toiling, in
nine cases out of ten. at some uncon-
genial labor of which he never COM
plains, for the money to support the
wife, who sits at home dabbling in
paints, or wasting pen, ink and paper
over some inane literary production
evolved from the innermost depths of
her silly, discontented little brain.
1t is love that should sweeten house
work and make the wheels of the do
mestic machinery move smoothly. If
love isn't there the inevitable result will
be constant grumbling, pickering and
discomfort. There are various kinds of
discontented women. There is the dis
contented woman who walls perpetually
that her husband doesn't love her any
more, and she is being most shamefully
neglected, and why? Simply because
her husband doesn't caress her as often
as he did in the days of his courtship,
and assure her with every breath he
draws that he loves her as much as
ever. A good, true wife doesn't need
any such perpetual demonstration. If
woman wants to thoroughly disgust
her husband, let her appear before him
in state little short of Niobic and Gre
ate scene in which false, unjust ac-
cusations play prominent part. The
other extreme to this picture is the
woman who lives with her husband in
FOOLS paradise, forgetful of the fact
that men dislike the one extreme as
much as the other.
Then there is the extravagant wife
who nearly drives her husband into
bankruptcy by her willful expenditure.
This woman has no higher aim than to
lead in society, to outyie her neighbors
in the CoStliness of her apparel, the
splendor of her jewels, and the impress
s!venesS of her house. She neglects her
hCme, forgets her husband, and turns
her children over to the tender mercies
of hired menials But the worst type
of discontented women is the religious
fanatic who leaves her family and home
to preach the gospel to an unappre-
ciated world. One need not go beyond
the limitations of their own household
TO find good fields for missionary work.
Talk of bad husbands and divorces.
The only wonder is that there are not
more of them. Divorces are pretty
good things sometimes; if there were
more divorces there would be fewer
murders; if there were more divorces
the dreadful triple murder which took
place in San Francisco, when a mother
deliberately took the lives of her three
little children and her own for some
grievance, real or fancied, she had
against her husband, would not have
taken place. If there were more di-
vorces the woman who now lies in a
precarious condition at the County
Jail would not be there for numbering
her husband. Every day the commu-
nifty would not be shocked and sur
prIsed at some terrible deed of violence
committed by some discontented wife
or mother.
l want to say to discontented women
that they ought to find a consolation
in their homes and in the love for hus-
band and children. Try and rise supe-
rior to the vague doubts, the petty
Jealousies, and the unjust suspicious
which beset your pathway. Accept
your lot in life cheerfully, uncom-
piainingly, and be assured that comfort
and peace will come to you in due time
BESELENA.
The white of the eye showing beneath
ri ic n pdioo two Of rohi1itv nf char