The herald., 1897-08-21
DESERTED HUSBANDS PROTEST
He Complains Against Being Left at
Home All Summer Alone

Home All Summer Alone
To the Editor: Is it right for wife tc
leave her husband for the summer
months to enjoy herself by the seaside
or among the mountains, while he tolls
to support her in the sun baked, noise
afflicted, dust infested city?
I should like to see that question agi-
tated and so, doubtless, would thousands
of other poor devils of husbands who in
these dog days, find themselves deprived
of the comforts of home and reduced to
condition of temporary bachelorhood
without the bachelors privileges.
Under certain easily defined circum-
stances l am willing to concede that it is
| quite right and proper for wife to flee
from the city for the summer months
while her husband continues to work in
the city. She is justified in doing it if
her health demands the change of scene
and air; she is justified in doing it if
she be Mrs. Moneybags, whose husband
can we'll afford to take life easy, but
hasn't sense enough to knock off work
and rest; but 1 maintain that she is not
justified in leaving her husband at the
season of the year when his work be-
comes most burdensome, merely that she
may add to her own pleasures That is
selfishnese pure and simple. and shows
lamentable disregard of the obligations
entailed by the marriage vows.
1t isn't merely the seeking of enjoy
ments in which he cannot share that
makes it reprehensible; it is the fact
that by so doing che makes the condi-
tions of life so much harder for him;
for man of domestic tastes, what is
home without wife but a more or less
luxurious prison cell, in which he is
condemned to endure solitary confine-
ment? And yet, year by year, the num-
ber of women who thus selfishly de-
sert their husbands when they most
stand in need of their ministering care
is steadily increasing. The summer re-
sort reports prove it. Day after day.
in the lists of new arrivals, one reads
the names of scores of married women
whose husbands are not with them,
because they have to stay in the city
and earn the money which their wives
are spending.
This wholesale summer exodus of
wives was unknown in our grandfath-
ers' time, and, thank heaven, our moth
ers stood by our fathers in the most
trying season of the year with much
more loyalty and devotion, as a rule,
than our wives exhibit toward us.
The truth is that the women of today
are more selfish than their mothers used
to be, because they have been spoiled by
too much flattery. The social atmos-
phere is surcharged with it. Every
newspaper has its woman's page, filled
with fusome adulation of the sex;
every city has its score or more of
clubs, where there is much eloquent
discussion of women's rights, but nc
consideration of women's duties. The
moral superiority of woman over man
is assumed by all women who conde-
scend to make comparisons between
the sexes, and the man who has the
temerity to dispute the assumption is
regarded a a brute, to argue with whom
would be like casting pearls before
swine
If have injected little more persona
feeling into this epistle than is consist
ent with philosophical discussion of g
momentous question, let the conditions
under which l write be remembered.
have just sent my wife $25 out of my
weekly stipend of S40 and have made 9
miserable failure of my attempt to pre-
pare my own supper on an oil stove after
my return home tagged out by hard
days work. And, somehow, the receipt
of letter from my wife, telling me what
a delightful time she is having in the
White mountains, has made me fee.
worse instead of better.
Summer always means three months
misery for me, barring my two weeks
vacation which l am able to spend with
my wife. She leaves me every year in
time to escape the ''horrid noise" of the
Fourth, and then the girl has to go also
for my means will not allow me to sup
port both.
My case is by no means an isolated one
l have legion of companions ip misery
| sometimes think that if we could al
| get together and form an association fol
the ventilation and remedying of oul
grievances we might get public opinion
be bear upon our wives in such a way as
would compel them to treat us a little
less selfishly during the summer months
One result would be fewer divorces, but
let somebody else take up that branch OF
the subject.-A Bachelor Husband. -
New York Herald.