The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1897-10-24

SECRET MARITAL SORROWS
The world may well begin to temper
It's condemnation OF women who leave
their husbands If many more exposures
are made such as those In the Langtry
and Chanier families. The two cases
are very similar. and only differ very
slightly In the tragic ending. Lily
Langtry is not an intellectual woman
OF the Riyes order, but she was very
pretty woman, has always been an
ambitious woman and has proved to be
a very capable woman. Amelie Riyes
has not fulfilled the promise OF her
early womanhood in literary accom-
plishment, but she has manifested an
ability which set her name in blazing
letters amid the galaxy OF her con-
temporaries.
Both women married apparently ex-
cellent men of ample means, but OF
very ordinary caliber. Both marriages
terminated within a short time, and in
each case the woman bravely kept her
seeret--if she had one-in spite OF
shocking scandal.
Whether these women suffered from
a secret grievance can only be deter
mined when 1t is known whether the
separation was the cause OF the in
sanity on the part of the husband, or
the insanity the cause Of the separa-
tion. The probability is that the poor
disorganized brain was at no time per-
fectly sound, and the preliminary rat
Ting and ungearing, by its eccentric
manifestations, frightened and perhaps
shocked the wives who did not suspect,
but suffered from the irrational con-
duct of their husbands. 1t can we'll
be imagined that companionship with
a man whose mind was beginning to
fail might be fraught with all the ter
rors of nightmare. The English have
a vernacular expression appropriate to
mental disarrangement that there Is
a screw loose somewhere" and so these
bright women may have been secretly
terrified by occasional Jars and incon-
ceiyable actions due to the loosening of
the invisible screw in the mental ma
chinery.
Men rarely go insane from disap-
pointed love Their insanity may
manifest itself in illogical passion, like
that OF the eloper with another mans
wife who soon afterward committed
suicide, or in Incorporate infatuation
like that of the once brilliant senator
from Florida: but the germs OF the dis
ease were no doubt there. and the fruit
they bore was an inordinate craze for
one object. The mental condition
which produces these results has many,
and some very repulsive, british
forms: but 1t is not always of the char
acter best known TO students OF eroto-
mania. Ii can be very sentimental
and very silly, without being offensive;
Ii is sometimes rs contradictory as
puerperd mania, which turns love to
hatred and normal affection into vio-
lent antipathy.
Many patient women have marveled
In silent sorrow at the unaccountable
peryersities of their husbands, break
ing out with apparently no cause, and
subsiding with no remorse or ap-
parent consciousness on the mans
part Of a lapse from his usual good
| humor and affection. Temper will not
always account for It; il Is too IRA
tional. too spasmodic, TOO unresponsive
to affectionate submission to be at
tributable 10 temper. The solution
is perhaps. 20 be found In the illustra-
tons afforded by the unhappy matri-
| monlal experiences OF Amelle Rives and
Lily Lantry. But for the too violent
! manifestation OF insanity, these women
might have gone 10 their graves silent
| iy bearing an odium they could not
| shake OF. for the truth had not even
| been suspected by the world. and might
| even have been unknown TO them
| selves. Justice 10 them should not.
| however. leap 10 an opposite extreme,
| aad With msudlin sympathy find such
| ar excuse for every disl0yal woman.
There is a warning. nevertheless. never
/ 20 Re too harsh where the truth cannot
be positively known.
/