The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-06
WOMAN'S
WORLD.

Marriages for love are the only true
maria ges, the only ones, in fact, that
should be tolerated by society. If there
were none but love matches there would
be practically an end of immortality and
an end to divorce.
How can we expect marriage to be a
successful institution when nine-tenths Of
the marriages are made for any reason
under the sun except the true ones-love
and affection and attraction and respect
for each other?
Men marry rich wives because women
are so extravegant they know they can't
support them. Women look for rich hus-
bands because. they want to be society
queens. And women are entirely to blame.
80 long as women continue to be para
sites upon men, so long win immortality
be rampant in the land.
Let every girl, no matter what her eta-
ton, learn some means of earning her
own livelihood. Let her be Independent,
and with that independence will come the
resolution that she viii marry no man
but him for whom she feels the strange
impelling attraction we call love. Give
us a race of splendid clear-eyed self
reliant girls. and we will have no society
scandals. And We will never have such
a race until women are industrially indie
pendent.
1T was, I believe, Harriet Martineau
who said: No woman can give her hand
with honor, nor her heart with loyalty,
until she has learned to stand alone.
And how proud man should be of
such a creature for mattel How much
more sure of his family honors In her
hands than In those of one of the fash
ioDable fools who has an empty head and
a bit Of granite for a heartl With the in
dependence of women will come a magnia-
cent new race that would surprise the
dreams of this jaded age.
Every man should look for his ideal
in choosing q wife. II Is foolish to say
we never meet our ideals. We do, but
onr ideals change, as we broaden by ex-
perience. Men should marry the women
who come nearest their ideals of mental
and physical perfection, provided those
women draw them by the great, mystic
rious attraction thar Is to the world Of
affections what the law of gravity is to
the earth. II he meets woman whom
he thinks is this ideal. and he finds some
one else who is pulling at his heart
strings he'd better marry the second
woman. for she is his ideal, after all,
Whetner ne Knows II or not.
VERY few people choosing husband
or wife look for an ideal. If the garment
doesn't suit. they cast it aside. The prev
alence of divorce is due to women. l am
perfectly willing to admit it. The states
where divorces are easily procured are to
them what Canada was 10 slaves during
the war. Women want laws which will
release them from the man who deserts
them. who abuses or neglects them, who
drinks or fails to support them. Women
will not live in the relations of fifty
years ago. That proves that they are
more virtuous and more independent.
But there is room for improvement
Even now husband and wife have the
commercial and industrial relation of
master and slave. Until she Is quite as
able to earn her living as he Is to earn
1t for her, there will be the ratio of ninety
unhappy to ten happy marriags.
when marriage Is raised to the state
of a perfect chumship between men and
women who are recognized by law and So
ciety as equals we will have none but
happy marriages.
Give women chance to work Is neces-
eary until the right man comes. He al
ways does come, but sometimes he comes
when his affinity has married another.
What wonder that after those two meet
there should be another contribution to
scandal, or at least divorce.
Give the girl the right to marry the
man of her choice. There win then he no
more divorce. For all men and women
are created pure in heart 1t is man
made laws and customs that have made
them otherwise"
Every now and then, says the New Or
leans Picayune. somebody raises des-
pairing wall that the art of letter writing
Is a lost art In these degenerate days The
higher education for neither boys or girls
and the dear delicious letters of our fore
fathers and mothers. elegant In chirog-
raphy, graceful and flowing in diction, are
as completely a matter of the past as
powder and patches, and nee-breeches
From having been an accomplishment
practiced for pleasure, letter-writing has
become a drudgery to which most OF us
are only driven by the prick of conscience
and the lash of duty.
Many things consplre to this end. The
rush of modern life for one thing For an
other, the certainty that every subject,
except the most intimate personal details,
Will have been threshed over in the
newspapers long before letter can reach
its destination. About all. perhaps the
veiy ordinary, commonplace reason that
we are out of the habit of writing letters,
and have forgotten how If we ever knew.
This is particularly true of men, who
have once accustomed themselves TO the
q
find II an almost uncomfortable bore to fol-
low st. PauPs example and write a letter
with their own hands, The absent wife
who gets a long letter In his own hand
writing from her husband in these days
instead of few dictated excuses for not
writing, may well feel that ID is a triumph
of affection over inclination that is worth
treasuring. y
However much one may depore the
failing off in literary merit and the gen
eral decadence In letter writing there is
al least one bit of silver lining 10 the
cloud. The disinelnatlon to put pen 10
paper saves us from the letters that we
should regret If we had written them.
Probably there Is no one who has rot
been tempted in some gust OF temper or
the first hot moments Of offense. to sit
right down and wtite an angry letter.
Sometimes we do it, and the bitter and
cruel words stand an everlasting witness
against us. The angry words that are
spoken In a measure pass in one ear
and out at the other, as the homely old
phrase has It, but the written words are
engraved on the memories, and We never