The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-11-27
YOUNG HUSBANDS TROUBLE.
SOME.

dorothy Dix in Chicago American.)
The mania among literary women for
marrying men younger than themselves
that at first was thought to be merely
a freak, appears to be becoming a con-
firmed habit Lady Randolph Churchill,
Mrs. Frances HOdgsOn Burnett and
Mrs. LangtTy have done it. Miss Will
kins and Mrs. CTugeT threaten to do
it, Strictly speaking, it is, of course, a
personal popularity A woman of 40
and over may be presumed to know
her own mind. If she elects to marry
a boy and raise up husband in the
way she wants him to go, it is her own
affair
Granting the right of every one to in
dulge her own taste in matrimOny-nO
matter how bizarre-stiIl, a woman
wedding a man much her junior is al
ways a spectacle of such rash and
reckless daring it is bound to challenge
the attention Of the thoughtful.
To begin with, it is much easier, as
every woman knows, to catch a hus-
/ band than it is to hold him after you
get him There are animals you can
never be sure you have thoroughly do
mesticated until after they are dead.
Men belong to this genus.
Besides, there are few twO-handed
games that are continuously exciting.
/ Even the woman who holds the trump
cards of youth and beauty does not
always win out. What, then, must be
! the difficulties of the situation when,
/ with the clear second sight that comes
/ after marriage, the youthful bride
groom peTceives that he Ia a let him
self in for an existence with no more
| thrills TO it than playing criobage with
his mOther2
Then there is the burden OF perpetual
youth which the woman must assume.
The privilege of growing old, with all
/ it's perquiSites, is one we do not suf-
fciently appreciate. From this blessing
the mature woman with a young hus-
band is forever debar red. She must al
ways be engaged in a frantic effort to
[ be young, or, if she can't be young to
4 be as young as she can. Every new
wrinkle is a calamity; every gray hair
a catastrophe; every additional inch of
/ belt measure is a tragedy.
/ She can never hope to enjoy that lux
/ UriOus Indian Summer of life when d
/ woman lets out her stays, smashes her
! peroxide bottles, pitches her rouge pot
/ in the fire and .abandOns herself tC be
/ ing frankly middle aged, and no better
/ looking than God made her.
For her romance the elderly bride is
! condemned to be d feminine Ponce de
/ Leon, forever searching for the foun-
/ tain of eternal youth. Her path leads
/ by way of the corset-maker the dietist
/ the complexion specialist and the mas
I sageUr. What she endures at their
( hands viii never be told. Men have
I been martyTed and canOniZed as saints
! for less Sufferings, less heTOically en-
} dUred.
/ The young husband must also be
( amused. There is the awful alteTnat tive
/ of turning him over to the tender mercy
/ of a pretty girl of his own age, or OF
! the elderly wife tTeading the measure
{ of his amusements with him. Alas. after
} 40 we are no longer so young as we
: were We don't take the same interest
( in views from high points that we die
/ when we had less avoirdupois and more
/ breath. We see more rheumatism thar
/ romance in fOggy nights on the water
/ We begin to realize that the Orientals
| know when they are about when they
! hire other people to do their dancing
/ for them.
/ Dare she give in to her natural yearn
ings for a comfortable rocking chair
I and the forty winks to which her age
. entities her? Never. She must trip the
/ twO-step, despite twinges of incipien
govt. She must be gay, giddy snC
girlish at whatever cost. She must keeI
( him interested and amused, and enter
/ tanning youth is the hardest and leas
| remuneTative work ever undertaken by
d sobe- adult of sound mind
None of us is insensible to the charms
/ OF youth. It is, perhaps, only natura
| that q lady novelist who has sDen
many years depicting heroes who wer,
/ young. handsome and gallant, SHOULD
/ at last desire to possess a real live
| specimen herself butSwhile we admire
! the intrepid spirit it shows. we can bu
/ deplore the judgment that prompts he