The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1901-04-06
MIDDLE-AGED HEROINES
LAZY MODERN BACHELORS LOOK TO
MATRIMoNY FOR COMFORT.

/ Iney were quick to see that the youns
girls love affairs make very seeon
dairy appeal to audiences, who follow
with absorbed attention the coque..
fish wiles of the mature widow or the
woes of a divorce past her 4Oth year
1t now remains for the novelist tc
catch the drift Of public sentiment and
deny Miss Jane Austen's assertion
that no woman after passing the age
of "a could inspire true romantic love
In the masculine heart.
In real life so years ago men did not
court nor love nor marry elderly wom-
en-, save in sufficient number Of excep-
tons to prove the rule. The young girl
used to be the social power. Today
her most dangerous and most numer-
GUS rivals in the field of Irritation and
matrimony are women over IS. A girl
used to be passe at 81; today at Al she
enjoys almost as excellent chances of
wedding well as does her sister of is.
! At 81 one perhaps has the right to
place spinster or widow on the list
of the has-beens, and yet statistics can
be quoted to prove how the percent
of women married after passing the
5Oth mile post Is steadily on the in
crease.
Let one look over his or her own ex-
tended acquaintance to realize the
truth of this statement. On all sides,
from the noted second marriage Of
Lady Randolph Churchill to the latest
surprise engagement in ones own cir
Gle OF friends, the elderly woman is
taking to herself husband Some
times, as in the case of Lady Randolph
and Adelina Patti, and more recently
in the engagement of Mrs. Van Rens-
selaer Cruger, the man is a quarter of
century younger than his bride-a
disparity of years that seems merely
to intensity his loverlike ardor.
Her hair is apt to be gray, her COM
plexion bit faded; she makes no con-
cealment of her wrinkles, and her ma
tronly outlines are not strapped into
cruel stays, nor are rouge and hair
dye called to the rescue of her depart
ing youth. She is not even sensitive
about the number of her birthdays. and
to the eye of the most partial she is a
woman from whom the middle age
spread, dryness and bleach has taken
the sap, bloom and tenderness of her
long-ago young girlhood. Neverthe-
less she is loved; not for her money,
for often she has not a cent; neither
is it for her beauty, because that is
either gone or sadly blighted Even
the witchcraft of coquetry is dulled or
dead. She is loved ardently, steadily
and truly by the man between 25 and
SO, for herself alone. She inspires the
sort of passion that woman may
gladly reciprocate and take vast credit
in arousing. When she marries her
youthful or middle-aged husband he
adores her, and the young girl the
while looks on in blank envy and dis
may. She sees the young man defying
tradition, his family, and often his own
best worldly interest in order to win
and wear this passe, fat, grizzly-head-
ed lady of his choice, and once mar
ried to her he hangs over her with
fond, foolish infatuation The modern
Dora Spenlow is to him a tasteless, |
cloying, silly sweet. To her arts and |
wiles he is equally cold, while to his
aged charmer he pours out his very |
soul.
A hundred years ago this young man
would have been pronounced be-
and his elderly wife would
probably have been taken to the near
est millpond and forced to explain her
self. Today there is simply the state
Of society to blame or praise, as one
may regard the situation.
Wherefore, indeed, has the woman
air, fat and 40 come to dominate the
stage, the authors brain and steal the
hearts of men? In a great measure,
Ind naturally, because the modern man
prefers as a wife the woman who
lnows her world. Fifty years ago, and
Jack of that, when the man married
'oung he took wife who was his jun
or, and they found out about life and
is ways together. She kept house and
ooked after the babies, and he was
er providence, her guide and her de- l.
ender. Distinctly, he married a help
1eet; he was the pioneer, and she
yalked in his footsteps
Today men do not want to marry
orking partners, but companions. The
verage man waits until he has made
is money, has had his fight with the
-orld alone, and, having lived as an
dependent bachelor, has a dominant
earning for comfort. The modern
ian is both lazy and selfish when it
)mes to wedding. He desires the Joys
nd shirks the responsibilities of mat ,
mony, and this is where he turns to :
lie mddle-aged woman. She has lived ,
ing enough in the world to know its Z
and to learn it's philoso- /
ny. She is not easily jealous, is not +
hlmslcal and is never exacting. She G
rs found out great deal about men s
Id knows what renders them happy: $
lie does not talk servants, run lid a
lis, quarrel with her husbands 1
other, nor insist upon being consid- Ii
ed and entertained every moment.
lie keeps house like veteran, she be- c
ives that little absences make the D
art grow fonder, and does not, there e
re, forbid her husbands annual Il
ooting or fishing trip with his mas t
line friends. h
These reasons, however cogent as s.
ey undoubtedly are, do not fully ex- u
ain why the middle-aged woman has o
ken the young girls place at the al p
and fireside. The underlying cause {,
n be found in the young women %
emselves. Their education, their am -
lions and their opportunities hsing ~
fth, at the manageable ages IS -
q 70, hysterical, self-conceited cold IL