St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-11-02
WIFE AS BUSINESS HEAD.

, when the Husband Fails ~ Einsa'
cieI It II Tine for Her to
Take Hold.
u; The partnership of marriage 10 Otter
failure because the husband does NOT
succeed in business.
II It is real failure, although perhaps
not always q dismal failure. The af-
lection stays, all the obligations are
met and there may continue loving
serenity. Nevertheless the ghost OF
failure is shut up with the two people
who are bound together and who never
dream of ceasing to love. For when
hopes are declining because the prom
Use of youth has not met its opportuni.
ty, or because misfit seems to clOthe
every endeavor, two ambitious part
ners in marriage cannot be thorough
~ happy, writes Francis Bellamy, in
the Philadelphia Saturday Evening
Post.
The young man makes his great es-
say in life; the young woman who has
tied her faith to him looks on, encour-
ages and spurs. But she can do little
more than that.
If she sees him constantly gaining
ground, then qualification and COM
placency are at the bottom of her con-
sciousness, and ease of life keeps her
face charming. It is not because he is
able to give her more things, though
such things may be one-fourth OF life,
but because he brings true her dreams
of achievement, because he opens the
door of life wider and she shares his
sense of power.
But if affairs go the other way, Il the
man fails to grasp here and to COM
bine there, or if his all-to-gether can
not get its place, then begins for them
both, and for her in particular, an orr
deal of adjustment to less hopeful
outlook on the future. Here is dead
ening of hopes, dying Of longings,
which is written on the faces Of null
titudes of women who smile and yet
cannot smile it OF.
The pathos Of this situation raises
practical question.
Is the situation unalterable? II the
man, for reasons beyond help, Aails
habitually in his undertakings, Is there
any harm to love or to loyalty for the
woman to acknowledge the fact openly
and early to herself? From such an
honest admission she can take . new
view Of their united fortunes.
What can she do? The chances are
even that she may have in herself that
latent talent for succeeding which her
husband lacks. In other words. the
family should be exploited for success,
IS business firm would be amid sim.
liar circumstances. In business con-
Germ the member comes to the front
who by native force can make the hnsi-
ness fourishing.
The woman sometimes Is this effect
ual member Of the matrimonial firm.
It is lucky II she finds II out in time
and determines to take up the problem
nationally as her own, undeterred by
false pride or By foolish fondness.
But wife usually waits too hing
before she acknowledges the probable
ity OF her husbands eventual failure.
She waits until her own day for lsinR
things is past, or until she Is called
upon to do, but is not able to do. the
creative kind of work which she might
have done five or ten years earlier,
sentimentality for a vanished expects
lion has narrowed her idea of herself.
She has let Encouragement eat ont her
aeart-that essence of encouragement
which is distilled through another's
oss Of spirit.
How much simpler It would have been
lad she shifted the responsibility OF
'reative work to her own shoulders %
'oon as there was reason to suspect
hat she was fitted to bear 1t the bet
er and more lightly Of the two. A eer-
ain pride unquestionably would have
but the family might have
'een business success; her own place
n the world might have been saved;
nd the children might have had their
ightful chance.