The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-09-06
The Oracle Copes With Serious
Family Problem.
Explains the Gentle Art of
Managing Husbands.
CONE MAD AT A TIME. .
Should Be the Golden Motto for
Married Folks.
Gossip From the Shops for the
Shoppers.

The young matron who can not speak
two consecutive sentences without re-
ferring to her husband had just been
reading a newspaper story of golden
wedding. Now this is just my idea"
says, after fifty years of married life.
that the best way to manage husband
is to leave him alone and let him man.
age himself. I have no patience with
the women who marry with the notion
that husband is so much raw material
to be formed according to their fancies
and preferences. For my part couldn't
endure husband that could manage.
AT this the Oracle rose up from the
pile of sofa cushions under which she
was half buried, pushed the struggling
locks out of her eyes and taking an
other piece of fudge proceeded to cope
with a new problem. No. she said
promptly, what you mean is that you
couldn't endure husband whom you
could manage if he knew it. Every
wife wants to manage her husband and
all successful wives do, but they never
let their husbands find it out The gem
tie art of managing a husband is what
makes marriage satisfactory and a hus-
band endurable as necessary evil II
that woman you have been reading
about is as wise as she seems to be
what she probably meant was that
| every husband requires skillful and in
telligent management but that the best
way to do it is to let him think he's
managing himself. OF course, it would
never do for her to tell the reporter
that, as her husband would be the first
person to read the newspaper and the
slightest suspicion on his part that he
was not the general manager in his own
family would be sufficient to break up
the happiness of that home and undo
the work of fifty years of domestic
diplomacy
The young matron was looking at the
Oracle with an expression that seemed
to ask where she got her pointers, but
f1can al rlnTl of Hon n q nd
went on.
TT has always been wonder to me
| why women who have had fathers and
brothers and a lover or two to practice
on don't understand a mans nature
better and make a greater success of
! their marriages. For instance, every
girl who has been brought up with that
blessing in disguise, brother knows
| that he endured anything better than an
assumption of the dictatorial. No man
likes to be ordered about, and no wo-
man, either, for that matter, but wO-
men are more accustomed to being con-
trolled by others. man isn't used to
it and most of them don't propose to
cultivate the meek and lowly spirit that
results from such course Of training.
Yet many a woman who should know
better will make the mistake of trying
to command her husband Sometimes
this results from natural imperious-
ness of disposition but oftener it is
merely careless habit of speech and
manner. There are so many girls who
are never taught and never learn for
themselves the charm of invariable
courtesy. They would be shocked at
the suggestion that they are ill-bred
but they have a brusque, peremDtOry
manner with the members of their own
families which is far from pleasing and
which is often positively \ irritating.
Sometimes they don't even mean to be
overbearing, but they have gotten into
a habit of making what they really in
tend as requests very like orders and 1t
is no wonder that their husbands resent
it. A woman can get a man to do al
| most anything for her if she knows
how to approach him. This is such an
important matter that I wonder it isn't
taught in the girls schools. 1t is just
as useful andsnecessary to know as the
proper way to enter a room, shake
hands, hold up a skirt or write letter.
Another thing that a girl should
know by experience, whether she has
brothers or not, is the practical wisdom
of that old adage about it's taking two
to makes quarrel. There is no one thing
so encouraging to discord as meeting
Miniature with Miniature. If there Is
ever time woman should control her
temper 1t is when her husband loses
his. Men understand this so well that
you will notice man nearly always re-
mains good natured when his wife is out