The Savannah morning news., 1902-04-06

very names the footlight lady disdains.
The whole transaction has an appear
arce of unreality and vulgarity that Is
disgusting.
Children are guardians of the home.
Where there are few or no children in
the family there are many lurking dan
gers. These dangers are more fire.
quent among the rich than the poor.
A church in New York attended by
many people of wealth undertook to
have a Sunday-school for the children
of these persons, because there was
some objection made to regular Sun
day school on the ground that it was
filled with poor children from the tene-
ments. But ii was discovered that
there were in the whole parish only
twenty-nine children Of SNnday-school
age from homes of wealth and five OF
these were in one family. Family life
suffers intellectually from limitation Of
its numbers. The maternal instinct
even in wife who believes she lacks
it, is a restless force that leads to
many dangerous quests and is often
responsible for conjugal alienation.
But not only is the natural hunger
Of womans nature satisfied by chill
dren. In taking care Of them she has
a soothing and engrossing occupation if
she will be truly mother. Moreover
when strain comes between husband
and herself she Is strong in the
strength of her children. Their COM
partnership and their inspiration help
her to stand firm and to be patient and
without authority or love to do what
she considers her duty.
Limiting the Family.
1.-THE limitation of the family is
question too serious for more than
passing reference. There is. however,
one cause of it among women of fash
ion that is deplorable. Vanity often
prevents a woman from wanting chill
dren. She cannot go about freely if
she is to become a mother, nor can
she wear shapely clothes for a couple
of years at time.
Another infelicity of, married life
that leads to divorce is inequality of
age. This is a more subtle and pow
erful dissolvent than is usually be-
lieved. Shakesapeare's seven ages of
man have always been taken f1gura-
lively. believe they are realities, al
most as distinct as geological periods.
There are physical, mental, moral and
general temperamental differences
that build Chinese walls around chill
hood. youth, middle life, and old age,
A sympathy sufficient for marriage is
rare with great difference in age.
"'Crabbed age and youth cannot live
together
WOMEN of the upper classes have
too much leisure, and often their hus-
bands have too much business. In
New York a date is sometimes as
signed to new social phases favorable
to divorce. There was a time, a score
of years ago, when new fortunes had
freed the sons of their possessors from
the need of going into business and
left uptown all day gilded youth with
time and money on their hands looking
for amusement. The idle young man
naturally found diversion with the
equally idle young woman whose hus-
band had to go to his office.
"The influence of music upon women
of the upper classes have sometimes
thought to be very positive quantity
in describing their family relation. The
great art of to-day is music. There
is no city in the world where more
music can be heard than in New York.
Concerts, private musicales, the opera,
numberless daily opportunities are CIV
en- women of listening to this intensest
language of emotion. Afternoon after
afternoon audiences of women sit list
tening to popular singers. Love songs
are mostly what they hear. They are
continually under the influence of a
sentiment which, if it be true, is the
characteristic of youth, of passion, of
exceptional circumstances, and of I'M
attained longing. This sentiment. sung
ad nauseam, is not that feeling which
gives strength or permanence to mar
riage or honor and reverence to old
age. Yet these audiences are filed
with theory of love which they are
apt to exact from the busy men, their
husbands whom they find waiting for
them on their return home. Plato said: