The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1903-09-30
TO Prevent Unhappy Marrlaees---TwO
Sides to the Question.

on unhappy marriages as publish
ed in Wednesdays issue the
Times Democrat says: "She
states some plain facts and charm
ing fancies, and from plausible
premises draws conclusions that
are more or less wise-or other
Wise.o
Then after quoting this from
Dorothy, IF the time ever comes
when we grow wise enough to
marry people with the same re-
ligion and politics, and who like
the same kind of cooking we do,
the divorce courts will make an
assignment for lack of business, =
the Times Democrat proceeds:
Now this is remedy that is a
remedy. But how is a man to tell
beforehand what sort of a wife a
woman will makeg All women
are angels until. Well, this is
growing too definite, and we shall
only say that marriage sometimes
has the effect of obscuring the vis-
ion to such an extent that neither
the husband nor the wife can see
clearly the virtues in the other
which were so obvious and distinct
before marriage. Or, it may be
t h at proximity disillusionized
both, and they then see the de-
fects in disposition and character
which were not previously dis
cernible; just as one approaching
a range of mountains finds in the
landscape at first nothing but
smoothness and beauty an i'm
preston which is dispelled when
one gets near enough to note. the
ugly assures, the yawning chasms
and the rugged rocks that make
up its chief features.
The same efforts of the wife to
attract and please after marriage
that she used prior thereto would
60 far towards insuring the reten-
tion of the husbands affections;
the same Difference, attention and
tenderness on the part of the hus-
band would no doubt go far
toward satisfying the uxorial de-
mand for admiration and console
the wife for the loss of many shat
tered images. But the conditions
change after wedlock. Each Of
the parties to the contract finds
new duties, and these gradually
increase in number and variety,
leaving little time on the part of
either for the indulgence in bill
ing and cooling that marked their
pre-nuptial relations. Each notes
that the other has fallen away
from the ideal standard establish
ed in the daysof wooing, but each.
is in a measure bliha to the change
as regards self. So they drift
further and further apart because,
while each is denying to the other
the same attentions accorded be-
fore marriage, yet each would ex-
act just such treatment of self
from the other member of the
family firm when duty denies the
leisure to give it.
We are disposed to view with
suspicion the allegation that mar
riage should occur only between
persons of similar tastes. When
the laws of inheritance began its
work under the conditions which
the adoption of that theory would
create, the deuce would be to pay
sure enough. The law of COM
pensation works under the present
system. If the husband is predis-
posed to sin, a pious wife does
much to neutralize that weakness
if she be a woman of ordinary
tact, and the children Of that
union become the beneficiaries Of
the corrective influence. Many a
rounder" las Dorthy term that
class) who tips the beams at two
hundred pounds quakes with fear
at the thought of meeting the
ninety or hundred pounds of
femininity whose eye will mark
his coming home at two or three
O'Clock in the morning, and grow
brighter when he comes lighted
by the fires of just coniugaI indig-
nation. It's even suspected that
in instances of this sort some of
the SO called "lords of creation
have resorted to the basest and
most bald-face eyasions to placate
the little woman at home. These
occasions are by the initiated mas
culines supposed to furnish the
most fertile of all fields for ro-
nance. And it is a wise and dis
erect wife who in such cases does
not carry incredulity too far.
Thus we see the corrective agency
which the union of opposites sets
at work 1t is in this way that
nature establishes her general
average.
But under Dorothy's plan there
would soon be a line of divariica-
| ltion which would separate the
lambs from the goats the good
from the bad so effectuaIIy that
1.-THE virtues Of one would not serve
| to counteract the vices or weak
nesses Of the other. The subdi.
visions of morality would no long
| er be marked By individuals, but
lby families and classes; and ID
process of time we should have q
lclass Of the pharlsaic order on one
lside of the social gulf which the
| plan would occasion, and on the
lother side a class that would Be
Igiven over to hopeless perdition.