The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1903-11-25
TRAINING A WIFE.
Matrimony Works No Miracle.
{Doro.hy Dix il New Orleans P;cayunc.}

I where thr leave off, We should hear
less of the divorce question, for most
of the arrangements between hus
band and wife begin in The tempestu-
GUS days of their honeymoon, when
the bride is trying her prentice hand
on practicing the profession Of wife.
The first dark suspicion that many a
man has that marriage is failure
comes to him when he sits down to
breakfast of soggy bread, leathery
steak and weak coffee.
Every man who marries knows that
this is the sort of wife his neghbor
is liable to get. He also knows that
the beautiful and adored angel with
whom he is in love may be likewise a
trifle shy on domestic knowledge, but
every man believes himself to be q
miracle worker who can change o
a flighty society butterfly into house
hold grub. Far bo it from mo to dis
pei this illusion. Instead, I would
encourage it, for I believe it to be
true. Women in this country, and
this day, seldom marry except. for
love. More than thai, they earnestly
and honestly desire to be good wives
and to make their husbands happy,
and when they fell it is through lack
of knowledge and not of intention.
This makes it possible for any man
who has love and tenderness and
strength Of purpose to give his wife
tho training her mother should have
given her, and to lead her into the
paths where he would have her wal.
Generally speaking, every man
first desire is for wife who shall be
o pleasant companion, sensible sd
ministrator Of his finances and good
housekeeper. These are& perfectly
reasonable demands, and be has 3
right to expect that she will live up
70 them, and he does both himself and
her an injustice il he permits her to
drag their married life down to low
or key.
Suppose, however, and unfortunate
ly the case is not rare, that after O
man is married he finds out that his
wife is not the dainty and pretty little
bit of femininity he thought he was es-
pousing, but that she is one Of those
women who think that marriage gives
them carte blanc to wear mother hub
bards and eat onions and lie on
couch and read trashy novels. What
is he to do? Is he to put up forever
with slstternly wife?
Assuredly He:. Re should require
her to be properly and neatly dressed,
and 80 impress her IL necessary with
his disgust at her untidiness that she
would not dare to neglect her personal
appearance. A woman's vanity is q
harp with thousand strings, on
which man may play, and he must,
indeed, be stupid who has to look at
cur! papers and wrappers across the
breakfast table. A clever and attrao-
tive middle-aged woman that I know
tells how she was broken Of the dres-
sing.saok habit. She says that soon
after her marriage she had uncon-
soiously dropped into the anything
good-enough-for-home way Of dress
ing, when one morning her husband,
whom she had always thought of as an
abject and unoritioal admirer, tossed q
twenty-dollar bill in her lap with the
remark: "For heavens sake, go and
buy you some ribbons and gewgaws,
like you used to wear when you caught
me-" It was the first time it had ever
occurred to her that she had to hold
the love that she had won and that
she could kill it by her appearance and
with disgust at her personal habits,
aud the knowledge shocked her into
permanent reformation.
1t is mans own fault if his wife is
not o companion. OF course, to be-
gin with, he must have married q
right sort of y woman. If he chooses
o doll woman, lie hasn't any right to
complain il her head is stuffed with
sawdust instead Of brains, but IL he
picked out fairly intelligent woman,
it is up to him to develop her along.
the lino in which he is interested.
Every woman is fattered to death by
man talking to her as IT she were
his equal, and there is not one wife in
q million who will not abandon the
Duchess and Marie Corelli for Darwin
and Maeterlinek, if her husband will
make her companion in his scientific
and philosophical reading, or who will