The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-04-25
HOW TO CHOOSE A WIFE.

MSnQed 10 the notice OF the Easter
brides and grooms. Nothing is said
IN the proverb about choosing hus-
band, but doubtless that was only an
oversight on the part of the maker OF
It, or perhaps he thought-of course
1t was "he'-that even Providence
could not save woman from the con-
sequences of her folly without a great
deal of trouble.
Marriage, proclaimed by St. Paul
an honorable eState-although it is
to be noticed he never entered its
still trying one. 1t is said that the
tlrst six months are the worst, and
that if the couple weather this period
and do not seek the divorce courts,
then the chances are they will live to-
sether the remainder of their natural
lives in amity, or, at least, in sort
OF armed peace.
1t /. during this six months that
two natures diametrically opposed in
disposition are striving to adjust
themselves to each other. 1t is dur
ing this period that each of the dazed
couple is discovering, with shock,
that the other is not an angel; that
he has his little tempers is irritable
when breakfast is late, and is indig-
nant when the eggs are cooked too
long.
1t is at this time that the man in
the case becomes used to what he
would have called in his youth being
tagged" (" He feels like colt who
is being broken for driving, and as if
he would like sometimes to get away
from the wagon that he has to drag
after him, while the wagon on its
part wonders if it to run along on its
own little wheels, and not have to go
where the horse insists it shall, were
not the pleasanter career of the two.
All signs fail where marriage is
concerned. There is that saying
about a good son making good hus-
band, for instance. There have been
sons so loving, so respectful, so duti-
full that they would not for the world
bring company home to dinner with
out first telephoning to their mothers
to find out if it would be convenient,
and those very men have been turned,
by marriage into scoundrels who even
on blue Mondays will ask the head of
the firm home, without warning, to a
meal which consists largely of chick
en- bones and sponge cake.
If man only had the same awe of
his wife that he has had of his moth
er-but he hasn't.
Perhaps the very unhappiest mo-
ment of a brides life comes when her
husband first reads the paper at the
breakfast table and doesn't say word
to to her during the entire waa weaal rnaFl aFlhha6Sfe hha6Sfe
rid paper for two minutes without
looking over the top to see if she has
vanished in the smoke from the coffee
urn than he could have taken to him
self wings and flown away to China,
but all that is changed now. And
she broods over her wrongs until she
is half of mind to pack up and be
off to South Dakota before he is
through with the political leader.
About this time, however, the re-
calcitrant one, all unconscious, rouses
and says Another cup, please"
which turns her thoughts into pleas
anter channels, and she resolves to
forgive all. With this end in view,
she talks to him uninterruptedly all
during the remainder of the meal and
the remainder of the paper, and is
perfectly happy.
For a man, the psychological mo-
ment probably comes when his wife
does not meet him at the door, and he
goes in to find her with some sort of
cream on her face, doing" her
complexion.
aren't you early?" she asks, but
she is so absorbed that she does not
notice his reply at all. Sometimes,
then, if he has come home with news
of his advancement to tell her he won
ders for moment if Mabel wouldn't t
have been more sympathetic, after
| all.
A rock upon which great many
matrimonial barks go down has to do
with the mailing of letters. When a
wife sits down and takes the time to
write to dozen of the friends of her
girlhood, and also to her own and
only mother, and finds the letters
two weeks later scattered around i'm
partially in the pockets of her hus-
bands business suits, she feels that
the end has come, that there is linn
it to human endurance, and that even
a worm will turn.
A woman always takes things per-
sonally, and she reasons that, if her
| husband ever thought of her when he
lis away from her, he would have
thought of her letters, therefore he is
a brute, and does not love her. This
is reason enough, and to spare, for
many tears.
Her better half doesn't understand
this reasoning in the least. He de.
clares that there is pot minute in
the day when she is not in his
thought, and thereafter takes care
that he locks up the door of the closet
where he keeps his clothes when he
goes out.
The true test of the recent1y-mar.
ried mans devotion is whether or moi
he is willing to go shopping for pink
baby ribbon and pearl buttons. If he
isn't, he is an unloving, unnatura
monster, and the best thing for tht
woman who is married to him to de
is to go back to her mother at once.
"YEs, JOHNNIE, what is it!'
! "Ma, isn't pa half bright?"
/ why, what makes you ask suci
a question:"
| "Cause l heard Mr.. Highball say
that if pa was half bright he woult