The Savannah morning news., 1903-05-31
THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
PROBLEM.

man compiled tions that no wisdom, has
ever been able to solve is the problem
Of harmonious living with the rela-
mons we acquire by marriage. No 9TH
or thing in the world causes so many
beartaches and so much misery and
tears. for it turks a dark and sinister
ghost in the shadow of every we'd
ding. threatening its happiness.
1t is, moreover, essentially a femi-
nine ghost, for after father has given
his consent to a marriage, he general
" washes his hands of the affair and
let's the parties of the first part run
things to suit themselves, and in spite
of all that the humorists have said
of the man and his mother-in-law,
most women are disposed to be fond
of their daughters husbands. 1t is
when the mother-in-law and the
daughter-in-law meet that the crisis
becomes acute, relations are strained
10 the breaking point and the question
presents difficulties so vast and so far
reaching that the two women most
concerned simply sit down helplessly
before II.
Whose fault is it? Both.
To begin with, there is the inevitable
jealousy of two women who love the
same man and who feel that they have
a right to monopolize him. 1t ought
to be a bond of affection, but it isn't.
1t is a bone of contention, and the
man, in his stupid, laundering way,
invariably does everything he knows
to egg them on. If he had a grain of
tact he would try to strike some sort
of neutral ground by which he could
satisfy the unreasoning devotion of his
mother and the eXigent affection of
his wife without rousing the animos-
ity of the other, but perhaps realizing
that this would take more of a Tall
leyrand than he is, he simply throws
up his hands and leaves the situation
to chance. No policy for him. On the
contrary, with the amiable and mis-
taken idea of endearing them to each
other, he holds up each as a model
Of perfection to the other, and thus
makes a breach that nothing can
bridge.
Back of all that, however, is the
fact that while a woman is anxious
for her daughters to marry, she does
not want her son to marry, and can
never help feeling that the woman
who caught him was a designing lit
tie mink. Other men may fall in love
and get married of their own free will
and accord. but she is dead sure that
her poor, dear Tom would never have
thought of such a thing if he hadn't
been lied on" She knows the artful
ways of her sex, and nothing can con-
vince her that he hasn't been taken
in by the deep. dark cunning of
regular Machiavelh in petticoats.
A woman seldom understands why
man falls in love with another woman,
anyway. His mother never does. AS
a general thing, she can take her
daughters point of view in regard to
q man, but her sons choice of a wife
remains a battling mystery to her.
Above ALL she is lost in wonder at
why he picked out somebody so total
ly unlike his own family. When she
thinks, before the catastrophe actually
occurs, about the kind of a daughter
in-law that Tom is liable to give her,
she always has the comfortable con-
viction that she will be a domestic girl
like his sister Helen, or a serious
minded girl like sister Sarah; or, at
worst a literary one like sister Char
lotte who reads Ibsen and belongs to
Browning societies. These are the
ideals of female perfection that have
been reared before him, and she is
certain that when he goes ACQUIRING
they will be a lamp to guide his feet
Fallacious hope! Nothing but the
contrariness of human nature can ex-
plain the fatal surety with which
man always picks out a wife as little
like his family as possible. If they
are staid, serious, sober, religious, he
rnarries a gay little butterfly whose
whole idea of life is wrapped up in
chiffon, and bounded by the cotilion
on one side and the theater on the
other. If his people are giddy world
lings, he hunts up a prim little Puritan
who goes into a permanent state OF
horror at their gayety. His wife ana
his family generally could not have
less in common If they belonged 10
different planets. Only too often they
think differently and have different
tastes on every subject, from politics
to pie yet the man drops this alien
into his household and with a mas
culine disregard of consequences
stands beaming on them, saying, 1
love you both. Get along together-if
you can"
Saw what YOU will, the situation is
tragical for both parties, and it Is no
wonder that they so often extract the
greatest possible amount of aggrava-
ton for everybody concerned out of 1t,
for nothing can exceed the trouble
that two good, conscientious women,
trying to do their duty, can make for
each other.
The older woman generally disdains
to use any tact. Perhaps she is one
of those who pride themselves upon be-
ing plain spoken, and she forgets that
only exceeding love can enable us to
hear the unvarnished truth spoken
about ourselves. Above all, she is
bent on seeing that her son is not
henpecked or trodden upon. There
upon she conceives it to be her duty
TO lecture her daughter-in-law about
her shortcomings. She groans at Mrs.
Toms extravaganza in using her best
china every day, and signs like mar
tyr as she remarks that in her day
young women occupied themselves
with their homes instead of gadding
about to progressive euchres and hen
clubs. OF course she does this with a
this-is-all-for your good air, and If
there's anything more exasperatlng
than that. l have yet to encounter it.
Worse still, some times she goes to
Tom with a litany of his wifes faults,
and then, indeed, is there war to the
bilt, and no quarter given.
But the fault is not altogether with
the older woman, exasperating as an
angelic motherin-law can be. The
younger woman seldom possesses the
A ~ m@~Mn