The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-09-17
THE REAL CAUSE OF UNHAPPY
MARRIAGES.

The real moral of the sensational
Campbell divorce case, says Dorothy
Dix in the Chicago American, that is
now disturbing one of our Eastern
cities is not, as Mrs. Campbell seems
to think, that you mustn't marry a
millionaire or that millionaries make
the worst husbands, but that you
should marry in your own class
somebody with the same interest in
life that you and the same tastes in
politics and pie.
Mr.. Campbell was sporty and want
ed his wife to drink cocktails with
him, smoke cigarettes and go to the
races. Mrs. Campbell wanted him to
escort her to church. Hence the drift
within the lutte, and incidentally the
breaking of crockery.
With good FELLOW wife the man
might have been the most devoted OF
spouses, while united to nice curate
undoubtedly the course of true love
would have flowed smoothly to the
end with the lady.
The case of mismated couples is not
an unusual one. Indeed, there seems
a fatal surety with which people play
at cross purposes about this, the most
important matter in their lives. The
man, for instance, who is bon Vi
want and fussy about his eating, inva-
riably picks out wife who believes
in plain living and high thinking,
and they wrangle about the table the
balance of their days.
Preachers have mania for marry
ing Eighty and frivolous little crea-
lures, instead of the sister in Israel
who would be their proper and con-
genial mate; while the p ous girl who
leads the female prayer meeting is
foreordained to marry a FOUNDER whom
she will nag into drunkard's grave.
Half Of the domestic friction might
be abated if people would only marry
in their own class, for there is no
weakness with which we are so sym
pathetic as the one we have ourselves
no taste is SO fascinating as the one
we share; no people so interesting and
intelligent as those who think as we
do; no fault we are so ready to for
give as the ones to which we also are
subject.
The greatest fallacy in the world is
the theory of the attraction of oppo-
site in matrimony. What makes for
peace and happiness is agreeability
and sympathy, not contradiction and
argument. The people who jar us
are those who sing off our key, not
those whose voices blend harmoniously
with our own bass or treble.
The trouble is that too many men
marry women believing they can
mould them over TO suit their tastes,
and too many women marry men
thinking they can reform them and
Jno1u OfCl oOC91d1hS " UhOAA
own little pattern of goodness. Both
parties would save themselves a lot
of misery if they would find out be.
fore marriage what they want in a
life partner instead of waiting until
afterward. It is a little late after q
man is married to saint to discover
that what he really wants IS a wife
with sporting blood in her veins, OF
for the woman who deliberately .weds
giddy youth about town to find out
that her real affinity is a settlement,
worker with lofty ideas and serious
views of life.
More than that, it is unjust.
If the time ever comes when WI
grow wise enough to marry people
with the same religion and politics
and who like the same kind of cook
ing we do, the divorce courts will
make an assignment for lack of bust
ness.