The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-01-04
MARRIED LIFE
and DIVORCE
FIuently Discussed by Mrs.
Elizabeth Bacon of WaIIing.
BEFORE A SWELL CLUB
She Gave Her Views Concern
ing MARTIAL Unrest"
The New York World says:

The New York World says:
The suppressed address of Mrs, Eliza
beth Bacon Walling on Martial Unrest
is herewith presented in full and for the
first time.
1t was to have been read by her a week
ago at meeting of the Electric Club OF
New York, an organization composed of
prominent women, but portions of it were
published beforehand and the president
o. the club, Mrs. Dore Lyon. after read
ing these excerpts, declined to permit
Mrs. Walling to deliver it.
Mrs. Walling is the wife of Mr.. William
a. Walling, now New York corporation
lawyer, but formerly a Baptist minister
who disliked the life OF minister's wife
and in an interview with a writer for the
Sunday World Magazine expressed her
views on that phase of existence and the
question of divorce quite forcibly.
THE church to which We belonged, ="
she said, was such stingy little tomtit
of one that it would not hold US.
There was not enough room in it for us
to use our consciences, much less permit
any kind of mental gymnastics.
inquire into such radical things as calls
and causes The moment you begin
to attack the phenomena of the heart with
the dissecting knife dissillusion sets in.
Matrimony is long and honeymoons are
f1eeting but 1 have never begrudged the
price.
AN awful session l had with the COM
mittee of sisters somehow made kind
of doubting Thomas Of me. 1t came to
pass that for doing the very things
thought were right 1 was constantly being
brought up and rebuked. That was why
got out.
Being the wife of a minister of a
big swell church in New York is widely
different thing from the all-things-expec-
ted-of -three-thousand-do llars-a-year min
ister's wife in a little Delaware town.
They actually wanted my husband to
shave off his music che and wear side
whiskers, like the other clergymen." My
own connubial bliss threatened to become
as fiat. stale and unJoyous as most every
body else's and it might have followed
that | was writing out of the fulness of
my own heart upon that thing / so much
wanted to warn the Electrics against.
Il cannot gst over feeling that they
made an awful mistake in not letting me
go on and tell them about il.
They would have known so much better
just what to do if ever this particular
kind of disquiet should chance to interrupt
the tranquil tenor of their married way
What Mrs. Walling wanted to say to
the Electrics is as follows:
Whenever society hears that Marina
duke and Rosamond want to be divorced,
because they do not love each other, are
not suited to each other and are not happy
together, the crisp. pungent and frosty
reply is: They should have discovered
all that before they were married" This
philosophy is no colder than it is I'M
reasonable and idle, and it is only by the
most conscientious. painstaking examina-
ton Of the causes of the marital unrest
which foods our divorce courts with dis
appointed men and women that we are
able to settle justly the grave question Of
responsibility
Through five thousand years of loving
and mating and parting the priest, the
moralist and the wise sage have spared
no zeal in their endeavor to locate the
blame for this infelicitous matter of con-
jugal inharmony. Unfamiliar to none
are the theories of the harsh rigorist,
that our liberal divorce-laws only en-
martial dissatisfaction; and who
clamor for national uniform legislation
of the occasional super-annuated fossil
of excessively nice ideas, who charges
wider activities of woman: to the in
-gI 100 Af 10
ern novel; the modern play; the volup-
tUous character of the music of the
tkatre: and ever and anon. of some
gentleman prude way down in the narrow
bluegrass state or some up-country Me-
thodist deacon's wife who lays IL upon
the conscience of fashionable society. with
the extravagances and abandon; its lux
urious idleness and elegant sensualities:
its low-cut bodices, seductive dances and
in moderate fiirtations.
The married unrest is neither an ailment
of the century nor an evil outgrowth OF
right and just divorce-iaws. II is as old
as the world. 1t began with sex. We have
only to turn to earliest Scripture 10 prove
this Not quite ideal could have been the
connubial bliss of Potiphars wife. from
whose wanton csress fed virtuously the
gcody and well-favored Joseph This
marital indiscretion upon the Part OF Po
tiphsr's wife took place before books
like 'Zaza" and "Sapho'' were writ
ten ard before The Ugly Duckling
and her miraculous evolution were ever
dreamed OF.
The grievous fall OF the great David
distinguished in Scripture as behaving
himself ever very wisely. who ordered the
poor Hittite TO the forefront OF the hot
test battle. that he might take the Hit
ties beautiful wife Bathsheba, suggests
no bowling wilderness Of waiIing cradles
and ragged husbands. Dayids own wife
Abigail is described as a woman Of good
and beautiful cou8tensnce
and Their is 70 record that either she OF
the Jezerell!tcss CT any OF David num-
arous spouses either iiirted with the gal
ant Young c0urtiers or the palace, were
studying for a high degree al any great
foreign university or were iaywe-s- doc
tors or presidents OF strong minded
societies. There Is 10
hint that any OF them we're beyond the
81 eed OF their tine. neither crinping
their hair ror adjoining themselves with
,cs,ly array. But with modest apparel.
and soberly- learning 1t the
leet OF their husbands in silence and sub /.
sections
The Biographies Of cur early genius. !
Ill the way down the lire. aboua6 In
OF unhappy marriages The an !
,Ieat Socrates. Dante. the sacred NIL |
on. Cicero and the dsvine ShesIev were
sE rnha7pIly married. Even FOR che
-niorr Of George Elliott and Henri jexis |
= h:ch combined every quality supposed
&c make marriage perSect-hesrt. mind. I
.este and rur7ose-and In which these