The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1903-02-27
HAPPY MARRIED LIFE,
Foresight and Preparation a Prerequisite
Significance Of Con-
tract,

A man entering into a business con-
tract gives. if he has any judgment
wherewith to guide him, most careful
study to the obligations he incurs, the
risks he runs, the quality of the matter
in which he is to deal, the powers and
character of his coworkers. and the
things which imperil his success. And
all this about the placing Of his moneys,
or the chance of making that which he
does not yet possess and which, after all,
only concerns his riches or his poverty.
Not small subjects these, we admit, but
minor surely to a shipwrecked home, the
bondage of an indissoluble tie, the intoler-
bile: necessity of abiding in discord with
a nature we cannot change.
1t ,seems indeed a curious fact that ev-
cry other partnership, every other serious
concern of human life should require
fores lght and preparation, endurance,
earnestness, and minute comprehension,
and that marriage should be based solely
on the foundations of love and mutual
attraction, and the tenderness Of court
ship. The gay gladness Of the wedding
over, all must be we'll, and loving each
other so much, or being of one mind as
to the mutual advantage of their union,
all the rest must come spontaneously.
The young mother spends hours in pom
derlng over what she should do to endow
her child with vigor and health, and how
best to develop every power. The expert
ence and the theories of others, all are
valuable to her ignorance and she either
absorbs every possible means Of enlight-
eminent for herself or if she is one of the
modern rich class. puts her baby in the
most skillful hands of educated teachers
and nurses.
But men whose mature contact with
ro11n0n hos 0nncScfo1 10 +l,o I:-I-L 80 :
t~entionally superficial intercourse of soci-
ETY., CT tic unobservant participation in
the home of mother and sister, which, as
a rule, means a mere coming and going,
a dinner at home today and abroad to-
morrow, an affectionate concern in ILL
ness and a more or less kindly interest in
the general welfare, take a wife by the
hand, for better, for worse. and know lit
tie of what is necessary to them in Or
der to make them happy.
Love means so much and so little!
With some it's definition is "You are
charming, and l want you to be always
near me-" There is only. a minority to
whom love means self-abnegation, and
the study of woman's mental and moral
needs is not counted in the vow at the
altar, nor do women begin their married
deeper things of their husbands nature
in order that they may be to him a
strength as well as a JOY.
Our young people are taught all the
decorums, all the amenities of social life
and it's interdependence, but, alas, a man
does not learn that to laugh over his
wife's apparently small domestic trials or
personal ~annoyances, humiliates her self
respect and deepens what is to her femi-
nine mind a genuine trouble, needing
sympathy and cooperation.
Nov oro fhnro mOnOpranh2 and sEi1fu1-
" devised treatises which bid a wife re-
gard the possibilities of what the bust
ness day has brought to a husbands
nerve and brain, when he seems cold on
hid return OF forgets a usual caress.'
She finds nowhere, except in the often
pefplexing book of experience, any detail
Of the symptoms which indicate an ex-
hahsted mind and a weary and anxious
spirit The color in his cheek is as good,
his step is as vigorous, apparently his ap-
petite is not impaired, and how is she
to discern that if he is wholly: unable to
give his attention to the pleasant chat she
is. making over the events of her, day?
II he is not cross, and cold, and inatten-
tive, what is it that ais him? -, :
The ceremonies Of courts, the etiquette
Of the worlds ways, by which civilized
humanity makes a safe and smooth way
to- come together despite their differing
natures and beliefs, are as nothing be
sideSthe complicated and tender art which.
husbands and wives need to learn to
know and help each other. Nothing is.
so well worth their study, nothing can
SO repay the ardor and time they mus
give to its requirement in order to sue
coed.
IT is not an unworthy study, this.
beautiful, healing, developing accomplish
ment-this acquired power to cOmpre-
bend, to hear and forbear-this power to
enlarge the good and deprive the evil
tendencies OF their sustaining food II
Is d O q mean use Of either sfne intel
lectual endowment or o feminine