The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-05-25
NOT AGAINST LOVE
A CORRESPONDENT TAKES MARIE
TO~TASK
Lovemaking Is as Natural as Breath
ing-Parents Too Often Forget They
Have Been Young and Expect Their
Children to Be Staid and Sober.
St Paul. Nav "a.

St Paul, May "a.
Ny Dear Marie: l generally agree
with you in what you say, but was
somewhat shocked when / read in your
remarks about lovemaking in parks,
the following: There are great
many of us to whom lOvemaklng in
any place is inconceivable, but We
should remember, etc" Now, l have
always thought you very human and
rational but l must say / am surprised
to know that you set your face against
lovemaking in any place. Isn't that
little prudish and narrow? Isn't love-
making all right and perfectly natural2
I like to agree with you and am some
what mystified to find that you take
such a view of lOvemaking, particularly
after pleading the case of the girl
without home A Reader.
was just as much shocked as you
were when I read the remark you
quoted from my talk about love-
making in parks, because I never said
that at all. What I did say was that
there are a great many of us to
whom Iovemaking in any public place
is inconceivabIe, etc. which you viii
admit is a vastly different thing from
the way it appeared. These things will
happen, you know, in the best regu-
lated newspapers, and I am glad your
WE'LL square myself with my readers
who are probably thinking as you did,
that 1 have become very inhuman-
your word-all of a sudden. Far be it
from me to set my face against love-
making. Now 1 hope you feel better.
But there is another side to the ques-
ton, which was voiced by a very indie
pendent young person to whom / men
toned the case of the girl in the park.
whats the sense or use of love-
making at all?' quoth she. Now, l
didn't know what in the world to reply
to that, because there isn't very much
common sense in lovemaking which,
like many other pleasant things, is just
because" as women say. AS long as
the world stands, lovemaking will
continue outdoors and indoors. For
it's love that makes the world go
round.
The trouble with a great many nice
and elderly people is that they forget
they were ever young; they seem to
be shocked at the very things in their
children that they undoubtedly used
to do themselves, and they force the
young to do clandeStinely things that
there is no real harm in. This is often
eXemplifed in mothers who do not
want their daughters to marry because
they hate to have them leave home.
The very mothers who make the great
est fuss if their daughters marry and
leave them, are the very ones often
who left their mothers early in life.
1t is the natural thing and mothers
sometimes take altogether too much
responsibility Many time a mother
is wise in advising her daughter
against a certain man, but unfortu-
nately we none of us learn through the
experience of any one else. Each must
have his own, no matter how much
suffering is involved in the getting of
1t. Fathers and mothers can advise
and often do manage their children
completely, but it is individual expert
ence that counts and nothing else. The
girl who marrieS a man of whom her
parents cannot approve, is taking a
great risk, but sometimes those mar
riages turn out we'll. Marriage has
been well called lottery, for no hui
man power can tell how it is going to
turn out.
Young people do many things that
their elders consider very silly, and
perhaps they are, but who is it that
was never silly? The French have a
proverb which says that he who loves
without folly is not as wise as he
thinks. Mothers and fathers are too
prone to think their children should
be as staid and sober as they them
selves.
1 trust my correspondent will be re-
lieved to find that I am not as "nar-
row and prudish" as he feared.