The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-27
WORLD

other for the failure of marriage. SEN
! timentally it is equally to be regretted
| for 1t forces the wife TO choose between
! husband and mother-the two people
dearest to her on earth-and the two
who should have her happiness most
at heart. Many a woman is made mis-
erable by the pickering between them.
Eiany woman feels that her whole
| life is a walking on eggs. nerve
wrecking effort to juggle with condi-
tions and keep her mother off the toes
of her husbands prejudices, and her
husband from walking rough shod over
her mothers hobbies.
The pity of this is that IL is so un-
necessary, and that a legal order
should be required binding man to
keep the peace with his mOther-in-law
A man should be amenable to no court
but Cupid's Court so far as his wife's
mother is concerned, and dull indeed
must be the woman who cannot win
the heart of a man when she has so
many ana such advantageous points of
attack as mother-in-law possesses.
Why, for instance, should she not try
to placate son-in-law instead of an
tagonizing him? Why not feed him
on hattery instead of criticisms, when
praise sets so much better on the mas
culine stomach? Why not cajoe him
along the road it is desirable for him
to travel instead of vainly trying to
drive him? Why not lap him in the
soothing comforts of good housekeep-
ing? About all, why not give him the
sympathy, comprehension and affec-
ton that only an older woman can
give man, and that no young woman
ever bestows on any human being ex-
cept herself? In reality there is every
reason that mother -in-law and q SON
ln-l1W instead of hnirur
Toes should be traditional chums. More
tthan this, considering how glad
mothers are as a general thing to get
their girls married off, common graft
tude demands that they should show
their very best consideration to the
man who has assumed their daughters
board bill and shopping ticket.
This isn't exculpating the man. 1t
takes two to make a quarrel even when
the party of the other part is your
mOtherin-law and there isn't any ac-
count of any man having worn himself
out trying to make his wife's mother
enjoy her visit. AT her worst he re-
CARDS her as an aggressive and ma
rauding dragon that it is his duty to
combat, and at the best he looks upon
her as a mysterious affliction designed
by providence to reconcile man to the
shortness of life.
ne JQSlll6S HIS ulSllhe lot HIS WH0
mother by saying that when he mar
ried he didn't marry the whole family,
but this is the stupidest mistake he
ever makes, and no man ever takes
such a long shot on matrimony as
when he espouses a woman whose
mother is not to his taste. For what
the mother is, the girl will be. If the
mother is broad minded liberal, the
sort of a woman you wouldn't have to
have an order of court to make you
love. be sure her daughter will make
a wife who will keep her husband en-
thralled to the end of the chapter. If
the mother is narrow, prejudiced, COM
mon and vulgar, no matter how ethereal
and delightful the girl seems, with in
creasing age and less desire to please,
she will go back TO the original cheap
pattern of humanity off of which she
was cut.
Choose a mother-in-law that you
would be as glad to welcome at the
train as you would be to see her off,
is a dead straight tip to the man who
would be happy, though married. If
this were done, and If women made as
strenuous an effort to please their
sons-in-law as to boss them, we should
need no legal decisions on the subject
of how to treat a mother-in-law.
Dorothy Dix.