The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-10-11

One seldom takes up paper of-any
kind which even remotely discusses
domestic problems without seeing
something about how a woman can
make home happy, and the various
ways in which she can accomplish this
wholly desirable end. Of course this
department does not want to get too
far away from the beaten track, but
might / ask why it is always consid-
cred the sole work of woman to make
home happy?
without the least desire to under
study Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson
Gilman. who has been married good
many times for a woman who has no
use for man in the abstract or con-
crete, 1 put it to you plainly that
man has the same responsibility 10
make home happy that woman has
Making home happy is mutual affair
and not the work of women alone by
any means. The other idea, that
woman alone should make everybody
happy, Savors too much of making a
man sort of angry god to be con-
stantly appeased. One can imagine his
wife shaking in her shoes when she
hears him coming and wondering
whether she can make him happy for
one evening at least.
A constant effort to make him happy
and a nervous fear lest he should
frown is not an ideal condition for
either II is safe to say that the house
where a moman is in state of nerves
for fear he will not be happy is house
which contains a domestic tyrant, and
oIU fn "
It f IS. you 'His sesSs as - VIM
There is not the slightest reason in
the world why man should not be a
little nervous himself once in a while
for fear his wife will not be happy, and
a nervous chill of that kind will do him
no particular harm. Because a woman
promised to love, honor and-do the
best she can with a MANS no reason
why she should be obliged to sit up
nights thinking of ways of making him
happy. He ought to be happy because
he got her. Let that idea percolate his
gray matter for time. OF course
am not advocating making him I'M
happy, or doing anything the least out
of the way, but merely arguing for IL
mutual making happy, which is what
was intended, presumably.
What kind of household is it where
everybody is quieted down and things
home and there must be no noise? Who
is father that he should not have
little of the noise which mother has all
day? To be sure, father shas been
working hard, but so has mother. 1t
does not hurt father in the least to
find out how very trying the children
are, and what home is to mother, who
seldom gets chance to put her nose
outside of it. Father must take his
turn. Indeed, it might be just as we'll
for mother to have a Sunday off now
and then and let father do it ALL He
will find out something about noise and
may not be quite so particular after
wards, besides getting mothers point
of view which helps considerably
Often and often do you see house
holds which begin to take on an air
as if something important was going
to happen just before father comes
home. A strained, worried look comes
into mothers face and the children
stop their play and sit down, some
thing never done when they are per-
fectly natural. When the door opens
and father walks in everybody looks
as if he wondered what would happen
next Mother shows plainly her anx-
iety that father will be in a good hui
NOR, and the children are not certain
whether they ought to laugh or cry. If
father smiles and says something sup
posedly funny, a large weight is lifted
from everyone and the children laugh
uproariously, while mother looks as if
father was the real thing for wit. But
if father does not SMILE says nothing
facetious, apprehension is in the air