The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-02-14
WOMAN'S WORLD


that of the only two women in this
country who have ever really under
stood politics and ffnance-Gail Hamil-
ton and Hettie Green-one lived and
died an old maid, while the other left
her husband at the post as it were.
Even IN the cases where men are
highly educated themselves and when
one might suppose they would be on
the outlook for cultured woman who
could be their intellectual companion,
the college bred woman is far from be-
ing a hot favorite. Half of the ex-
tremely clever men you know are mar
ried to women who are so stupid they
have hardly enough sense to come in
out of the rain. So generally is this
the case that it is almost an axiom that
the brighter a man is, the duller the
wife he chooses. Whether it really
rests man who has had to corrus-
cate for the public all day to come
home to a wife with a batter pudding
brain, and Ping Pong range of con-
Versation, no one knows, but certain
IL is that dull woman possesses a fas-
cnation for a clever man that a clever
woman never does, and it ia Minnie
and not Minerva who is oftenest asked
TO snare the halo of the genius
AS for the second reason given by
the clergyman for the increase of cell
bacy among his sex, lack of domestic
knowledge among women that ought
to be true. but it isn't. If a man de-
| clined to marry a girl until he was as
sured that she knew how to keep house,
If he refused to forsake the comforts of
his club for the uncertain joys of house.
keeping with any woman until he had
actual physical proof that she could
| make bread that was not a menace to
| life, and broil steak that didn't in
cite to crime, he would be merely act
| ing the part of prudence. Unfortunate
ly before marriage no man takes these
| things into consideration. He has an
idea that a knowledge of how to keep
house, and manage servants, and bull
| doze the iceman, comes to a woman by
nature, as Dogberry thought knowl-
edge of reading and writing did to men,
and with just as much reason.
| The foundation of all domestic hap
| piness are laid on a clean hearth.
| There can be neither health, prosperity
| nor peace in an i'll kept home, yet for
all that men utterly ignore these ele-
mental conditions of daily life before
marriage. No lover asks his sweet
heart the Drosaic question: Can you
cook? Can you make your own
| clothes? and can you patch my trou-
sers? Nor can it make any difference
| whether she answered yea or nay. He
| doesn't marry her because she can
| cook, and assuredly he doesn't refrain
from marrying her because she can't.
Still further proof that it is not wom-
| ans lack of domestic knowledge that
bars man out of the Eden of a happy
home is found in the fact that there is
no wild rush to secure the girl who is
| a household treasure, for q wife. Ev-
| eryone of us know plenty of homely,
| Ouiat thrifty iDd1ISf y~ioI1S Girls UhO
could stand a civil service examination
| in the cook book, and who possess eV-
| cry one of the requirements to make
them bowling bellies, if men really were
so set upon domesticity in woman, that
they refused to marry without it. but
none of us ever saw virtue rewarded
in the shape of that kind of girl being
| beseiged by beauX. On the contrary
she is invariably, the girl who is left
to pine upon the parent stem, until at
last, in sheer desperation, she marries
curate. or a widower with seven
| small children. to keep from having
spinster carved on her tomb stone.
/ After marriage no doubt millions of
men as they have Wrestled with dye
pepsia acquired by their incompetent
wives bad housekeeping have put the
domestic virtues above all the rest, and
| reflected that if they ever married
again Ine NOIIdH WOulu nave " pIo-
duce a recommendation as a cooking
school graduate, but before marriage
a girls ability to run house cuts no
figure in her matrimonial chances. The
man believes her to be a household an
gel as we'll as every other kind of an
| angel and by the time he finds out
better it is too late.
Many explanations may be offered
for the alarming increase of celibacy
among men. but with all due regard
for the clergyman, ignorance among
women whether it be ignorance of
household affairs, is not one OF them.
The real reason that men don't marry
is because they don't want to. and we
shall just have to let it go at that.
| Dorothy Dix.