The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-01-21

period of her life it will suit a woman
to pretend that she knows all of love,
when h knows nothing. Later she
maj n 1t convenient to pretend that
she knows nothing when she knows
au.-Life.
OF course everybody in Kansas
knows that Senator Frederick m
contract bill is a joke but the metro
politan press, especially the yellow
press, east and west is taking it very
seriously and the club women and
from one spasn into another on ac-
count of it. Most of the published
protests against it seem to come from
women which nay be another proof
the leisure sex. OF it may be that men
have a secret suspicion that they
would be the real beneicfaries of such
a Law.
But a Topeka woman, unlike mos
OF her sisters, approves the proposed
bill n takes the view that it would
be a good thing for both husbands
and wives. It's best result. she de-
clares. would be to prolong the court
ship. and something to continue
courtshfp conditions after the honey
moon is every married woman's idea
of the great original long felt want.
That husbands are less satisfactory
than lovers, any woman who. has
tried both will tell you. and although
men are not SO prone to spreading
their domestic and personal griev-
ances abroad some similar compari-
son might be made between wives and
sweethearts no doubt. you can't
tell a thing about a woman" a GER
tain grouchy Topeka avs
Choosing a wife is like buying a pig
in a poke It is the of
VERY married man that his wife
weighs more and tall more thar she
did before he married her."
This state of affairs is generally K
planned by the natural human disin-
c~iination to run for a car after n
has caught it., but Senator Smiths
law, as it is believed, would create a
sort of Alice In Wonderland" matri-
moniaI condition. You remember
that when Alice went Through the
Looking Glass she found a place
Where even after one got there n
had to keep running; not for the sake
of progress but to avoid slipping back.
Some such necessity would face mar
rfed men ard women under the ten
year marriage law. The post-honey-
moon laDses which now make mar
r1age a disillusion and a snare would
be Sometimes, of course,
some other motive figures, but as a
rule men n women marry because
they love each other and if they after
wards get over it likely as not, as this
Topeka woman who faVors SENATOR
Smiths bill says, it is because they
are too sure of each other and grow
careless, as one will with an undis-
puted possession. If their dbl
contract had a ten year limit with
possibilities of extension if one gave
satisfaction, marriage would be like
an extended engagement. All the
changes from the best-feet-forward
attitude of the courtshiD which change
a r~ose-tinted romance of that period
TO the gray reality of marriage
would be avoided. SliD shod dress or
manners, the laying aside of the
CG1ITTAEInH a nd ~ ar>fffoa - A. -
trothal. growing and grumbIing, lack
or Kindness and consideration, these
would cas- to be the rule in family
HE And the great advantage of this
would be that while the longest court
snip is too short and too circum-
scribed in its influence to work a per-
nlanen change in the disposition and
character and hence the bitter and
oIten tragic establishment of mar
rage, courtship manners assumed forl
ten steady years would become an
unalterable habit and an inalienabIe
part of ones personality.
= don't understand" says this en-
thusiastic apostle of Senator Smith.
why women should swoon at the mem
ton of such a law. The result of IT
would be to keep them young, and pret-
" The reason married women fade,
become colOr1eSS, dOWdy and uninter-
esting a few years after their wedding
is not because of the wear and tear of
time but because of the lack of interest.
inspiration and a definite motive for
keeping young and pretty. Being mar
r1ed a woman feels that everything is
over and she has nothing to look for
ward to. She thinks ANYTHING is more
important than her looks. She neglects
her accomplishments and all the little
charms with which she won her lover.
but if she knew that her hold upon her
husband would expire in ten years I'M
less she continued to please him. I
doubt if she would axe her possession
of his heart so much for granted. AS
things are now the only married woman
has a motive, for dressing and
looking pretty is the coquette, the flirt
doesn't abandon her fiirtations and
her affairs with all other men Just be-
she has married one. I don't de-
fend her morals but I will say her man
ners are usually more engaging than
that of the faithful and proper wife and
that her complexion and figure are bet
ter.
ITO me there's nothing more pathet- |
who have married young and whose
husbands have outgrown them. One
knows a man for years by
sight or reputation. He is young, good
looking, well dressed, sophisticated,
prominent in business or politics, be-
longs to fashionable clubs and is popu-
lar with men and with what women
he knows. One wonders why he doesn't
out more, and why nobody knows
his f-amily-until finally on some big
occasion when all the world is there,
one meets him with his wife. 1t is to
Iaugh-or weep. Fat, middleaged,
awkward, in her inevitable best black
gown with a white yoke and white me-
looking as though her white
doves worried her, you can scarcely
believe that such a woman can be the
wife of a successful interesting mar of
the world. But the chances are that
she is five or ten years younger han
he although she is everywhere mis-
taken for his mother, and that when
they married the advantages were all
her side and her friends thought she
was. throwing herself away. How did
she degenerate to this? For lack of an
objectl Her husband had a hundred
broadening, developing, slim