The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-20

always a haven of the blest, and every
man hero.
Thus love became womans whole
| existence because it was her only sup
port which was putting sentiment to
] a most unsentimental USE but it offer
| ed premium upon it, and enlarged
women's affections to an abnormal de-
gree. Indeed, the women of the past
seem to have been able to Irvine the
| tendrils of their hearts about anything
masculine that was hardy, and there
are many authentic cases of fOrSaken
damsels who pinned away i'm a green
and yellow melancholy, for faithless
SWANS. and of wives who are devoted
to the end to brutes that beat them.
From the time she could think at
all the girl of the past looked forward
to getting married. and she was in
such hurry to realize her one dream
and ambition that she frequently mar
ried at Is or 16. Probably all girls
still look forward to getting married,
and every woman would prefer to
marry if she could find her ideal, but
they are in no hurry about doing it,
and every year the average age of
brides goes up. until now woman sell
dom thinks Of marrying until she is
we'll in the twenties or even in the
thirties.
Nothing is more common than to
hear even young girls speak of dread
ing marriage, even when they are in
love, because they hate to give up
their liberty. Working women who
make a comfortable support acknowl-
edge that they have no inclination to-
wards matrimony. What could q hus-
band give me that | don't have? u
professional woman who makes a fine
income said to me recently i'm discuss
n N Of ms rri hot ha1
made to her. and when l suggested the
conventional thing about loneliness
and cOmpaniOnship, and the protect
ing care of husband, she replied to
the effect that she wasn't lonesome,
and that furthermore nobody knew
when they were getting husband
whether his companionship was going
to be agreeable or not, or even wheth-
ers he was going to protect his wife,
or she would have to support him.
And there you are, as Mr.. Henry
James would say.
TO the woman of the past the SEN
timental aspect of matrimony would
have been, in such a case, irreSistibly
appealing. The modern woman weigh
ed the question absolutely dispassion-
ately. and without sentiment.
or course, women are going to fall
in love and marry when the right man
cline of sentiment In the sex isn't GO
ing to decline enough to prevent that,
but they are not going to make as
many mistakes as their mothers and
grandmothers and great-grand- moth
ers have done.
The great trouble with women is
that they have been so chock full
Of sentiment that they were dying to
expend on somebody that they lavish
ed it on tho first fellow who came
along, regardless of whether he was
glad day for the world when they
learn to pick out their husbands with
less sentiment and more sense.
The ladies who died of broken
hearts because they were Tilted by
fafthless swain, and who spent forty
or nifty years weeping over packet
OF yellow old letters, seem also to have
left no successors. A woman who had
no more backbone and pride than to
pine away for a faithless lover does
not now appeal to other women as
romantic figure. On the contrary,
they have such contempt for her
that it stings her into bracing herself
up, and keeping quiet if she does not
adopt the modern tactics of the for
saken, and sue for damages to her
heart, and bad and vulgar as the
breach of promise suit is, it is better
imam Tor woman to grieve over
man who didn't want her.
Even the deserted wife, who surely
has cause If any one has to bemoan
her fate, is beginning to take a less
sentimental and more practical view
of her situation. 1t has been the ira
d1tional attitude for a woman whose
husband fOrsook her to bemoan her
loss, and love him still and wait pa
tiently for his return.
But women are beginning to ask
themselves why they should grieve for
the loss of a worthless man, or weep
over being deprived of a husband.
who was willing to humiliate them.
And the result has been eminently sat
isfactOry. Mrs. Cordova was able to
write an excellent newspaper report of
the trial of her husband for eloping
with Julia Brown, and only yesterday a
sensible lady in Iowa, whose husband
had run off with another woman. gave
her rival quit clam to their mutual
husband for $11.35--which was a good
price for such man.
To the fact that women regard tho
marriage tie with less sentiment is also
attributed much of the increase i'm di-
Vorce. There used to be a sentiment
ABOUT the matrimonial fetter that gild-
ed IT, and made women endure any
KIND OF treatment rather than break
IL. There was even a halo about a
husband that made it right for him to
De cruel and tyrannical and gave him
the right to do as he pleased. She
could not even imagine a life in which
she would have to stand alone, and
SO she endured an unhappy married
life as being the better of the two
evils.
Ihat was the sentimental point of
view. The practical one is that man
is human and marriage contract
and that If her marriage yoke gals
unendurably she has right to break
herself from it. Just as many wo
men in the past had grievances against
their husbands but the woman of the
past bore her wrongs in silence be-
cause she regarded marriage from q
sentimental standpoint. The woman
of the present is less sentimental and
she gets her divorce.
And in this loss of sentiment NAV
be found one explanation of a great
moral problem.
J DOROTHY DIX.