The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-04-06
EDITOR WRITFSABOUT
MARRIAGE FOR WOMEN
Says They Must Marry in Big
Type and Lays Law Down
for All Time

A young woman who is we'll employ
cd somewhere in the east wrote recent
iy to Beatrice Fairfax, or some other
woman who answers important ques-
tons on one of the yellow papers, and
told the story of her life and asked
her advice. She said she made good
income, liked her independence and en-
joyed spending the money she earned:
that she had a gentleman friend
who wanted to marry her, and she
liked him very well indeed. thought it
doubtful whether she would ever like
anyone better, but she hated to give
up her freedom and be dependent upon
his very small income. The man was
not rich, she said, and if she married
him she would have to work much
harder than she was doing at present,
and she asked the newspaper woman
If she was to be blamed for preferring
her freedom and her own money. OF
course. If she had loved him madly she
was willing to work her finger ends OFF
and be poor all her life.
This was a great chance for Beatrice
to write sentiment to slow music and
talk about the beauties of poverty with
the man one loves and the high and
holy kind Of gush that is appropriate
on these occasions. But before Be-
atrice had a chance to answer the let
ter fell into the hands of a masculine
editor, who. when he read it, allowed a
righteous indignation to rise within his
virtuouS soul, and he intimated to Miss
Fairfax that nobody less than he him
self and nothing less than column ed
torfal could do justice to this vital
subject The consequence was he an
swered the letter himself in an editorial
plentffullv Sprinkled with CAPS The
sort OF an editorial which goes exactly
width of the front page.
One can just see that editor when he
wrote 1t. l am sure that he took off
his coat and put on his hat, two symp-
toms, with some men, of stress of mind
and important business. Then he
pushed the hat back from his noble
brow, took the largest pen in his COL
lection, dipped 1t into vitriol for ink
and prepared himself to put the writer
Of the letter forever out of business,
as far as asking questions of his paper
was concerned. He began by telling
In drastic terms of the letter and of the
poor kind of mind possessed by a
woman who would rather do anything
than marry real man Tin his secret
soul, of course, he did not believe 1t;
what true man would?). Then he went
on somewhat in this manner:
women MUST marry. 1t is the
LAW of the ages. When women be-
CHAOS. The woman who would rather
work, no matter how successfully, and
live ALONE, rather than to have a
home made by a MAN she can honor
and respect; who prefers independence
to loving DEPENDENCE, is not a
woman at all; she is an anomaly, a
freak of nature, an UNNATURAL
FEMALE!"
The editor felt better when he had
gotten this out of his system, so we can
Imagine his leaning back and wiping
the perSpiration from said noble brow,
and while resting before going on to
turther sweep the floor with the UNI
NATURAL FEMALE, he probably tel
ephoned to his wife that he would not
be up to dinner, and might be very
late as he had to work, telephoning
further to friend that he would meet
him at the club and they would go to
the theater as arranged.
Then he dipped his pen in vitriol
again and said more perfectly awful
things; talked about the degeneracy of
the times, the strange taste of the
woman who would prefer to take care
of herself and be able to buy some
good clothes once in awhile, rather
than TO be WIFE and have ten chill
dren while her husband earned fifty
honest dollars a month. Do women
live for CLOTHES? he asked in what
would have been a shaking voice if he
had not been writing; do they live for
MONEY or the RACE? Of course
when he had finished his collar was
wllted and he felt convinced that he
should be a lecturer or the head of q
woman's college.
All of this is convincing; but more
convincing that some men MUST be
silly than of anything else When a
great, noble MAN takes the trouble to
put timid, shrinking little woman
very small type, please) right on great
questions, 1T shows that the RACE is
making onward steps
1t shows, too, that not all EDITORS
are hard hearted.
n