The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-11-13
INTERNATIONAL MATRIMoNY.

The matrimonial troubles of the
Marlborough have now got into the
newspapers, the report being that
deed of separation was signed last
Tuesday. The matter in itself is of
no special consequence to any one ex-
cept those personally concerned, and
presumably they are rather more than
gratitied at an arrangement under
which they can live apart from each
other. Their pursuit of happiness in
company has been a failure for some
years.
Marriage in any case is good deal
of a speculation. It is the most i'm
portant contract that man or woman
enteres into. and yet 1t is often enter
ed into with the least consideration
or upon mere impulse. Where youth
alone sits at the helm all this Is done
with immature judgment. But in these
international marriages there is an ad-
ditional element of uncertainty. It
takes a girl out of her habitat and
places her in a society that has its
own usages and ideas and expecta-
tons, all of which she comes in time to
feel are not her own-not native to
her. An English meal. for example, is
not an American meal. The differences
are small, it is true, and often subtle,
but, when settled down to for life
time, they are bound to get on ones
nerves unless there are other things to
absorb the attention. It is so with an
English household-particularly an
old one, with its own regulated forms;
and these shades of difference in
domestic usage are still more marked
tn
holds-in fact in most of the house,
holds of continental Europe. When
an American lad marries a foreign
born girl he can bring her to this coun-
try, and then she finds out these subtle
differences on our side: but when an
American girl marries and settles!
down in Europe, whether in England
or on the continent, she finds herself
planted for good in domestic atmos-
phere that is not part Of her birth and
training. All well-bred persons are
pretty much the same thing on the
surface, no matter where they we're
born and educated; but each country,
having domestic life of its own.
with methods and habits slightly diff
ferent from those of all other coun-
tries, subjects the American girl who
marries into foreign family to
series of trials that few take account
of, but which, in the long run, IL she
does not acclimatize herself to them
early and we'll and almost by instinct,
are bound to pull at her heartstrings,
even II they do not cause her persist
ent heartache. 1t is difficult to
imagine a loneliness more heartbreak-
ing than that of young married wo-
man who Is legally at home and yet
cannot feel at home. That is q home
sickness hard to cure and terrible
to bear; and many an American girl
who has made an international
marriage, brilliant to all outward ap-
pearances, has tied herself fast to
just such fate as that.
The only remedy is in the quality of
the man whom the girl marries. If
he Is really man, possessing abilities
that the wife respects and doing work
in which she takes an interest, the in
ternational marriage is all right, and
as happy one as the ordinary infirmi-
ties of human nature on both sides per-
NIT. Such international marriages as
that Of Miss Proctor to Joseph Cham
berlain and that of Miss Letter to Lord
Curzon are striking examples of sue
cess in this field. Both of these Ameri-
can girls married men of remarkable
ability. and both identified themselves
strongly with the careers Of their dis
tinguished husbands. Lady Curzon is
now dead. but there is no doubt that
she was happy and useful-happy in
part just because she was useful-in
her new life in England and in India.
Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain rs second
wife has SO identified herself with Mr..
Chamberlain's political work that 1t
is not unusual in England now to link
the two names together. not solely as
husband and wife. but as co-workers
in the public life of the times. Mrs.
Chamberlain has made this new career
for herself wholly within woman's So