Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1907-07-13
The Man Who
Wants to Marry an Idol.

There is a certain type of man whose
idea of marriage is to domesticate-a
saint. Consequently during the days or
his celibacy he carries around with hiaD
nice little blueprint diagram called
Ideal Wife This diagram is anolo-
gously marked off in chaste white ink
with such specifications as Purity"
strength Truth, Honesty" Must
MI Smoke" Must Not Drink" Must
Not Swear" Every time the young
man meets new girl he gets cut this
little blue print drawing of Ideal Wife"
and as he murmurs PLEASED to meet
you" he is wondering whether she pos
sesses the required specifications. Some
day he meets a girl who seems to him
to he fashioned very carefully after the
beSt-luth orlZed recipes for making saints.
He thereupon puts her into little niche,
he chants hymns to her virtues, he swings
to and fro before her the perfumed cen
sers and he makes love to her in fren-
zied ritual which ha-ps impartially upon
his own great unworthiness and her great
eXaltation. In fact. for real, fiery, self
deprecia tion he has the lsraelitish proph-
cts far out-classed. When, after some
time. the acolyte persuades this goddess
to be his. he speaks i'll an awed tone to
his friends of marrying IAN angel"
The most pathetic thing about this is
that. the angel is, as a rule not an
angel ut all. Her virtues are merely
'lady-like' habits. She takes a friendly
interest in the spiritual progress Of the
PARKWAY Indian; she does not smoke; a
cocktail would be to her the apotheosis
of guilt; she speaks in an oppressed whis-
per of Bernard Shaw and lbsen and she
invariably knows how to put an uulmd
theory into a kind formula. For instance,
this is the kind of girl who invariably
cOntideS to Il man that il is so nice that
Sue Williams is going to marry the new
minister. She did feel so sorry for her
a few years before when Dick Thompson
threw her over.
The strange part about it. too. is that
| though a woman would have received
this reference to a GIRLS unfortunate past
with Il muttered Little catw IA man.
even the astute individual who writes
poems, will 90 away with an awed con
seriousness of the ineifable compassion
of a woman's heart.
Usually the man who marries this kind
of person under the supposition that She
is a saint, is the man whose own life IS
full of unclean and unwholesome assoc
Citations. The women whom he has
| known have been tainted creatures who
have Haunted in public places their wine
and their irreyerence of all things good.
Then when the man is tired of it all.
when nausea and bitter disgust seize
| hold of him, he looks around him for
something to worship. What more natu-
raj that he should try for it in one whose
outward habits are exactly dissimilar to
the women he has knownE Mere OBJ
servances satisfy him Of girls spirit
ual strength and purity and he starts in
to worship with the same zeal that he
formerly applied to his designations. The
rake is always the man who demands an
antiseptc past in his afIianced.
This is only logical, since the same
lack of mental poise, the same inability
to be moderate has plunged him first
into an orgy of wine and then into an
orgy of woman worship. The need Of
int0Xication is equally apparent i'm either
case.
For man like this the sum total of a
womans virtues are that she does not
possess the vices which have laid hold
of him. She may be STEPPED in malice
uncharitableness and all unkindncss. vet
/ if she goes to church. does not smoke or
swear or flrt he SAYS "Credos' before
her all his life and never forgets to spir-
/ itually take off his shoes in approaching
the sainted shrine.
As a matter of fact. this man does not
deserve to possess even the beautifully
lacquered and hollow idol that he gets.
/ His demand that wife should forever
walk in the narrow path of abstemiouS-
ness which he himself has deserted, is
nothing but a luxurious self-indulgence.
And by il he who has selfishly wallowcd
i'll every kind or vice is at last allowed
to wallow the joy of perfect worship.
What if his wife should make Il coUu-
ter demand and ask for the luxury of
having an idol whom she could look mp
20 1s.4ft