Morgan County republican. (Versailles, Mo.) 1906-1914, 1907-10-31
Gatt a GmHhath 8r
TratmrA?
By ELNA.

the training. 1t is too late, and she can only finish off the good work
begun by mothers, sisters, or friends of early manhood. Women have a
duty to perform in their friendship with men, and the lew plan
among women of teaching a man to be a hearth-rug pet is one of the
greatest menaces to the happiness of home mankind and home. They
it, of course-the men, the dear things-but there seems to be these
two extreme factions among the women of the present day: one goes
abroad screaming about the superiority of women, and the other trying
to rob men of their manhood by converting them into lap-dogs. This
tendency, if it were understood, is the result of the best instinct
OF woman-the maternal instinct, but it is diverted from the natural
channel A woman must have something to love. She is not half so
interested in being loved as she is in loving. A man cannot understand
this point, and SO is utterly spoiled by attentions which ire bestowed
upon him.
A man can be taught to take rs much delight in doing these little
things as a woman feels naturally. 1t is her duty, therefore, as an unset
fish animal, to sacrifice in this respect her pleasure to his, for the moral
effect which such a pose on the character of the man is a very serious
matter.
The real training period for husbands is during the months of en-
gagement. The painful fact must be repeated, that women change more
notceably after marriage thn4 do men. If the matter were studied ser
iously this would be found to be no libel True, the husbands sometimes
cease to bring the flowers and pay the hundred little courteses that
made life sc sweet a few months ago, but that is a matter of training.
The change in the wife takes a graver form. She negects her personal
appearance, studies her husbands character from a wholly different
point of slew from that taken before marriage, and nags him for the
things that were perfectly obvious before marriage, but which were over
looked. That, mcsdumes, is the time when nothing should be over
looked. The couleur-de-rose is then bathing the world, and you can
freely suggest the traits of character which do not please you, and ten
to one you will succeed in SO reforming the brute that he develops into
a most delightful husband. Instead of this, you love to be loved by
Henry, and it does not matter in the least what dear Henry does; but,
oh, what a difference after marriage! Henry says he never dreamed you
would object to this and that, and, mesdames, if you have concealed
your objection all through the time of your engagement it is your bound
en- duty to conceal it all the rest of your life!
Every reasonable woman knows that there is a falling off of the
lover-lihe attentions, or they were, after all, merely symbols, but the
difference of opinion concerning a principle of life or a firmly estab-
lNhcl habit has to do with temperament and compatibility, and SO
should have been clearly dealt with before the fatal knot was tied. |
believe it is not exaggeIation to say that in nine cases out of ten the
quarrels between man and wife for the first three years of married life
result from the wife's dsapproval of some trait of character or habit
which should have been dealt with during the period of engagement.