The San Francisco call., 1910-09-04
By Mrs. Esther G.. LangShaw

~
A ideal marriage is possible in
~ this world. 1t is not only pos
sible. but have enjoyed it. Those
who denounce the institution as a fail
ure may speak their own disappOint-
ment. but it is not quite fair to lay the
blame on the institution. when in most
cases to the dispassionate observer it
IS fully accounted for by the imper-
fections of the contracting parties.
The price Of a perfect marriage is very
high; most men and women are not
willing to pay it. That is the keynote
of the majority of failures.
The finest fruits of marriage come
only to those who have lived with un-
swerving faithfulness to a high ideal;
who have tolerated no half gods: who
have resolutely refused to take any
thing short of their ideals, and as re-
solutely denied themselves any act or
thought which would prevent them
making their half of the virgin mar
riage- There are such people, both
men and women, who come 70 the al
tar. often after long years Of self-de-
NAL which most people can not and
ought not to emulate (inasmuch as
they are too hard for any but the elect
and either break the spirit or drive into
an unhuman asceticism); men and wo-
men like these, rare at any time, and
meeting perhaps yet more rarely, do
yet occasionally live most humanity and
Al in
marriage to them seems wholly ideal
state and the only perfect life on earth
it is because they have had the
strength to make it so.
Your questions are not answered by
the above
am woman of 4s. married Is years
ago. but nine years a widow. My hus-
band was nearly two years younger
than l, but his maturity of mind made
him seem older.
You will say that my widowhood has
given me too ideaIistic and fine strung
notions of my own marriage, that 1
have forgotten the actual annoyances
and imperfectiohs of my welded life.
On the contrary. kindly believe that the
mere fact that 1 am still a widow and
shall always be one. that neither
wealth, nor ambition, nor desire can
turn me from my first and only at
tachment ought to be the best rea-
son for believing that 1 value. that re-
lation one enduring beyond death.
Occupa ton: The mother in the home.
was graduated from one of the best
women's colleges and especially trained
for profession; but I gave up my am
bitions in order to marry and only
rarely do 1 do anything outside the
home or neighborhood circle.
tThe women I know best have not
shrunk from motherhood. They are
educated, refined women of the high
est character and 1 believe when they
have had no children it has ordinarily
been due to physical inability. Some
times their husbands have been fear
fuT for them. though both have desired
childFen, and it has been the husband
who has guarded them. I was told
about four years ago by a very promi-
nent woman physician. the wife of
man whom you could not fail to rec
ognize if named, that above all things
she desired children. people think"
she said to me, that because I am
a doctor 1 evade the responsibility.
Ny husband is afraid for me. He
thinks 1 am too old apd too fraii (she
was over 40 them and he will not take
the risk. 1 know all the dreadful things
that can happen, know them as no
one but a doctor can know them. and
yet 1 would face the whole of them
to have a living child" 1 saw her
in her own home this year, the mother
of two lovely children.
Believe me, the nobler women today
are as willing as women ever were
TO bear children. The silly and sense
less and selfish ones no doubt are able
to evade the responsibility as they
could not years ago. And conditions
largely economic, limit the number of
children woman may bear. But true
wives and noble women seek rather
than evade motherhood. Only at one
point do they voluntarily svoid It,