Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1911-01-17
A Married Mans Evenings.

A Married Mans Evenings.
"Don't you think that after man
marries he should give up all such recre-
ations as take him away from home GER
tain evenings In the week." asks young
wife complainingly.
Instead of grooming aloud as / want to
do, l have to look sympathetic and say
something like this:
1t all depends on what those "recrea-
tons" are. For instance, an athletic
club is almost essential to the we'll being
of man physically, II he leads seden-
tary life; and many organizations that
take man away from home are bene-
fetal to his business career.
However, recreations purely social, In
which the young wife cannot join, should
undoubtedly be given up, for his pleas
ure is supposed to be found only in her
company or where she may accompany
him. Certainly he is not to leave her
entirely alone while he attends social
club of questionable good.
But groan inwardly for the complain
ing wife. The woman, who begins by
demanding too much, usually ends by
losing what is rightfully hers. No young
wife can succeed in monopolizing all a
mans heart and time, and she could not
afford to, were it possible. If he Is to
be success in the business world, q
large part of his time and heart, as we'll
as brain, must be devoted to it. And
Commercial Club, Business Men 9
League, and fraternal orders of the high
est sort are to be reckoned as factors in
that success, assets as 1t were. he can
not drop out of them without personal
loss, present and future. Many widow
is thanking God tonight that she let her
husband remain faithful Mason.
Besides, the right sort of man will
appreciate his five or ak evenings at
home all the more, If he is obliged to
spend one or two down town. And she
can make herself all the more agreeable
aud attractive during the five OF six, if
she has this leisure to devote to her let
tiers to home folks and girl chums, to
practice upon the piano, or to bit of
reading, all of which she would lay
aside to entertain him.
They may not think so, at first, but a
little separation is good for young mar.
ried couple. The hypnotic going and
coming continue the thrill of courtship.
A keen. witted girl once declared to me
she hoped to marry a travelling man,
"For then" she added laughingly, I'VE
will not get tired of each other and be
old married folks so soon." There is
more than a bit of truth here. That
which is continuous becomes common
place; and too often the commonplace
oets IN ha deadly dnll
Besides, it is egotism, seltishness,
jealousy, and childish short.sightedness
in bride to feel that her husband must
fiud in her the sum total of his existence.
She is to be supreme, but unless they
move to Robinson Crusoe's island, other
lives must touch theirs, and some inter-
ests must be more or less separate.
Perfect marriage is gradual blending
of two lives, not an absorption of either
one, not a revolution of character, nor
even an uprooting of love for the two old
homes and all that has been cherished
in former days.
If genuine love exists between the two,
both will be unselfish and seek, volun-
tarily, to eliminate everything that sepa-
rates them unnecessarily. But the
"recreations" that man gives up, In
order to stay at home, should be those
of no practical benefit to his life, and the
giving up should be wholly of his own
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Magazine.