The Washington herald., 1911-05-20
BOYS NOT PREPARED
FOR HOMEMAKING
By Mothers, Who Hope They
Will Not Marry.
By DOROTHY DIX.

A man correspondent propounds this
riddle:
why is it that although the average
young woman is very anxious to become
a wife and mother, when she marries and
has sons Of her own, she makes no effort
to teach them to look upon marriage as
a duty?"
Why7 Because the average woman is
just a plain. ordinary. selfish human be-
ing. and not pin-feather altruist.
Every mother of a son goes through
two Gesthemanes-once when she brings
a man child into the world. and again
when she sees him married. This Is be-
yond all reason. It is just part Of the
mother nature.
A woman knows that her son should
marry, that It is part of the scheme OF
nature that he should marry and found
home and family of his own. She also
knows that 1t is best for him to marry,
that he is likely to be better man, to
be healthier, happier. and more prosper
GUS II he does marry.
Nevertheless, in her secret soul. she
hopes and prays that he won't marry,
and that Sc will never have to go
through the agony Of seeing him love
some other woman better than he does
between mothers-in-law -and daughters
in-law. They are hereditary foes before
ever the daughter-in-law is born.
Looks on 1t as a Calamity.
When a woman feels this way about
her prospective daughter-in-law and
looks forward to her sons marriage as
the greatest calamity that can ever be-
fall her, 1t is easy enough to see why she
~ rrfa loo
as a duty. None Of US make very en-
thusiasttc plans about our own funeral.
Mothers want their daughters to marry.
They bring them UP to marry. and with
the idea of marriage always held firmly
before them as their ultimate destiny.
But nobody ever says a word to a lit
tie boy about what he should do or
shouldn't do when he is married. He
isn't prepared for matrimony in any way.
The whole subject is treated as II mar
rage was as much of an accident as
being struck by lightning. and SO little
likely to befau a man that 1t really
wasn't worth while for him to carry
around a lightning rod
Yet the vast majority OF men marry,
and women know it: but in spite OF
themselves each one can't help hoping
that somehow, by some chance, her own
precious darling son will escape. At any
rate. she isn't going TO Dr1ng tnS catae-
trophe upon her own head by represent
ing marriage to him as duty. and thus
precipitating her doom upon herself
before time
Woman'a Greatest Crime.
To my mind, woman's greatest crime
against woman is her attitude on this
subject Little as mothers may like It.
# is their chief business in life to pro-
vide husbands for other women, and
not only to provide husbands, but to
provide good husbands.
1t is in a mothers province to teach
a boy to treat all women with courtesy
and respect 1t is the mother who can
drill into her son the fact that the wife
who keeps the house and makes the
homo, is entitled to a liberal allowance
Of money and should not be Inundated
by having to ask for every penny as If
she were beggar. The mother can also
teach her son that just to support
wife isn't doing a husbands duty by
herNthat she needs also tenderness and
sympathy and appreciation
Rabfd Jealousy of Mothers.
Every woman who has a son could
give some other woman a good husband
IL she would. and it is nothing but her
rabid jealousy of this other woman that
keeps her from doing II. That is a brutal
truth that mothers will do well to face.