Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-10-14
Marriage, Most Important
Business in World, Should
Be Studied as a Science
(By Ella Wheeler WiIcOX.)

Within the last few weeks tw
wives of men who are regarded a
manly men, and both in comfortabl
one in affluent circumstances
have left their homes with, or il
search of, their aftinities.
Both families belong to the educa
ted classes, and both women wel'
mothers
In each case the husband has takel
the matter with seeming philosophy
confessing the right of the wife q
seek her happiness in her own way.
This attitude of the modern man
III such situations is not as pictur-
csque as that OF the duelling anc
blood-spilling cavalier of olden times
but it is more sensible.
There is nothing gained when q
imam OF woman wanders from the fold
Of mauimony into the pastures where
afftnities browse, in adding murder OF
suicide to the tragedy.
Love once dead is not restored by
the gun, the sword or the poisonous
draft
Nothing is gained by killing the
faithless wife or husband or the aftin-
ity or ones self.
Revenge is frequently attained by
allowing the peiple who break all
laws ii possess each other to live TO
be sorry they succeeded.
There have been innumerable cases
of this kind in America.
One man has just taken his fourth
affinity after putting away his wife
and three other affinities in his search
for the real soul mate. His wife, who
consented ii the separation and di-
vorce as soon as she found she was
not desired by her husband as COM
paniOn longer, lives quietly abroad,
and is no doubt much better off with
her freedom and life than if she had
killed her first rival and gone to pris
on or the electric chair.
Yet view the matter as we will,
these things are terrible tragedies.
When man and woman choose
each other as life companions there
is usually love in the heart of one or
both.
And there is an ideal of happiness
formed in both minds.
The destruction of this ideal, and
the disillusionment of the one who
loves, is life's greatest misfortune.
Perhaps no one ever wrote more
and beautifully on this
subject than Dorothy Dix in a de-
scription given in q little story of a
wife weeping over the casket of
husband who had brought her life
but sorrow.
The wifes mother asked her why
she shed tears at the loss of this faith
less and cruel man.
She answered that she was weeping
for her early dream, for her lost ideal.
for her happy trust, for her faith
which had died a slow death, for her
wrecked happiness and not for the
man who had died.
1t would seem since marriage is so
serious step, and the breaking of
bonds so serious a move,
that educated and sensible men and
women might go about the repairing
of the first fractured link with as
much care and skill and anxiety as
they use in mending a punctured tire
of motor car, or the supplying new
batteries in an electric light plant
The latest wife to seek happiness
with an affinity seems to have nocom-
plant ii make of her husband other
than they did not care for the same
kind of amusement.
So she sought the society of of a
youth. her junior by two or three
years, whose tastes were similar.
And she forgot her husband, her
children and her vow to take the man
she married for better and for worse,
and has gone forth to find entertain
ment with her lover
When this husband and wife first
discovered their tastes diverging, why
did not each yield a point and cult
vate the others ideals of diversion
and amusements?
If the wife had taken up outdoor
sports sufficiently ID give her husband
the feeling that she enjoyed his So
ciety, if the husband had shown his
wife enough regard to accompany her
at times to the festivities dear to her
feminine heart, the tragedy might
have been averted.
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