Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1911-12-13
WHY HUSBAND TIRES
PIayleSS Youth Makes Restless
Married Man.
Mrs. Mary Austin, Playwright and
Authoress, Explains Unhappy Mar
riages-Boys Assume Burden
Of Life Too Early.

New YOrk.-The reason why so
many husbands forty to fifty years of
age tire of their wives and. in many
cases, desert them is, according to
Mrs. Mary Austin, because boys are
made to assume the burden Of life
too early Just as young colt may
be ruined by premature breaking to
harness, so the moral fiber Of youth
may be weakened permanently by as
Stunning too early the obligations of
maturity, she thinks
Mrs. Austin, who wrote 1.-THE Ar
row Maker" and who is also the
author Of several novels, has been
making a study of conditions in the
domestic relations court recently.
YOUTH" she said, should be
period of difference. When young peo-
pie, girls as well as boys, are put to
work too early the business life
tends to destroy IN them certain sec
ondary sex characteristics which are
of utmost importance to the race.
For instance, take sentiment and
romance In girls. II hundreds Of
young girls, working under the super
vision of men, the romantic feeling
cannot be fostered 1t must, on the
contrary, be suppressed, perhaps III
timately destroyed, for the girls own
protection. Men bring out in the girl
OF sixteen or SO the characteristics
which appeal to them, their flirtiness,
pertness, smartness. There are 9TH
er qualities, more sentimental and po-
etc, which only women can bring
out in girls. So, If a girl OF sixteen
has to go to work it should be under
the direction Of women
"BOyhoOd has certain qualities Of
enthusiasm, of resistance to author
ity-a good thing, since if one genera
ton accepted blindly the ideals of an
other, there would be no progress.
But this enthusiasm, this eager ques-
tioning of life, has no place in BUSH
ness. l think society owes it to it
self to preserve the vitality of its
young people for the benefit of the
race
"All boys and girls inherit certain
racial traits, certain hereditary
traits, which they should have a
chance to work out before they take
up the burden of life. Everybody,
for instance, goes through a period
when he wants to live in a tent and
shoot bows and arrows.
"a state or city should, l think,
foster the development of sentiment
between boys and girls.
Every city should have social
center where poor boys and girls
could meet, under proper chaperon-
age, to do their counting. It should
be unnecessary for young persons, no
matter how poor, to meet each other
and do their counting in the streets.
IF we paid more attention to pre-
serving the vitality, to to fostering
the poetic ideals Of our boys and
girls, we would not have nearly so
many unhappy marriages, so many
wife desertiOns.
You must have noticed how often
the man of forty or fifty, who has led
a strong and good life, goes astray
morally. That's because he was brok-
en- to harness too early. He had no
time to work out his hereditary traits.
Some persons may think l mean to
encourage immortality in young peo-
pie, but that is far from my idea"
Then you don't mean that we
must give boy time to SOW his wild
oats in his hereditary traits?"
mot at all His vitality may be di-
rected in good and proper channels.
| mean that boys and girls must have
some time to play, to write poetry, to
sentimentalize. We must not thrust
the burden of life upon them toe
early, If we do not want them to sink
under or run away from it"