The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-01-15
DOES MARRIAGE
HAMPER A MAN?

DOES MARRIAGE
HAMPER A MAN?
Do you remember this verse, which
ends Kpling's 'Story Of the Gads-
bys?"
What is the moral? Who rides may
read
When the night is thick and the
tracks are blind,
A friend at pinch is a friend, In
But fool to wait for the laggard
behind,
Down to Gehanna or up to the throne
He travels the fastest who travels
alone
Many men reading this say how
true" and in the saying there is
something of regret.
switched them OF from their ambi-
tons? Would they not have travelled
faster alone? And would not their
success have compensated for their
loneliness? Gadsby says: Marriage
sword arm, and oh! 1t plays hell with
Lac ICIloAS VI 00Iy SonA0llQ0S>>
good and sweet as she is-sometimes
! could wish that I had kept my free
dom. No, don't mean that exactly.
There are many Gadsbys in the
world, men who whisper to them
selves, "She is sweet and good, but
il I had kept my freedom" They
feel that marriage has hampered
them, made them less than they might
have been
1t is a natural thought, yet one
which works injustice to women. OF
course. Their are wives who drag a
man down, but believe there are
more who help them up. AS a rule
it takes a sustained responsibility to
make man take hold of, life serious
ly. 1t is only when he begins to pro-
tect and care for others that he
achieves. Most great men marry
young and then they settle. down to
work. Men who do not marry frtvol
too long and put off the sett1ing-down
process until it is too late. Too late,
mean, from the ambitious point of
view; not the matrimonial.
Yet one can understand when TO
nance is ended and stall cares be-
gin that man may ask himself, -
why did I do it," because Life is
a series of paradoxes-having happi-
ness, we often think that we have
missed It. Yet if we but knew, the
thing we have is the best that could
be given to us.
think most old men admit that
marriage is the best thing. Looking
back upon their lives, they know that
without woman to cheer and sus-
tain them their days would have
been empty. They know, too, that
even though marriage may not be
absolutely congenial, it gives, as I
have said, the spur to a mans am
billions; the fact that he must work
for others makes him work, and such
work helps him to get on. Few peo-
pie tie themselves willingly to obliga-
tons; yet these very obligations are
their reasons for success. Hence,
leaving out romance, marriage ap'
pears to be the thing that brings a
man down to the coloring of pract1-
cal problems. Life is not all "cakes
and ale," and hard work must have
its place.
If marriage hampers some men 1t
gives others all there is in life worth
living for and these men are the
lucky ones who do not question.
And to the man who chafes and
grows cynical would say this: do
not point to your own case as warn
ing to others" You may have failed,
not because marriage is a failure, but
because of your inability to- choose
wisely, your own lack. of domestic
qualities. That you are hampered by
one woman does not mean that all
men hang millstones about their neck
when they wed. You are, perhaps,
the exception which proves the rule
of happiness.