The Washington herald., 1911-10-09
MEN And WOMEN
SHOULD WORK FOR
Success in Marriage as in
Other Business.
By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

Within the last few weeks two wives
of men who are regarded as manly men,
and both in comfortable-one in affiuent-
| circumstances, have left their homes
with, or in search of, their aflnities.
Both families belong to the educated
classes, and both women were mothers
| In each case the husband has taken
the matter with seeming philosophy,
confessing the right of the wife to seek
her happiness in her own way.
! This attitude of the modern man in
such situations is not as picturesque as
that of the dueling and blood-spilling
cavalier of olden times, but 1t is more
sensible
There is nothing gained when a man
| or woman wanders from the fold OF
| matrimony into the pastures where afin-
tiles browse, in adding murder or 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 faith
! less wife or husband or the affinity or
ones self
Terrible Tragedies.
Revenge is frequently obtained by al
lowing the people who break all laws
tC 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 afinities in his search for t. e
real soul mate. His wife, who consent
| ed to the separation and divorce so soon
! as she found she was not desired by
| her husband as companion 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 prison or the electric chair.
Yet view the matter as we will, these
! things are terrible tragedies.
! When a 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
| dlsillusionment Of the one who loves is
hfe's greatest misfortune.
Perhaps no one ever wrote more power
! fully and beautifully on this subject than
! Dorothy Dix in a description given in
| a little story of a wife weeping over the
! Casket of a husband who had brought
her life nothing but sorrow.
The wife's mother Sasked her why she
shed tears at the loss OF this faithless
and cruel man.
Cultivate Each Others Tastes.
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 seri-
! GUS step, and the breaking of marriage
/ bonds so serious a move, that educated
and sepsible men and women might go
! about the repairing of the first frac-
tured link with as much care and skill
and anxiety as they use in mending a
7 DunCtured tire of a motor car, or the
supplying of new batteries in an electric
/ light plant.
The latest wife to seek happiness with
al affinity seems to have no complaint
to make of her husband other than that
! they did not care for the same kind of
amusement
So she sought the society of a youth,
her junior by two. or three years, whose
tastes were similar.
| And she forgot her husband, her chill
! dren, and her vow to take the man she
married for better and for worse, and
! has gone forth to seek entertainment
with her lover.
When this husband and wife first dis
covered their tastes diverging, why did
not each yield a point and cultivate the
others ideals Of diversion and amuse-
ment?
| Ii the wife had taken up outdoor sports
sufficiently to give her husband the feel
/ ing that she enjoyed his society, If the
| husband had shown his wife enough re-
gard to accompany her at times to the
festivities dear to her feminine heart,
! the tragedy might have been averted.
Marriage should BE studied ns n
Science.
When men and women set forth on
any BUSINESS enterprise that necessitates
sacrifice Of time, strength, and money
to bring it to a successful issue, they
do not throw it aside at the first obsta-
Gle.
Why should they neglect the business
of marriage by not being willing to work
and wait for good results when they
meet hindrances in the path to happi-
ness?
Marriage is the most important busi-
ness of the world.
1t should be studied as a science in
stead of being treated like an episode.
Walnut Cheese.