The Washington herald., 1911-06-20
MATERNAL LOVE Is
CARRIED TOO FAR
When a Woman Neglects
Her Husband
IN HER DEVOTION TO CHILD
While Mother Spends Evenings
Holding the Baby's Hands and
Woman Is Holding Fathers Hands,
and He Isn't Saying His Prayers.
Rr noRoTHY DIV.

All of YOU married women who have
little children give heed to this letter,
which is a really, truly, bona fide heart
wall that received from man the
other day. This letter said:
"I have been a married man for ten
years, eight of them very happy ones,
but, strange as it sounds to say it, my
domestic felicity has been ruined by the
coming of our little child. I, myself, give
our child all of a fathers love, but my
wife is obsessed by her devotion to it.
''An of her love has gone to the child,
and am no more than a boarder in our
little family. my wife maintaining diff
ferent apartments, bestowing all Of her
affections on the child and never even
taking any interest in me or my affairs.
MY wife has also become careless of
her. appearance and does not try to look
attractive any more; nor will she ever
go out with me. because she prefers to
spend all her time with the baby. She
has a bank account in her own name,
besides all the money she wants for
household expenses and dress-still
can't induce her to dress herself, up and
look like other women.
She says that all her time is taken up
with the baby and when mention that
see other well-dressed women out with
several babies she claims that they either
neglect their children or have regiments
of servants, which 1 know is not true.
Feels Like n Boarder.
LAS I said before, I am just a mere
boarder in my own house except that
pay all the bills and give my wife more
money than she asks for, so that she
may not have that excuse for being
shabby and confining herself so close to
the home.
Now I am tired and discouraged at
this way of life. I want the love of a
wife. the attentions of wife, the COM
panionship of a wife. How am to wake
this woman up and make her See that
she has some duty to her husband as
well as TO her child?
Us il fair that I should sacrifice all
of my happiness for the sake of raising
and educating this child that also love,
or would I be justified in supplying
money for its education and upbringing
and. allow the mother to take it-since
that is all she cared for-while go my
way and seek happiness with some wom-
an Of my own kind, and who would be
a real wife and helpmeet to me, and not
just merely a nursery maid?'
I have quoted this letter at length be-
cause it sets forth, more forcibly than !
could do, the proposition that many a
man finds himself up against when his
first child is born and when he realizes
that the thing he has looked forward to
as the cfowning joy of his existence
turns out to be the tragedy that wrecks
his domestic bliss.
Maternity always works a miracle in a
wOman's character, but it is quite as
likely to mar as to. make it, so far as a
husband is concerned. Many man has
seen the sweet, dainty, pretty, accom-
pIished, and interesting girl he married
changed by the advent of her baby into
a slovenly, tiresome slave, who had nc
thought or time or interest in anything
except the red-faCed, sqUalling thing ir
the cradle.
Baby Her Whole Life.
Such a woman lives and moves and
has her being in the nursery. She re.
fuses to dress up because it is easier tc
handle the baby in a frowzy wrapper
She declines to go out with her husband
because something might happen to baby
If she did. She gives up her music be.
cause it wakens baby for her to practice
She cannot talk or think of anything but
baby, and her society becomes about as
appetizing and exhilarating as sterilizeG
baby food.
The husband is utterly neglected II
fact, he comes to exist only as a usefu
and necessary purveyor to baby's needs
a provider of perambuators, and EN-.
broideries, and frills, and doctors to His
Royal Highness the Heir Apparent
Now, men, except in exceedingly rart
instances, have not a crazy paternal pas.
sion as many women have a materna
mania The average man accepts a chilc
very calmly, and loves it within reason
He wants to provide for it; to see thai