Omaha daily bee., 1912-01-07
CRUEL MEN AND AFFINITTES
Passionate Plea of Texas Wife at a
Great Crisis.
ELLA WHEELER wILCox's VIEW
subject of sound Marital Relations
Has Many Angles BESIDES that
Presented by the New At
finity Eruption.
BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.


Copyright 1911, by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
aminer. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
Listen. l have just passed through an
awful ordeal-the scorching fire of a
divorce court. where penniless, helpless
and without blood kin, stood and faced
vilely false accusations and malicious
charges preferred by my husband, who
even tried to besmirch my good name in
his effort after freedom in order to marry
u younger woman.
Il won, though they tell me the jury
hung, nine for me, three unable to hold
an opinion against me or for him. Now
am to be tortured on the rack again
and with added testimony l can get
will win and so forth with stainless
name into a. unknown-what? l can't
earn my support l have little girl who
must face this shame--and already her
face bears the look of the tragedy forced
upon her.
Divorce Laws Arc Brutal.
Il tell you our divorce laws are shame
ful, brutal, barbarous. l beg you gather
your forces and write an earnest appeal
to our lawmakers for home protection,
for laws refusing divorce; or If divorce
must be given, to prevent the guilty one
from marrying again. And above all, to
prevent men from going from state to
state to obtain the divorce they cannot
get at home. In my state, Texas a man
may desert his wife and there is no law
to compel him to support his children
know three such children now, in a pub
lie charitable institution because their
father will not, and their mother can not,
support them.
What does a marriage vow or wedding
ring mean today when a man can Cafter
his wife fades divorce her for nothing at
all, in order to marry a new affinity or a
younger woman? If l died tonight, by
my own hand, with the anguish Of my
situation my husband would be the muir
derer, as if he fired the shot.
Write, l beg YOU a strong article to
help such women as myself"
This is a portion of a passionate plea
from a Texas woman who finds herself
thrust from her husbands home and
heart, while he follows the call of the
affinity" But the task assigned me by
my correspondent is greater than that
given to Hercules.
Hercules, as everybody knows, was COM
manded to clean the Augean stables.
Augeus, the king, had herd of 5000
oxen, and their stalls had not been
cleaned for thirty years. Hercules
brought the rivers of Alpheus and Peneus
to flow through them, and cleansed them
thoroughly in one day.
Affinity Folly is old.
Mankind has had it's affinity stables
ever since the beginning of time, and for
more than thirty years the stalls have
been overfiled and no one has ATTEMPTED
TO clean them out.
1t is a task far beyond my powers, that
which the sorrowful lady in Texas has
assigned to me. There are not rivers
enough in Americha to wash these stables
in day, or a year.
The subject is a vast one, and II can
not be argued along straight and logical
lines. 1t is as confusing as a railroad
map. There seems to me but one thing
more terrible than the divorcing of a good
wife and mother by a husband who has
tired Of his obligations; and that is,
Obliging woman to live on with a man
who is tired of her. That is the greatest
possible degradation which can come to
a woman.
When a man tires of a woman, and no
longer wishes to live with her, there is
only one thing for her to do df she can
to stay with herr; she must let him 60
free him as quickly as possible. But our
laws should provide for her maintenance
and for the care of the children.
Nor can We in reason or calm judg-
ment, plead for laws which prevent di-
VOrCed man or women from re-marrying
Men and women are human beings, with
human instincts, affections and emotions
To pass law which forbids them mar
riage would be to drive them into inn
moral relations. 1t would be to fill the
world with children born out of wedIock
and to inflict suffering on innocent VIC
Tins Of such a law.
Some Things Worse Than Divorce
When man resorts 10 perjury, cruelty
and persecution to free himself from a
wife, that wife would be the most unfor-
tunate of creatures were there a law
which compelled her to live on as his
companion. Every atom of love and ro-
nance and beauty has gone from a mar
rage when man can feel so determined
to be free.
1t is a tragic fact that some men do
feel this wild desire for freedom, with no
fault on the part of the wife, no pro-
nounced fault at least. She has probably
failed to keep the romantic side Of his
nature fed; she has settled into a COM
placent and commonplace acceptance of
the fact that she is his wife and he her
husband, and she has permitted herself
10 grow old thinking it natural and in
evitable. And so the man, who has more
romance than loyalty, more passion than
tenderness, more love of adventure than
high ideals, more selfishness than gener-
osity, falls a victim to the charms of some
younger and more seductive woman.
All the virtues of the wife, all her
worth, her faithfulness and her devotion,
are forgotten in his emotional insanity,