The Washington times., 1914-08-24
Peters
AdUentnreS
in
MntrimOnY y
By LEONA DALRYMpLE
Author OF tho new novel. Diane Of
the Green Van" awarded prize
of sIo.a0o by Ida Il. Toroell and
S. S. Mcclure as judges

LN-
REVIEWING THE FIRST YEAR.
TT is June again and have been mar
ried a year. l can scarcely credit
it.
The roses are all in bloom around
mothers oldfashioned garden. How
long ago it seems that wandered about
among them fatuously planning nv
married life with Mary. Why am blue
tonight. or what impels me to, scribble
down my introspection in a diary. do
not know. I only know that I have
oeen thinking over the gear that is gone
ana wondering Why my married life has
oeen so different from what / planned.
Marriage 1 thought. was a shoulder
to shoulder partnership. 1t ISN'T. Iary
shirks and plays upon the weakness of
her sex She wants to be petted like
doll and not treatedsas an equal
thought marriage would be wonderful
| mental partnership. Again. it isn't
| Mary's brain is too laden with effemin-
ate frivolity to bother much about th.
sterner stuff of life. l thought nv wife
| and my mother would be firm. strong
| friends. They are not.
have tried to think It all out ma
tlently tonight. One fact stands forth
IN pltlless severity. I am disillusioned
Mary did not go into marriage with
iull sense of its very real responsible
ties
She hates housework and is indiffer-
ent to children. She is not interested in
anything that / am. Nor is she Wiling
70 pc Mary loves me in her way. I
tElnk, but she is femininely selfish BY
that ! mean a graceful, pretty selfish
ness that only women know how to
swing successfully. Mary married. 7
take 1t. because the natural instinct of
every normal girl urges her to marry.
She married me because Fate threw me
in her way, and ! pursued with the
deadly persistence of the primal male.
And ]? / must at last face the fact
that !! married Mary because she had
beautiful face. deliberately ignored
the little tell-tale shallow things that
peeped and stared from Mary's velvet
eyes and sought to warn me. did not
realize how relentlessly they would
glare in the white light of marriage.
Centuries of civilization are futile.
After all. was still the primal male
won irresistibly by the feline beauty of
another sex.
Mary saw a certain sentimentality in
marriage: she hates it's burdens. / saw
a great. beautiful romance that has fail
ed to mature.
Yet for all am disillusioned. / am
honestly fond of my wife. | take the
greatest possible pride in her beauty
am ready to sacrifice much to her
whims. and they are many. 1t bothers
me when she is tired OF; unhappy, but
I do not take any great delight in her
conversation nor do / find that Zest to
her companionship that I had hoped to
find. Now that the piquant charm Of
her beauty has grown familiar there is
nothing left. / like to think that Mary
is home waiting for me, but / would
rather play billiards at the club than
stay home with her.
Mary still wants ME with her. I con-
fess, but there is different psychology
enjoys my conversation or my compan-
ionship-for she frequently goes to sleep.
1t is chiefly the qualification OF that
sense of proprietorship that women seem
10 love.
Mary hates me to have an interest
that she cannot share-it hurts her vau-
ity. She likes to think that ! am al
ways at her beck and call. Moreover,
she detests solitude. Mary, ! fear, has
very little mental resource.
She is jealous of my occasional diver
sions-of my business, of sly newspa-
pers, of my books-but she Is not willing
to make a great, sturdy effort and learn
to like these things with me
The whole truth is, | have married a |
woman who was never taught to think
pampered, pretty, spoiled doll-and at
the end of one year OF marriage with |
her am facing p.e cold, hard facts.
Copyright. 1914 Newspaper Feature Sc-vceD ]