Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-10-22
M2OMen tss!sl &sR slnreRGS &
Modem Marriage and Divorce

detriment OF the present, one would be
led to 3elieve that our ancestors were
all models of nobility. and that the
men and women of the present day
are poor specimens of worthy for
bears.
But little investigation will prove
that the sins of omission and commits
sion of our ancestors produced the
'divorce-while-you wait" type of men
and women of our own times.
Had the old man never failed in his
duty the new woman would never have
sprung into existence. All the one-time
domestic virtues of women were taken
as matter of course by the men folk.
Woman's work Is in the home, and
It was a too generally accepted Idea
that she was incapable of handling
money and that she needed no diver
sion, no Independent purse and no
mental outlook beyond the walls of her
home and the village church.
The type of man who held such
ideas prepared the way for the suf-
fragists who march through the land
to-day. The Puritan Fathers were
merciless in their attitude toward a
woman who made a misstep in the
path of rectitude. and the two stand
ards of morals. which made light of
the sin of the erring youth and con-
demned forever the erring girl, helped
to bring about the revolt of woman
against the established order of things.
The silence of mothers on matters
of sex has paved a broad highway for
unhappy marriages, and now that
women are reading, thinking and oh
serving, they dare to stand forth in
the light of knowledge and demand
cleaner, saner and safer laws to pro-
tect them from the evils which the
old-fashioned wives endured in silent
shame and sorrow.
1t has been the boast of senseless
and unthinking mothers, backed by
selfish and uncomprehending fathers
that the daughters went to the mar
riage altar "as ignorant and innocent
in mind as newborn babes" in matters
OF sex. 1t would be just as sensible to
boast that a school teacher went to
her duties ignorant of reading and
writing or a musician ignorant of
notes. The misery, the destruction to
health and happiness, the wretched-
ness which has gone into the second
and third generations through this
ignorance of girl wives and mothers
regarding the natural laws which gov
ern marriage and motherhood would
I'LL volumes.
The silence of fathers toward their
sons on these great laws of life has
aided and abetted selfishness of the
masculine nature in relation to women,
and the fact that until within a COM
paratively short period Of time all ply
slcians were men has been another
factor in the building of conditions
which, in their time, inevitably pro-
dUced revolt.
The report of the Committee of
One Hundred" on health, together
with the statistics of the Board of
Health of New York and other States,
compels the most optimistic mind to
realize the menace to the national con-
servation of vitality which lies in the
ignorance of men and women in mat
ters of sex hygiene.
When men are educated in early
youth to understand the Importance of
Keeping the blood pure and the body
and mind clean, in order to produce
sane, strong children who are men
tally and physically a credit to the
race, there will be a notable reduction
in divorces, and wives and offspring
will find less and less need of the
GN IRGr fu H.. 4..gz