News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-03-03
Should hot Be a Drudqe
or a Dol!
BY oRIsoN SWEET MARDEN.

pay us to get" said Vice-Presiden
Marshall in recent address. 60
instance, it doesn't pay G, man to &c
so much money that he become
ashamed of his old-fashioned wifi,
and no longer wants to trot in her SO
ciety."
Not long ago a man who abandon Il
his wife and who tried in every WY
to provoke her to get a divorce frey
him SO he could marry young aut
attractive girl, plainly told her thai
she was not good-looking or styli
enough for him, that now that he h d
money he wanted wife who couIj
show off in society.
This poor woman had made all sorts
of sacrifices in their early days OF
struggle with poverty. For years she
had worked and deprived herself OF
necessities to help her husband get a
tart in the world, and to care for
nd bring up his children without a
nurse or maid. She made drudge
{ herself, but when he had become
prosperous he had nc use for the
| WORKOUT wife, with her burned-out
! beauty and her wrinkles, which had
paid the price Of a large part of his
prosperity; he wanted to cast her
aside for young, fresh and attrac-
tive wife.
In the trial the wife said: ct
worked from seven in the morning I'M
| Fill n1nuoy1 n'nl0nly of ir1,t D,,4
ahat l am no longer needed in the bust
ness, he has heaped upon me insults
untold. He has neglected and failed
to properly provide for me.
"He repeatedly told me that I was
not fashionable enough for him." the
wife concluded. He liked dressy
women. He took me to one place and
pointed out Miss K. and said he had
srent $500 wining and dining her"
The world will never know the tor
lures, thousand times worse than
death itself endured by wives of
prosperous husbands, who so often
prefer suffering to scandal and en-
DUE living death rather than ex-
nose their husbands, who have been
fascinated by younger and more a.
tractiye women.
One of the most pathetic spectacles
in American life is that of the faded,
odtgrown wife standing helpless, in
the shadow of her husbands pros
]erity and power, having sacrificed
her youth, beauty and ambition
nearly everything that the feminine
mind holds dear--to enable an indif
ferent, selfish, british husband to get
a start in the world.
1.-THE selfish husband thinks that he
should have a clear track for his am
bition, and that his wife should be
content, even grateful, to be allowed
to tag on behind and assist him in
every possible way in what he con-
siders the grand life work of both of
them-to make him the biggest man
possible. 1t does not even occur to
him that she could have an ambition
yelling up within her heart, a long
ing to answer the call which runs in
her own blood, and yearning to ex-
press it in some vocation as we'll
as he.
l do not believe that the Creator
has limited one-half of the human race
practically to one occupation, while
the other half has the choice of a
thousand.
But" many of our men readers
will say, ''ie there any grander pro-
fession in the world than that of home
making? Can anything be more slim
ulating, more elevating than home
making and the rearing of children?
How can such a vocation be narrow
ing, monotonous?"
OF course it is grand. There is
nothing grander in the universe than
the work of a true wife, a noble
mother
l believe in marriage, but l do
not believe in that marriage which
paralyzes self-development, strangles
ambition, and discourages evolution
and self-growth, which takes away
the life purpose. Nor is it necessary
that the wife should work like a slave
in order to grow. There is a certain
class of men who go to the other
extreme and make slaves of their
wives-work them half to death.
A wife should neither be drudge
nor a dressed-up doll; she should de-
velop herself by self-effort, just as
her husband develops himself. She
should not put herself in a position
where her inventiveness and resource
and individuality, her talent,
will be paralyzed by lack of motive.
Everything in the whole environ
ment of tens of thousands of Ameri- |
can wives is discouraging to growth
and tends to strangle broader, fuller |
life.
For centuries women themselves &C.
cepted mans estimate of them, and |
were content to walk in his shadow. |
But since the higher discovery of |
woman in the last century a new or
der of things is being brought about. |
SIS omen are becoming less and less
iependent upon men and more in |
rlined to live their own lives. They |
re beginning to see their own pos
Utilities, that they can have careers
md ambitions as well as men. The |
zirl of today expects a liberal edu- /