Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-01

m OF FRANCE

snip companies have without eXCep-
tion helped keep the family of the
companies running to United States
and South American ports have even
been liberal.
A woman who had had no news of
went to the big department store
where he had worked and said it would
not be honest for her to continue to
receive longer an allowance. ''Oh, no;
we will continue to pay it, because we
feel sure your husband will come
back" insisted the cashier
While the military authorities have
been exceedingly strict in refusing per-
mission to the women of families to
visit the soldiers in their camps, espe-
cially near the front, and have also
refused to let the soldiers visit their
homes in any circumstances. the home
has been considered in the question
of marriages.
by proxy. with the soldier perhaps in
the trenches and the girl at home. fifty
or hundred or three hundred miles
away. Many thousands of such mar
riages take place each month among
not only the poor but the rich
Some of these marriages are but put
ting in order common-law connections
that existed before the war, and there
fore have their moral side, and. let me
say in passing, the standard of moral
Others of these marriages are but
deathbed marriages in the hospitals
Perhaps the most affecting are those
where fine, strong woman unites with
bands who. except in the eyes of low
ing sacrifice, would be burdens.
The government is already begin
ming to try to lessen this sort of bur-
den by teaching cripples trades in con-
formity with their disabilities The
alert government which has reduced
the war to a business basis knows
that without marriages there can be
no now population. no new homes build
ed; and this question of the home and
its maintenance is therefore viewed with
more than sentimental eyes by the wise
men of the government
With all these marriages. so encour-
aged since the war. their number
would seem to date almost normal. In
eighty-two of the departments of
France, excepting only those four
within the German lines, statistics for
the first six months of this year show
but 2,O11 fewer marriages than for the
same period of last year.
But it takes more than government
measures, more than money, to make
home. 1t takes life. it takes long
years of patient endeavor and loving
thought before this beautiful structure
can be reared.
The minister of war has lately ruled
that the fathers of military age with
four or more children may of right
serve in the territorial army-that is,
away from the fighting line. Yet, each
day heads of big families fall at the
front.
The newspapers which so proudly
print the lists of the big families whose
men are at war must too often regis
ter the loss of many members of a
family.
In one family the father, his two
married sons and his three sons in-law
have all gone. That means six widows
at a stroke. What can these women
do to keep their homes going? With
all the best will in the world, they can
only play at homemaking.
Nor is it this class of women, who
can help. They would not take the
daily bread offered only to the poor,
nor, also as a matter Of pride, will
they take advantage of the morato-
rum. which permits the non-payment
of rent.
1t Is this class of women, those who
were rich before the war or who be-
1onged to the petite bourgeoisie, that
are enduring deep distress because of
the war poverty. This is one of the
reasons why SO few well dressed or
stylishly dressed persons are seen
about the streets Of the big French
cities this year.
Likewise, the burden is heavy on the
the mothers whose sons are married
and whose wives only may benefit by
the government generosity, or the
women who were widows before the
war, or the young woman clerks and
milliners who were too poor before the
war to attract husbands. Now they
have little or no work. In the Mont
rouge section of Paris there are 1000
such enrolled by one charity organiza-
ton. After the war what chance will
these young women have to get mar
ried, to make homes for themselves?
This is one of the saddest aspects
of the whole war-these young women
one sees throughout all France, hard
to do more than their half to found
family, and who must perforce go hus-
bandless now despite the death, in the
war, of the selfish finan-
cial spirit which formerly guided the
looking for a wife
Many marriages there will be after
the war, of course, possibly with the
pick of husbands to the girl with the
most money, but so many thousands of
young Frenchmen of marriag eable age
are under ground. France must wait
for new generation of husbands to
be grown up before there will be
enough men to go around. The govern
ment cannot help here. 1t cannot
bring the dead to life. |
1t has been freely said that after the
war the world would go mad with joy. |
This statement does not take into ac- |
count, so far as concerns the French |
nation, the love of the home. |
There can never be joy in France for |
another generation, what with the |
widows and the poverty and the sor- |
row of the unmarried, until new homes |
are built or until the home, as once !
understood, has persisted. Meanwhile |
the women of France must go on play |
ing at home making as the children of |
the Fairgrounds who play at soldier |
ing. Neither the homes nor the SOL |
diers can be real for many, many |