Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-10-13

weight OF actual experience. They fondly
believed that love was enough. and that,
If you were united to the idol OF your
soul, in some miraculous way Cupid
would feed you as the ravens did the
prophets Of old. and that, anyway, you
would exist in some sort of a seventh
heaven where you would be Indifferent
to such sordid things as food, and
clothes, and shelter.
But, to their amazement they found
out that after marriage they were just
as hungry three times day as they were
before; and they took just the same in
terest in clothes. and found plumbing,
and good bathtub and elevator service
just as necessary to- their bodily COM
fort as in their bachelor days,
Moreover, family life isn't a sum in
simple addition. ! It's generally compound
addition, and one and one in matrimony
don't make two, but an indefinite num-
Der whose cost no man can guess before
hand
These sordld and disillusioning con-
siderations are a blight to romance, but
they are certainties that have to be
faced. Matrimony has to be properly
financed in order to be a success. for
nothing so soon and so effectually wakes
a man and woman up from loves young
dream as the sound of the bill collector
hammering on the door.
1t is sad truth. but it is the truth.
nevertheless, that our bodies have TO be
comfortable before we have any spiritual
uplft. No man whose stomach is cry
ing out for good food ever stops to think
of the state of his heart. No woman who
is worn out with cooking, and washing,
and sewing and nursing fretful babies,
has got romantic thrill left in her sys-
tenn. She would rather have a S bill
to hire maid with than ton of death
less love lyrics addressed to her eyes,
Nihe-tenths of domestic happiness has
its root in the money question. A young
couple marry before they have the price
of a wedding ring, and the expenses 1t en-
tails. The man finds that he has sold
himself into bondage to srocers- and
butchers and dry goods merchants and
doctorS
Work as hard as he may, he can never
satisfy the unending calls upon his pay
envelope He has no chance to get ahead,
no possibility of enjoying himself, or
doing anything but the daily task to
which he is driven by his family neces-
stiles.
No wonder he gets discouraged, dis
grunted, grouchy and that he comes to
see in his wife nothing but the milestone
about his neck.
The woman finds that marriage has
turned her into a domestic slave whose
whole life is passed in the endless round
of cooking and sewing, and scrubbing
and washing. and tending sickly babies
and practising pinching economies. She
becomes disllusioned, even about herself,
because she knows that hard work and
privations, and the lack of pretty clothes
and luxuries are fatal to woman's
looks and charms.
Rightly or wrongly we have formed
habits on whose qualification depends
our happiness The man accustomed TO
good food starves on course food, the man
accustomed to daily baths is uncomfort-
able without them. The man who has
lived in pleasant neighborhood, among
cultivated people, is miserable in a
saualid tenement, with uneducated, unre-
fined, unwashed humanity about him.
The woman daintily reared, and accus-
toned to all the elegancies of society. Is
wretched If deprived of the softness OF
life.
The moral of all Of this is that no man
should marry until he is able TO properly
finance matrimony, and has enough
money on hand to be reasonably sure OF
being able to live approximately in th'
same way In which he has been &C
customed to live. Above all, he should
not marry until he has money enough tC
be sure that he will not be bounded by
the spectre Of debt that eats the very
heart out of man and paralysis hi
energy and ambition.
No man should set up yacht al
automobile. or wife-they all cos
about the same-until he has the price
Therefore, bear in mind the third com
mandment OF matrimony, which is; Tho
shalt not marry until thou hast the prle'
thereof, for To- matrimony is tull OF pllls