Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-09-02


Mother to Sacrifice Their Own De-
sires for Happiness of Man They
Love-Many Useless Tragedies Are
Due to Jealousy.
BY Dorothy Dix
I get a great many sad letters in
which women pour out to me sorrow
full secrets of their hearts and ask ad-
vice on problems that only omniscient
wisdom itself could solve, and that are
so far beyond my own poor powers that
do not even dare to try to answer
| them.
Of all the pathetic letters that come
| to me, however, none are so pitiful
as those that deal with the question
of the mother-in-law, because they al
ways reveal a useless tragedy and one
that is due only to jealousy and selfish
ness and lack of self-control.
Sometimes these letters are from the
daughter-in-law, sometimes from the
mother-in-law. Often a young wife
writes that she is married to a good
man who loves her and whom she
loves; that she has beautiful home
and her life would be perfectly happy
except for the nagging of her mother
in-law.
The older woman lives in the house
with the younger one and criticizes ev-
erything that the young wife does. She
calls the husbands attention to his
wifes faults. She tells him that his
wife is extravagant, or a bad manager,
or too fond of amusement, and in a
thousand little ways she comes between
husband and wife and makes the wifes
| life a martyrdom.
Often the letter is the heart-broken
vail of an old woman who tells of the
cruelty of daughter-in-law who is so
mean and selfish that she begrudges
her husbands mother a place under
her roof and a seat at her table. The
old mother is made to feel herself a
burden. He is snubbed, thrust aside,
treated without honor or respect, and
the wife uses her influence to wean her
husband from his own mother
Hard to Understand Attitude Taken
in This Matter by Good Women.
The most curious thing about the
mother-in-law problem is that these
women, who act like fiends toward each
other, and who inflict on each other a
torture as ruthless as the Inquisition,
and sacrifice the mar they both love
to their malevolent tempers, are not
the abandoned wretches one might
suppose On the contrary, they are
good, Christian, church-going women
who think lot about doing their duty,
and are full of charity and loving kind
ness to everybody except their in-laws.
| know a family such as this, in
which both mother-in-law and daugh-
ter-in-law are women of exceptional
nobility of character; but they fell out
over a mere trifle and hate each other
with a ferocity that is simply appal-
ling. Not long ago, when | had lis
tened for the millionth time to the
mother-in-law's abuse of her daughter
in-law, | said to her:
We'll, what are you trying to do?
Are you trying to separate your son
from his wife by making these cease
less complaints to him? Do you think
that he will be happier parted from
his wife than with her? Do you think
that he will be better off If you break
up his home? Will these little chill
dren have finer chance in the world
IL they are half orphaned, If their
father and mother are divorced?"
She looked at me in horror you
know she cried, that think divorce
is a sin and a disgrace, and that
wouldn't break up my sons home for
the world, or separate him from his
wife. would die first"
Then why are you trying to kill your
sons love for his wife by pointing out
her faults to him, and making trouble
between them by bearing tales to him?"