The log cabin Democrat., 1916-05-04
WHAT MARRIAGE MEANS.

Wedlock's a saucy. sad. familiar state, Where folks are very apt to scold and hate.
 Love kept at modest distance is divine, Obliging and everything that's fine. That women should look forward to marriage is a law of nature. There is shadow of doubt in their minds but that it means a future in which no cares or sorrow will assail them. No woman of her own volition is | giving up a pleasant life for one of unhappiness. She is sure that the man who proposes marriage to her has given her his full, undivided heart, and means to cherish her fondly while | their lives last. It means much to a woman to answer yes to an offer of marriage. There is a great deal which the average woman knows nothing of regarding matrimony.
 l Therefore, how can she consider the situation as it really Is?
 She arrives at a conclusion, from her | point of view, and takes the step. After the knot is tied at the altar, a
 
 The days of her single blessedness have past. The first book of life has been softly closed. Henceforth her life is what he makes it. The poor girl, as well as the rich, brings to the man she weds dowry of innocence, virtue and a wealth of love. It remains for him to make her life a blessing to her or a curse.
 All of her hopes are clustered about him. By his VOWS at the altar he has taken upon himself her support pro- viding not only for the present, but for her old age, that she may not know the cruel sting of want, hunger and suffering. Every year a wife lives with her husband makes her more de- pendent upon his love and considera- tion. If he fails in his promise to pro vide for her through negligence or waning love for her, the great bulwark of married life is broken down. If she has chosen fickle mate, and in after years he transfers his affections to an other, caring not for her heartaches or tears, the love that linked welded hearts together breaks like a chain worn too thin to longer hold in safety.
 Any disturbing element in married has cast her all upon the die, expect ing pleasant existence from mar riage. True, she has taken the man for better or for worse. If misfortune comes which is not of his making, he having been loving, loyal and all that a an in ten thousand would turn from him in his hour of need. She would put her shoulder to the wheel to try to piece together, if she could, their shat tered fortunes. She would never de- sert him.
 Thus does the average woman be- lieye in the sanctity of marriage. Mar riage means all the joys this world can give to a woman. Strong are the instincts with which God has guarded the sacredness of marriage" She who is we'll welded lives in paradise on earth.
 Mating should be considered with the greatest care. The woman who weds derelict, hoping to reform him, deliberately blasts her life What man would take girl who had gone deliberately wrong with tho expecta- tion of reforming her? Not one man in thousands. Never leap into we'd lock. Keep in mind the story of the frogs in Aesop who were extremely wise They had great desire for wa ter, but would not leap into the well because they mistrusted they could not get out again, AS a woman makes her marriage bed. so must she lie.