The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1917-07-24


ticIe. And there is the history o.
Dorothea. wife of Frederick William.
The Great Elector" of Brandenbur5,
persecuting her step-son, Afterwards
King Frederick | OF Prussia, till she
drove him out of his fathers realm
and procured his almost complete
d,sinheritance by the old elector. IL
is mentioned as a peculiar excellence
of Octavia, sister of Emperor Au-
grstus. that, after the death Of he
hasband Antony, she took care OF all
lis children by other women-whlcn
was wonderfully kind, considering
Antony's vile connections. And so
il goes. till the step-mother has be-
come a proverb, byword, and
synonym of unkindness. And all this
time, very little is said or written
against the step-father. No language
so far as 1 can recollect, has MADE
him the synonym of unkindness, and
writer's do not parade his crueltles to
arv extent. | can not help suspectlng
that these two things are the result
of men, and not women, writing the
hooks and making the languages, and
am reminded of the fable of the man
and the lion disputing over the COM
parative efficiency OF their respective
scecies. The man, in support of his
contention, showed pictures repre-
serting men overcoming lions. ITO
be sure" said the lion; because men
make the pictures. If lions made
them. the lion would be put on top
How many may say that where
there is much smoke there must be
scme fire.. Yes; but very little tre
sometimes makes great deal OF
smoke: and with our habit of follow
ing the crowd, we acquire the habit,
not only of indorsing that the crowd
seems to think, but also of repeating
and even believing whatever the
crowd seems to believe. And the
crowd is very often very wro g.
It is natural that there should be
II is natural that there should be
a greater number of evilminded step
mothers than of bad step-fathers; Tor
there are. and always have been,
mach larger number of the former
there are, probably, in every COM
munity three or four step-mothers TO
one s.sp-father. Ordinarily, when
nan loses his wife, he soon goes 10
work to get another; and he is pretty
sure to fnd some woman to accept
him. widow has not the same es-
, portunity. SO we hnd widows mucn
r,ere numerous than widowers. The
census of 1910 shows in South Caro-
lima, of all races, 1885 wAoWers
and 54,714 widows; and OF native
white persons, 1858 widowers and
70 sos widows. In Charleston there
were, of this race, 25S widowers ana
s5s widows: in Columbia, 156 widow
e-s and S37 widows.
Again, shut Off as women are from
many enployments, many one mas
felt obliged to marry a man ~ OF
even 40 years her senior; and t0en
sha has to endure his ugliness, his in
Srnities. his vhfms, his dictation, per-
hans his Jealousy, and, worst Of all
his caresses. Can such a one, or ny
step-mother, be expected to feel -
tender solicitude for the husbands 8
children as for her own Yet sne Is
held to even stricter account than IS
the mother. A child's mother may bang
hin, as much as she chooses (for We
all know that most girls and all boys
need banging}; but when the step
rother does likewise, there is quite
shrieking about the cruel stepmother'
although she treats the child as sne
does her own offspring.
! And who is usually to be blamed
for the antagonism between step
mother and step-child? Unquestion-
ably, the child Usually, the Adde'S
cent child, or even one OF FIVE OR six
wears. resen1s the entrance into the
household and assumption OF author
ity by the step-mother, and shows
himself or herself unwilling to obey
or respect her And often female re-
laticns unwisely Interfere, and, pur-
.posely or unwfstingly, oppose the step
mothers control SO matters start
badly, and generally grow worse an
less the stepmother inVokes the ea-
| +ht ~itv of the father, and he has the