Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-08-17

the old maid aunt who buys the baby
shoes, and sends Johnnie to college,
and gives Mamie pretty dresses, in
million families where the husband
and father fails in business. And it's
the old maid who runs philantnropies
and organization charities and is a
power for civic righteousness in every
community in the land.
II the average old maid is only
one-fourth woman the other three
fourths are plain, Hnadulterated an.
sel To think of her or speak Of her
as one who is set apart from the or.
binary interests of life is 20 show that
one has little knowledge Of the MOD.
ern woman and her activities.
OF course it is not to be denied that
marriage and parenthood are the most
vital Of all human experiences, and
perhaps no man or woman has lived
perfectly full life who has not been
through both and known the Joy and
suffering they bring. Ones heart
chords must have been. played upon
by the hand of husband, or wife, and
child before one has run the whole
gamut of emotion. And perhaps those
who have missed that do lack some
thing Of complete development
These things, however, do not make
necessarily for individual happiness,
or even for the rounding out into beau
tiful symmetry of the individual char
acter. Even parenthood does not in
variably bring Joy and tenderness with
1t, nor act as a touchstone that calls
out what is noblest and best in a man
or woman.
Many children come unwanted into
the world and are regarded as a bur.
den by their parents. We hear wo-
men complaining because they are
tied down at home by baby hands and
because they have to save over darn
ing little sox and washing dirty lit
tie faces and answering ceaseless calls
for mother. We hear fathers grumb-
ling at the bills for food for hungry
little mouths and for the clothes to
cover restless little bodies.
Still whether they have borne glad
~ or sullenly the burden of the help
less babe that has been laid in their
arms, the man and woman who have
felt the clinging Of feeble little fin.
gers to theirs have had something |
wonderful in their lives that the old |
bachelor and old maid never know,
and that must needs make them eth
er better or worse.
Pretty much the same thing may
be said about matrimony. Marriage
is the crucible in which character is
tried out and no man and woman
come out of that fiery furnace the
same IS they were when they went
into II.
Marriage brings out the best and
the worst that is in human nature.
1t is the great enlightener. It not on
~ reveals to the man or woman IN
imagined heights of nobility to which
the soul can soar, but depths of mean.
ness into which 1t can descend. II
teaches not only how one can love
but how one can. hate, for only in
marriage with fits incessant and fore
ed companionship does the human
relationship reach its climax of per.
feet congeniality or utter repulsion.
This explains whw we invariably
notice that people change after they
marry. Sometimes q man who has
been hard and surly and cold will
soften and become genial and sympa-
thetic. Sometimes a man who has
been kindly and generous in thought
and words will become silent and
morose and grouchy. Sometimes q
frivilous and light minded girl will
change into tender and sweet and
serious woman, or girl who has been
gentle and cheerful will turn peevish
and disgruntled and whining.
II IL the way they have reacted
to matrimony. II shows how they
have stood the discipline, whether
they have had the strength and cour.
age to bear disappointment and disil-
fusion, and to make sacrifices, and
let the experience make them bigger
and better men and women, or wheth.
er they were weaklings who soured
under the process,