Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-20
EARLY MARRIAGES
OFTEN FAILURES
Child Wives Apt to Regard
Home as Prison and Hus-
band as Tyrant
Ry DOROTHY DIX

hailed into the divorce court by her hus-
band because she neglected her home
and her baby. In her defense the young
| woman makes this excuse for herself:
Il am barely nineteen now. 1 am
youns and pretty, and just want to
have some pleasure in life, l want to
! go around with the other girls to par
| ties, and the theater, and to dance, and
! play tennis. and have good time. l
love my husband and my baby, but my
husband hasn't got any right to expect
me to be always tied down to a house,
cooking and sewing and scrubbing, and
to want no other amusement except
wheeling out baby perambulator.
Why, am nothing but a girl even II
1 am married and have a baby"
And there you have as pertinent an
illustration as you could wish of one of
the reasons why there are so many di-
vorces. It's youth. Youth that must
be served, that cries out for it's JOY
and laughter, its fun and playtime be-
fore age comes to take the spring out
its soul. It's youth whose weak should
ers are not strong enough to bear the
heavy burdens of life.
After Rushing Into MatrimOny nt 10,
Girls Naturally Find 1t Dull
There's nothing the matter with this
little girl. as there is nothing the mat
failures as wives and mothers, except
that they have rushed into matrimony
before they were ready for it. They are
miserable, fretting, whining, complain
ing wives and neglectful mothers, be-
cause they are children who have left
their play to assume the responsible
tiles of grown people. and they are
pining to be back amusing themselves.
III you will look about among your
acqualntanceS you VIII see that the
pleasure mad women, the women who
WI n anp n No -
get enough card playing, or dancing,
or restaurant or theater- going, are in
variably women who married when
they were very young.
These women regard home as
prison, and their one idea of having
a, good time is to get away from it.
children as burdens, and are forever
complaining about the dull monotony
OF domesticity.
The reason is perfectly plain They
married before they had had their play
time of life. before they had had their
ili of admiration and gadding about.
therefore, the things that they have
missed have alway had a fatal lure for
them.
On the other hand, you will see that
no women are so domestic. such home
keepers, such admirable wives and
mothers as the women who have mar
ried late and who have had a long and
happy girlhood. These have been sati-
ated with society and admiration. and
are glad to turn from it's froth to the
real things of existence.
These women know that there is no
other good time on earth like the good
time that one has in building up
home. They know that the excitement
of the most thrilling filtration does not
send the same tingle along a woman's
veins as does the look of love in the
eyes of her husband.
Marriage Is Too Big Proposition For
Anyone Hut Mature Men and Women
To them children are not tiresome
little brats that keep a woman from
doing the things she wants to do. They.
are the most absorbing and fascinating
study on earth, and taking care of them
is not a bore. It's privilege ,iod
grants the women He blesses.
Just as nature ordained milk for
babies and strong meat for men, so
there are certain occupations that are
blessings or curses, according to age.
Domesticity Is one of these. and those
ways make havoc of it. Marriage is a
fuil grown mans and woman's prupo-
sIti9n and children have no business
We have long realized this from the
masculine point OF view, as is snomn
by the old proverb that says that no
his wild oats The same principle APP
plies with equal force to women. No
girl should marry until she has had
her innocent little fling, and is good
and tired of it. ana ready to settle
down.
Disseminated and FretfuI Wives Have
Only One GOnI I'm Life-the
Divorce Court
1t takes a great many things 10
make a happy home but above all il
takes contented woman, and that the
chlld wife never is. She has the i'm
pulses and desires of her age, and ii is
not in human nature for her to be sat
isfied to walk the floor with a CRYING
baby, while her girl friends are fox
trotting in the cabaret, or to pass a
pleasant evening daTning husbands
socks when she knows that her chums
are off to theater and opera.
small wonder that when these girl
children find out that marriage means
sacrifice and self-denial, and labor and
trouble, instead of being just a game as
when they played house" with their
dollies and little tea sets, they so often
knock over the apple cart
AS a first aid to divorce, there is
hothing equal to an early marriage.