The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-03-27

The wife who wants to be pals with
her husband must fOrego the dear de-
light of calling his attention to his
faults.
Onetof the tragedies of matrinony
is that when what we call love, which
is born of the glamour IF the senses
and illusion, is gone, there is so often
enduring friendship.
There is no congeniality, no SINH
larity of tastes between the man and
the woman who have elected to pass
the balance of their lives together.
They do not even ride the same hobby,
but each has mounted on a bucking
broncho that bites and. kicks and
snorts and froths at the mouth when
ever it ranges alongside of the others
fad.
1t is no wonder that such a couple
disagree, that they either openly fight,
or else go their lonely way thru life
in that solitude of two that is the
saddest thing on earth.
If you talk to a girl who is ro-
mantically in love about being friends
with the man she is about to marry,
she treats your counsel with cold dis
dain. Friendship seems poor
thing to her as If you suggested ny
drant water instead of champagne, or
bread and butter in place of lobster
newburg.
You cannot make her believe that
the time will ever come when she and
her Edwin will cease to thrill at the
mere sound of each others voice, or
that they will grow weary of asking
each other, loose ducky is oo?'
Yet this disillusioning happens to
every single couple that ever gets mar
ried, and when it does happen, it is
the woman who must save the situa-
ton by adapting herself to it and go
ing to work to win her husbands
friendship as she won his love.
To do this, she must began with a
heroic piece of self denial, that of
constituting herself a critic on the
hearth. There is no attitude that a
woman like so well as to assume as
that of her husbands mentor, but this
does not conduce to friendship or con-
fidence.
We only tell our troubles. and the
things we really do, to those of our
friends who will sympathize with us,
and so the wife who wants to be pals
with her husband must forego the
dear delight of censuring him for his
shortcomings and calling his attention
to his faults. No arrangements be-
tween husband and wife are more
complete than those which grow out
of a mans fear of a womans tongue.
On the other hand, no bond binds a
man SO closely to q woman as to feel
that no matter how the world may
misjudge him and deride him, or how
bitterly it may criticize him, there is
one who will believe in him still. and
on whose sympathy he may draw as
on an inexhaustible bank account.
The next factor in establishing a
lasting friendship with husband is
equality. Women are fond of adopting
one or two poses before the men they
marry.
They like to pretend that they are
either helpless babies or pin feather
a Now
the superior attitude goes very far in
married life. no matter how effective it
was during courtship-
A sensible man gets very tired in a
mighty short time of a woman that
he has to take care of and think for as
if she were an infant. or else who is
trying to lecture him up to her level
He neither wants to be uplifted nor
to play dolls or act as nurse-maid.
What he wants in wife is q chum-
a partner that he can trust with his
life, his honor, and his pocket book:
somebody who will share ill luck and
good luck with him with cheerfulness;
| a woman who will dance with him at
a ball, or stand with him back to back
and fight with him to the last gasp
Finally, woman must establish a
community of interest with her hus-
band, for that is the rock bottom foun-
dalton on which all lasting friendship
lasts. She must enter into his bust
ness plans and share his amusements
Few wives do this.
Most women affect asinine stupidity
when man tries to talk to them about
his business, and yawn in his face, yet
nearly all men adore talking shop. A
mans store or office is the little
world where the drama of his exist
ence works itself out, where his
triumphs and failures take place,
where his tragedies and comedies work
themselves out.
1t may mean just as much to him,
be just as much an achieve ment to
make a corner in salt Goldfish as it IS
to a politician to be elected to office
! or an author to publish a new book.
He simply bursts with longing to pour
| the tale of his exploits into some SYM
pathetic ear. but how can he do it il
his wife turns up her nose at his &C.
cupation and declares that she never
can understand anything about bust
ness?
Moreover, the majority of women
4 forget how to be jolly companions 4s
soon as they are married. When the
average man takes his wife out, she is
such wet blanket on the occasion,
Directing to everything, finding fault
with everything, complaining that they
can't afford everything, that as an
lrishman might say, the next time he
takes her he leaves her at home
OF course, women will say that their
husbands tastes and interests are I'M
congenial and uninteresting to them
/ Nonsense Precious few of us like
/ caviar to start with, but we keep nib
bling on. it until We cultivate a taste
A~Z 81.