Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-06-08

well as career.
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r T has been well said that marriage
is the highest and the noblest of
- all careers for woman to pursue,
and the lowest and most despicable of
all professions for her to engage in.
1t is the glory of this age that for the
first time in the history of the world
women can make a career of marriage
and are not driven into it as a profess
sion.
Up to this generation girls had to mar
ry in order to get a home and food and
social positions for themselves. The
girl of today can make her own bread
and butter and achieve her own place
in the sun, and so she is free not to
enter into marriage unless she can bring
to 1t that which alone makes marriage
right and holy.
The average woman who marries now
adays looks upon matrimony as a career,
but 1t is a pity that she doesn't also
look upon it as a Job-her job, in which
she must make good by actual perform
ance and by turning out first-class work,
Just as she would do If she were holding
down a good situation in a business Of
fee or was singing in the Metropolitan
opera.
.,tanY woman InlIlhS ludl DIS AOHB
as she loves her husband we'll enough to
die for him, she has done her full duty
by him, and that the state of her affec-
tions give her right to nag him and
kill him with bad cooking and waste his
money. Never was there greater mis-
take A good heart does not atone for
a bad dinner and the affection that
does not express itself in terms of serv-
ice and unselfishness is mockery.
In matrimony, as elsewhere in life.
to make a success we have got to deliver
the goods That is why the woman who
does not make a cheerful and comfor-
table home has defaulted on her part
of the marriage contract.
Now this job of home making is the
biggest, the most important and the
most complicated that any human being
ever undertakes, and yet there is only
an occasional women who has any pride
in her work, or goes about performing
it in a oraftsmanlike way. Nine house
wives out of ten are openly envious OF
every woman who writes or paints or
is a buyer in a store and is contemptu
Gus of her own job and expresses the
wish that she could do something"
THAT she could do something" When
she has a mans destiny, and the souls
and bodies of little children in her
hands," THAT she could do something"
When it has been given her to make a
place that can be a haven of refuge
for the storm-tossed of the world, a
sanctuary a bit of heaven on earth!
Of course, the underlying reason why
women hold domesticity in such poor
esteem is because it is the only work
that carries with IT no pay envelope and
brings no financial independence. A
wife is the only laborer who is not con-
sldered worthy of his hire, and who is
still spoken of as being supported" by
the husband for whom she tolls from
ten to sixteen hours a day.
Doubtless women would put more in
terest in domestic work If they did not
know that in the great majority of cases
they would receive neither appreciation
nor pay for it, On the other hand, per-
haps men would be more willing to pay
If women turned out better job. Ger
tainly the man who gets slovenly AMI
shiftless wife nust feel that he has
been stung In the transaction, and that
whatever he gives his wife is more than
she deserves.
If only women could be brought to-
realize that when they marry they not
only fulfill their natural destiny, but
undertake a practical job which it is upI
to them to make n success, 1t would do
more than anything else to Tighten the
load of domestic misery that brushes
down the heart of the world.
Suppose on her wedding day the bri 7e
said to herself: 81 have undertaken q
new business. Henceforth, It's my Job
TO make my husband happy, to be thrift
tv housewife to be a good housewife and
mother. and I am going to go about this
lob just as l would any other job. ri
I wanted to keep a good situation in
any business office, l would master ev-
cry detail OF the business. / would be
prompt at my work. I would keep my
self looking neat and tidy. I would be
good natured and. accommodating, and
not sass my boss every time he offered
the slightest criticism.
"I am going to run matrimony on the
same schedule, and I am going to make
just as much Of a success of the mar
riage job as l would of any other job"
Do you think there would be many di |
vorces from wives who were on their |
Jobs like that? But first before they do |
that women must learn to be proud of
their Jobs. They must take that attitude !
of a young woman I know who gave up
a brilliant newspaper career to marry. |
AT first" she said, IT was pretty dis
contented and felt l was rather lost,
shut in my little flat. Then one day, I
took a pie out of the stove and saw that |
II was a superlative pie Why isn't this
pie just as much worth signing as any
new story I ever wrote?" 1 asked my.
self Thereupon I did sign 1t, and it made !
me realize that henceforth 1t was just
as important for me to turn out good
work in my home as it ever was in the
office"
And then she added with a twinkle
in her eye: 1T wonder If more wives
wouldn't be better wives if they didn't
know that matrimony is life partner
ship, but instead a job that they could |
only hold so long as they made good in
it?"
Copyright, 1917 by the Wheeler Syn
dictate, Inc.)