Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-02-06
HOME, SWEET HOME;
OBSOLETE OR NOT?
Feminists Say 1t Has Passed.
Conservatives and Divorce
Experts Contradict
BY M'LISS

The home? Ancient institution. How
much longer is it to be with us?
Femnists declaim loudly that IT should
go IL woman is to develop. Conservatives
moan loudly that it should stay, but that II
is going so fast that If somebody doesn't
come forward and save it 1t will have
passed away before we know 1t.
Some reformers suggest that the state
step in and assume charge of the children
and the kitchen others advise that woman
be forced back from her typewriter TO the
cook stove and cradle. Miss Tiera Farrow
demands that women relnquish their ideals
instantly and unequivocally.
Miss Farrow is Kansas City's first woman
divorce proctor Unhappy homes. their
causes and remedies. are her specially
From q comprehensive observation or the
way people ruthlessly tear down theE house
hold gods and throw them to the dogs or
the four winds, she has declared against
ideals because nine times out of ten Ideals
particularly the kind that women vision are
the false romantic sort that crumble to the
ground when compared with n real concrete
man.
IDEALS THAT WITHER
Because women dream of movie heroes
with wavy hair and caressng eyes as
1
marriage Is a failure when their plumper
or carpenter husbands prove comm onplace
Because her ideal of married life, born
| Of novel reading. as a rose garden OF love-
| does not come true, the young wire grows
| discontented and fails to make success
| of her job as a homemaker.
"Of course the fault Is not all with the
woman. In perhaps the greater number
| of unsuccessful marriages the men are 10
blame but there would be many more
| happy homes II girls were brought up with
| less romantic ideas"
| It's a curious thing about women that
| Just so soon as they fall in love their
minds eye refuses to coordinate with their
| body's eve The object of their affection
| may be possessed of a bald head, grth
measuring forty inches and no chin AT
| all. He may use snuff and wear cellulold
| collar and yet to the lovelorn one ne ~
| a combination of Adonis. Apollo Bevedere
! and James X. Hackett rolled into one. In
| short he is being made to serve as an
| ideal and poor fellow. though he may do
| his level best to hll the bill, IL the awaken
! ing ever comes there's smash And that S
| how the divorce proctor gets her statistics.
The ideal. to quote the photographer. Is
| the standard Of perfection. beauty, moral
or physical excellence: a perfect type
| whether a reality or a conception only
Most women and all men cherish ideals
| But whereas. given the creature comforts, a
| man can philosophcally reconcile MS ldeai
with an individual who sometimes indulges
| in curl papers and often smears her nose
! with cold cream, a woman's romantic visions
| are apt to totter at the too frequent sight
of an unshaven chin and tousled head,
MODERN NOVELIST DIFFERENT
Time was when most novels stopped at
the altar Wise authors. conscious OF their
dependence on the woman reader, refused
to bulge their heroes and herones one step
beyond the hymeneal shrine. To have truth
| fully portrayed the events succeeding the
ceremony they felt, would have been to
1 have administered at once shatterng blow
TO the old adage, They lived happily ever
afterward"
Modern novelists are braver-and more
| cynical. They start their heroes and
heroines at the altar and show, unromanti-
cally how, In the majority of cases, mar
riage doesn't or almost doesn't work,
But despite the dsenchanting activity of
| the modern novelist, does anybody take him
| seriously? DO marriage statistics fall on
as a result OF his pessimistic revelations?
DO girls cease to marry their fascinating
| ideals? They do not, Miss Farrow has her
divorce figures to prove 1t.