The Washington herald., 1918-10-30

Why the average woman is OBJ
sessed by an ineradicable jealousy of
everyone her husband ever knew be-
fore he met her, is one of the myster-
les OF feminine psychology that no
one can solve.
It is merely so. Mrs. Bride is filled
with deep. dark suspicion of all of her
husbands old pals of his own sex, and
nothing can convince her that they
are not trying TO entice him away and
lead him into the downward path, no
matter what moral, sober, upright
| citizens they may be.
And when it comes to his women
friends she is beyond argument. They
may be old enough to be his mother.
They may be as discreet as Caesars
wife. They may be infatuated with
their own husbands. Nothing will
persuade the young wife that they
are not sirens who are in love with
her husband. and have designs upon
him. You needn't tell her how noble.
kind and good they are. She knows
them.
| Therefore. Mrs. Newlywed considers
! it her first duty to separate her hus-
bands from these banefuI influences
Of his past, and she proceeds to do it
with a thoroughness and a frightful-
ness that takes the poor mans breath
away, and leaves him wondering what
has happened to him, and why the
people who have loved him for so
, long suddenly seem to love him no
more.
Sometimes the young wife is such
clumsy bungler and her methods
are so raw that he catches her in the
act of driving away the faithful
friends who have been attached TO
him for years and years. Then there
are protestations, and hot arguments,
and tears and general rucuons, but 1t
is one OF the cases where the woman
always wins out. because friendship
cannot thrive under forced conditions.
Generally, however. the young
wife rids herself effectively of all
her husbands former acquaintances
by the simple process of freezing
them out. Few people have an
appetite for cold shoulder. and that
forms the piece de resistance that
most brides serve to husbands old
friends when he invites them to
dinner. There are limits even to
the sacrifices that friendship feels
called upon to make, and one
CHASTITY cold storage evening at
Fred's. or Toms. is all that his old
chums can stand. They depart
never to return.
OF course there are some excep-
tions to this rule. Here or there
you will find a woman who is big
and broad enough to realize that
her husband did not live in soli-
tary confinement in a dungeon cell
up to the time he married her.
She appreciates that he knew many
other men and women. among
whom he formed friendships and
attachments that are dear to him,
and that there is no reason for his
giving them up because he has
married. So she takes these peo-
pie into her life and loves them
because her husband loves them,
and is grateful to them because
they were good to him.
Unfortunately. this kind of wo-
man is almost as rare as hens
teeth. The common or garden va
riety of woman is so petty and
narrow that she cannot endure the
thought that her husband has ever
even liked anybody but herself.
So she builds a wall around her
home and writes, No Admission to
Husbands Old Friends" on its
gates.
You need no better proof of this |
than the fact that after man
marries you meet in his house, and |
at his table, only his wife's friends.
He pays the bills. but he is not |
free to bring home an old chum to
dinner. And If he is bold enough !
to take such liberty, he has to
listen to a thousand criticisms on
III to wifi
Perhaps a man finds no more bitter |
disappointment in matrimony than
this unreasoning jealousy of his wife !
toward his old friends. One of his
innocent dreams of bliss has been /
having a home of his own where there
will always be a chair by the fire for
his old pals. with whom he has shared
good fortune and i'll fortune in his
struggling years, whose help has
saved him many a time. and the
of whose loyalty and love
are among the most precious things
in his life. They have a million men,
ories and experiences in common, and
he thinks of the beatific evenings
when the two of them will sit and
smoke and recall "reminiscences, and
wife will beam on them as they talk.
But the dream has a rude awaken
ing when wife hands chum frap-i
ped welcome that would make an
Arctic winter seem tropical. and when
she makes fun of his clothes, and de-
rides his manners, and can't abide
he smell of his tobacco. That elm
mates old chum.
And the man gets still more of a
Jar when wife hands out the cold
rundown to some woman friend who
las been an anchor and stay to
lim in his youth and whose influence
,as perhaps made him the fine fellow
le is. Or perhaps the old friend
s some boardinghouse keeper who