Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-29
Little Talks by
BEAR ice FdUfdT

Men have progressed more than a
notch or two in the last generation.
Particularly in their view of women.
Women have of course been develop
ing at the same time. But this SIM
pie matter of mans changed attitude
toward women. husbands changed
attitude toward his wife, is import
ant and striking enough to be COM
mented on all by itself.
a New York husband who died
recently, left on record, in a will
bequeathing her his entire estate.
his opinion of his wife. He believed
her to be perfect woman.
II want to say to the world that
my wife, in my estimation, is the
heard or knew Of" was this super
lative tribute.
Well-this is lovers language.
Something of the sort has been ex-
pressed by youthful lovers thousands
of times and in thousands of ways.
But this husband backed up his as
sertion. He produced his reasons.
And to me it's these reasons of his
that are the interesting feature of
the husbandly comment.
She is endowed with marvellous
courage a very strong will and in
tensely high ideals of honor" runs
sentence from the will. So we have
1t in so many words what consti-
tuted perfection in this husbands
eyes. Courage, strength of will.
high sense of honor Does this sur
prise you? If it doesn't. you are
probably very young or very un-
learned in the ways of the old
fashioned husband. And the old
faG hi lttCh
extinct.
No reasonable person would deny
that these are very important vir-
tues for a woman or a man to pos
sess. Perhaps they are the greatest
virtues. But they are certainly not
the "wifely virtues" we used to hear
so much about. l should almost say
they were the very opposite of them.
Not Like the Old Ideal
For it used to be preached to the
wife of an earlier day, it used to
be tirelessly inculcated in her by
her elders, by society at large, by
her husband himself. that she must
have a special set of virtues. some
what different from those of other
women, and totally different from
those of men.
And the burden of it all was that
possible and conform to the ways
of the man she had married. Being
HIely" meant being docile. dill
gent in pleasing.
Courage? OF a passive sort, per-
haps. Strength of will? What
quality could be more superf1ous in
home where the husband, with
law and society back of him, exer-
cised the monopoly of will power?
A sense of honor? But this was
entirely outside the field of the
wife that-usedt be. Honor was
something that only husbands under
stood.
To be brave, resolute and honor
able was expected of you If you
were a man. But if you were
woman and a wife, you concerned
yourself about nothing but being
"wifely." There were women, of
course, who had other ideals and
who followed them. But they weren't
praised for 1t. And they didn't re-
ceive fiattering tributes from their
husbands, written for the whole
world to read.
Now, If you feel for any reason
that it's a dismal universe, here's
one really inspiriting thing to
fasten one. The ideal of womanhood.
to use an old phrase, has enormously
advanced. It's an immeasurably
bigger and finer thing than 1t used
to be. And so is the relationship
between husbands and wives. It's
really rather an inviting age to marry
in when a wife is at liberty to be
as decent a human being as she can,
instead of merely a good wife, and
when a husband also feels at liberty
to praise her for 1t publicly.
If there are any young girls so
out of the current modern life that
they suppose marriage to mean
your husband and being handy with
the mending basket and the dish
mop, they ought to read this dead
husbands will. Perhaps they'll feel
encouraged by it to develop them
selves as far as they can to count
for as much as possible, as inde-
pendent personalities.
Then the childrens side of 1t can't,
of course, be overlooked. Children
have had good deal to say about
their mothers from time to time.
And If you stop to think of 1t. chill