The Washington times., 1919-08-03

RTI1O0A d lON0
NJ wife or his mother? To which
one Of these should he cleave,
leaving all others?
The questions would seem to have been
answered by consent, by codifed custom,
which is the law, and by the Book, which
is the bulwark of civilization.
But again it has been opened-and in a
most unusual fashion. Can a family's
code take precedence? The courts of New
York have been asked to pass their judg-
ment upon the question. The cause of this
revolution Of established ideas is pair of
nearly children. A broad-browed, molten
eyed, black-haired youth Of Cuba, ErnestC
Carranza, and fair-haired girl with once
smiling now tear-flled blue eyes, a girl of
American birth and Swedish origin, Jean
Troupman.
They met, they loved, they married.
There by ordinary laws of the stage, the
curtain should have been rung down. But
instead, it rises on another act, which
promises to be a great climax because of
the code of honor in which he had been
brought up. Mrs. Carranza has brought
suit against her father-in-law, the cousin
of President Carranza Of Mexico, and her
motherinIaw, a member Of the enormous
" wealthy Moline family of Mexican
planters and bankers, for half a million
dollars. She has charged them with con-
spiracy against her happiness in marriage.
+. The case is practically unique. 81 am
making no charge of alienation Of affec-
tions," says the blue-eyed bride, who, like
Niobe, is all tears. "They didn't ALLEVIATE
his affections, for they couldn't. He said
to me a hundred times what he said to me
the night we parted, Have faith in me.
You are the only woman can ever love-
l will come back But they took him
back to his home in Cuba l want him
back If cannot have him they must pay
me half a million Of their many million
dollars"
81 am your wife, dear. Your place is
with me-" said the bride on the fateful
night of their parting
"You are my wife and my most beloved"
he answered. "But my duty is to my dear
mother. So it has been taught me. fl
do not go with my madre she may die"
There is something to be said, of course,
for the Carranza side of the matter. The
continental marriage, in which the parents
nick out the bride for their son or the
BRIDEGROOM for their daughter, has never
found foothold in America, but abroad it
is very real, indeed, and in no country
does this custom hold more strongly than
among the aristocratic classes of Spain
to which, of course, the Carranza family,
both in Mexico and in Cuba, belongs. In
all such arrangements son and daughter
are very little consulted, if at all-the
theory being that the parents know what
e best for them in this most important
contract.
It necessarily follows then that the
mother and the father assume position
b the minds Of those brought up under
this code which is hard to understand by
Americans.
A considerable sympathy may certainly
be extended to both the bridegroom in this
case and the parents of the bridegroom.
For the son thrust into the American ideal
or, rather, through his environment
losing such close touch with the Spanish
deal-assumes for a time the American
viewpoint But when he is confronted by
his parents, all his old habits, all his teach
ng and training arise to perplex him. And
It the same time the family. through their
customs, cannot look upon a wife, chosen
contrary to their code, in the same sym
,athetic light that people who believe in
rec choice in marriage do.
At any rate, whatever the right or wrong
4 it may be, after young Carranza's an
tears flowed like rivers in the
Dom of the two in a Broadway hotel.
The bride crouched in an arm chair
eside the window, looking upon West
'orty-ninth street, and moaned The
bridegroom flung himself upon the couch
nd wept as a little boy weeps when his
Oy ship or his train of cars has been
rushed by a careless foot. That is pre-
Isely what his family maintains he is-a
eartbroken little boy.
There is confusion in the family circle
5 to the boys age. "He is twenty-five"
.ys the bride. 'He told me he registered
1918" HE is eighteen" thunders Luis
arTanza, his father, the plantation own
and importer. my poor baby" sobs !
snO-a Carranza, who was once Senorita
olino. "He is only seventeen" What f
IS become Of the bridegroom's missing T
re years? It is one of the knots in the