Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-03

! A man has written me an unusual
and interesting letter He tells me
he proposed to girl whom he re-
garded as the best and noblest of
her SEX" She confided to him that
she was not as he thought her, in
early life she had thrown away her
birthright and paid the penalty in re-
morse ever since.
She is willing to marry him, but
feels he ought to know the mistake
o. her early youth. My correspon-
dent asks me, What sort of a wife
I do you think she would make? +.
There are as many answers to this
question as there are different temper
aments concerned. The first thing to
b.. considered is what sort of a hus-
band would my correspondent make ?
How large-hearted and generous is
he. how free from convention, and,
above all, has he the ability to blot
fl ON his memory this girls confidence
or to act as if it were forever blot
ted out?
Very few men are cast in suffici-
emily heroic molds to do this. The
small souled man would remember his
wife's sin, and even if he never spoke
OF it, there it would be, skeleton at
the hearthstone.
In addition to the qualities of gen
erosity, freedom from convention and
great-heartedness necessary to make
a union of this sort successful, the hus-
band should have a disposition that
is above suspicion. The situation
would be extremely difficult In the
case of a man addicted to suspicion
OF jealousy.
Poor Otnello would be constantly
hV wi tt.,I
association with friends and neighbors
He would see the proverbial mountain
in every molehill. His wifes past
would people his present and future
with fantoms. Such partnership
would be doomed from the beginning
the domestic boat would be swamped
by the ballast of memories.
Must Be n Superman
So much Cor the husband. Unless
he has good, generous dash of super
man in his makeup he would better
marry some sweet young thing whose
past is white page on which no his
tory has been written. But grant
ing, for the sake of argument, that
he has in his makeup the dash of
superman which would enable him to
be the loving, considerable, trusting
husband of woman whose life has not
been above reproach-what then?
One feels that such mans choice
ought to be worthy of such magma
nmity. And in the ma jority of cases
1t is the woman is overwhelmingly
grateful because a man has been
found who is generous enough to for4
give what the rest of the world con-
demns.
And such a woman holds to hec
honorable name and her honorable
place with a passion Of gratitude that
the woman who has rever known the
lack of these things seldom feels.
For, please remember we are talk
ing of life. not as it ought to be, but
as 1t is-with separate standards of
conduct for snen and women. No girl
particularly no nice" girl was sup
posed to concern herself with her hus-
bands life up to the wedding day
Indeed there used to be a partcu-
larly cynical proverb quoted to the ef-
feet that reformed rake makes the
best husband And the entire domes-
tic high-court of grandmothers, maiden
aunts, fathers and brothers worked to-
gether in a deadly conspiracy of si-
lence to maintain that this law of the
double standard was the proper dis
pensation of justice.
Pretty little Dorothy dressed in
white as an emblem of her purity
would have been regarded as un-
maidenly If she even speculated on
| Reeinald's past. Her father, more
deeply interested in the worldly goods
with which his daughter was to be