The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-09-04
ADVICE TO THE
 LOVELORN
By Beatrice Fairfax

There doesn't seem rhyme or req son in it. It's one or those things | which-from the point of view of "cou1dnt happen" But it seems to be happening all about us, every day, all the time and for no reason which fully explains it. a
 With big, overwhelming love in her heart for one man, woman who feels that love is vain, has sev- eral ways of trying to forget the unattainable. There's work. There's travel. There's devoting her life to good works. There's plugging along and waiting for time to heal her wound. There's even hoping against hope that everything will come out right in the end and living in the dream of what may yet come to pass.
 But on the evidence of the letters which come to me daily, the number of women who do the one thing to wreck their already somewhat out of-the-true-course existence is made up of all too many digits.
 Here's an example of how the lady in the case makes shipwreck of her happiness and that of at least one other being:
 About six months ago I married a man for a home and money without
 
 love was for another. The man whom I love and whom I was to mar ry three years ago, is in another city and cannot be found, though I tried to locate him in every possible way before I married. Three years ago I refused to marry him on account of our differences in religion. Now I realize that the man I sent away means more to me than anything else. l fariy pir haI i taught me. this. I tried to locate him and tell him this, but to no avaIH. l Sometimes I have gone almost mad | with longing to see him. But as I 1 thought I was getting older and probably would never see him again,
 I decided to marry and try to forget 1 my former sweetheart
 l ''Now, at the end 6. ssA' months l of marriage to a man who Is very l good to me and loves me dearly. I l am getting more broken-hearted each | day.
 My husband said that he would gladly divorce me if I couldn't be l happy with him. This I would do if
 I thought I could locate my first sweetheart I'm sure if he knew of
 my unhappiness and love for him he | would come to me immediately. What shall I do?
 Can ossib1y locate my sweetheart
 and then, after explaining everything g
 to him and if he still wants %o mar
 ry me, shall I get a divorce or sna1 I go on to suffer heart-agony and un-
 happiness because I'm already mar. ried?''
 If ever there was a member of the
 want-to- eat-her- cake-and -have-it-too. tribe! This 'broken-hearted" crea l ture who talks about the agony of hel
 marriage hasn't the slightest idea O. extricatng herself from the arms O. : the man for whom she doesn't cart unless she's quite sure that the arm
 of the man she so nnad1y adoreS C? are waiting to enfold her. She don i; venture anything until she's sur' she's going to have something els , just as good. Some man must offe , her a haven of refuge against az and the storms of life.
 : And we are to pity her, forsooth, , When a women who longs with al
 her heart for one man marries an 1 other, does she ever stop to figur out what she's offering the man t whom she makes such touching VOW at the altar? Doesn't it occur to he that there's something of give an r take in marriage-tnat she's suppos ? ed to do her bit to make the ma. A who marries her happy-that he ha
 a right to expect something of hi
 wife? Or does she marry with col blooded desire to get some stron man to work for her support? If that's it, one mans about a = good as another-such things as earn e ing capacities being equal and all tai n about broken hearts is nothing shor n of absurd.
 l. What are the real facts about tn = woman who has married becaus n she's afraid she is getting old an e noh one else will ask her? Hash p she made bargain which she ougt " to keep? If that bargain is too muc
 for her, shouldn't she do her be:
 to get out of it without waiting { is see if she's going to get a prize 1 e place of the one she's re1inquishing is A woman who lives to the poir et of heart-break and agony will wa
 and wait A woman who loves an
 feels that it is vain will make son D practical effort to forget herse n through her own efforts But tt d woman who seizes upon "the eas ,e way' through dependence on anoth, m man, owes far more to the man sT l., has so ruthlessly taken advantage ,, than she can possibly owe to h.
 own selfish, weak self. And if sl
 expects ever to be real woman, ii ' up to her to think about her hu ,, band and his feelings and not mere =. about her own wish to have ever thing without paying anything
 - turn.
 nHoHr0-~ @~@-