Omaha daily bee., 1920-03-07
Marriage and the
Pay Envelope
r Related
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX.

income of $4,000 year.
Fortunately his view OF things
isn't prevalent or we'd have abou
one man in a thousand marrying
Nevertheless an extravagant view
point anent the amount of income
on which it's safe to marry is par
Of today's mental reaction from yes
terday.
Twenty years ago a rich mans
daughter was cheerful and ready tc
marry a man who was earning Sl0(
month and to do her own work in
$40 a month cottage on the out
skirts of her home town. Today
the factory hand whose home
horizon is the tenement district
earns as much and may have to pay
more rent.
The girl OF today demands lux
ury as an integral part of her life
Men have accustomed themselves to
think of women as non-toiling lilies
4 of the field whose glorious array
suggests the earning capacity OF
their menfolk. Men of today are
afraid to marry until they have some
assurance of buying their wives the
trappings and furbelows which they
seem to confuse with the woman
herself.
And when they can buy her every
thing, they can't give her nothing!
BY the time the young lawyer has
.eached the $4,000 standard he sets
himself-rwhen the business man ac-
quires the $1,000 year which is
his ininimum-and the clerk has
risen to the $1,000 a year he feels
obliged to have before founding a
home, one or two things has hap
pened. Either the heart, denied its
natural heritage of love, marriage
and home. has satisfied itself un-
worthily in a relationship without
obligations" or else emotion long
denied has atrophied. Then, the
"middle-aged man" whose income
warrants him marrying, is likely to
find that his circumstances or his
feelings+or both-deny him the
goal he has at last reached and the
prize he thought would he awaiting
him there. y
What happens to the man who
waits until his "incom justifes his
marriage" is that his once warm
and loving nature settles into a
mold Of cool calculation while his
habits become as iron and adamant
and he isn't capable of tenderness
and gentleness and the give and
take needed for happy marriage.
How about the girl who waits
for wealth?
The woman who doesn't love a
man enough to live with him in a
small fiat and do her own work
doesn't know the meaning of for
better, for worse" A woman who
isn't sufficiently interested in her
husbands life work to help him .ac-
complish it by sharing the upward
climb and its dangers is a parasite,
not !.9lpmate. A millionaire's
wealth may vanish over night. Pow
crty may be lurking around the
most luxurious corner. Then what's
to become of the woman whose idea
OF marriage doesn't include work
ing to earn love and happiness?
Not all the dollars in the world
will buy deep feeling and lasting
emotion. Not all the success ever
achieved will insure sympathy and
comradeship. And the things money
won't buy are the very foundations
OF love and marriage.
Luxury and show seem to be TAX
ing the place of heart, home and
happiness. The poor young man
WHO could win love with his fresh
emotions and vivid enthusiasms is
afraid to ask for what he can meet
and create in woman's heart. So
he waits to marry until he must
buy yawhat once he could have won.
What would have been a free gift
to his loveable, warm youth turns
out to be a poor bargain when his
outword and cynical years purchase
it.
Out Of the immortality of the love-
less bargain" marriage comes the
greatest immortality of the illicit tie.
The man who is disappointed in his
loveless marriage turns around and
buys himself more sham--thc in1ita-
ton affection of the woman whose
business it is to pretend what she
is beyond feeling. There follow al
most inevitably more disappoint-
ment, bitterness, shame.
The best of life ought to come
through love and marriage. And
the best of life is far more likely to
reside in happy active partnership
than in an affair where everyone re-
tires from business and seeks some
think to keep the day and the weary
self going.
No man has right to set a mark
and say he won't marry until he
reaches it. No man has a right to
deny the girl he loves the privilege
Of working by his side and sharing
his struggles. There's only one
bond that does more to make wed
lock happy as we'll as holy. And
the postponed late-lfe, large-in-
come marriage has to get along
without that bond too.
People who don't share their
youth and it's uphill climb. don't
share the blessed nursery and its
glorious partnership either.
lWelVc t1OuSdHu uOltdTS-OT rove
and children. which, Mr.. Lawyer,
which?
Mrs. Grace Browne Of Ann Arbor. |
Mich. editor of the Michigan Club
Bulletin. official organ of the Michi- |
gan State Federation of Women's
Clubs, has been appointed one of the |
state managers of the Michigan |
campaign OF Senator Hiram john
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