The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-05-14
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, d. G.
EXPERIMENTAL MATRIMoNY.

! QeplCtlnB the ana WnOi6-
some joys of family life, is also the au-
thoress of an experiment in marriage
| which puts family life in the discard,
has excited widespread interest; but
4 not nearly so much comment as such
an experiment would have caused a
| few years age. For hers is not really
an isolated case. Every once in
while some new form of marriage, de-
signed by the parties thereto in accor-
| dance with their own ideas, is re-
counted in the newspapers, and there
are many such ventures which do not
get into print at all.
At the same time wave of reform
| in marriage laws is sweeping across the
| world. England has passed a law
making divorce much easier, and one
is being considered in Denmark. Even
our own senate, which is about as well
protected from the winds of change as
any legislative body in the world, has
| held hearings on a proposed measure
to make the divorce laws of the United
States uniform. The senate refuses to
make public it's hearings, and there II
| no indication that it will act upon the
information obtained, but the fact that
the senate thought about it at all is
| highly significant.
Alarming Changes.
All of this is very disturbing to us
or the older and more pious genera
\ ton. who have long regarded matri-
mony as a sacred if not an absolutely
indissoluble union. But the facts
| however unpalatable, must be faced
and recounted. There is a worldwide
revolt against the beautiful and uplift-
| ing conception of marriage which has
! served so many generations so we'll
me strength of this revolt is shown
| by the fact that it can make itself felt
| in such bodies as the British parlia-
| ment and the congress of the United
States. And you have only to compare
the stage and the literature Chose
mirrors of the social mind) of a gen.
Grafton ago with those of today in or
! der to realize that the attitude of the
pubic consciousness on the subject
has changed. Twenty or thirty years
! back marriage was always treated on
the stage reverently and seriously
Now any vaudeville artist can get a
laugh by some sort of a wheeze di-
reeted against the monotonies, absurd
| tiles or the restrictions OF married life
Likewise before 1890 nearly all novels
| began with a love affair and ended
with wedding bells, the assumption
! being that all the troubles of the char
acters ended Herewith. But nowadays
a realistic novel begins with marriage
and follows thru to divorce, or to some
other sort of wreck for that institu-
| ton Even the cartoons in newspa-
| pers of conservative and estimable
type make fun of marriage and get
by with it.
Meantime some persons like Miss
Hurst, who are not content to wait for
| changes in law and custom proceed
to cut the marriage garment to suit
themselves. There is what might be
| described as a colony of young mar
ried women in New York who do not
take the names of their husbands, but
keep their own. One of them is said
to be engaged in writing a book to
prove the justice and expediency of
this; Almost invariably these women
| work, and in many cases they are
wholly self-supporting. They enjoy a
! good deal more freedom, and a good
deal more contact with the world,
| than the married woman of more con-
sservative type who is content to find
her place in the home. Their point of
view was we'll voiced by Miss Hurst
VIXEN she said that she did not pro-
pose to give up her work, and sink
into a state of ''sedentary fatheaded-
ness
A Challenge to Marriage.
This is in effect a taunt and
| challenge to the married ladies. 1t
| implies that they are sedentary fat
| heads, and that there is something
in modern marriage which makes
| them so. This taunt is really an old
one. The feminists have been making
it for years. They say that the mod
ern married woman has nothing to
do, that she is merely a kept woman,
| that she is apt to degenerate mentally
| anu physically. Inc conservatives say
| that this is not true. They say that
any woman who marries a man of
moderate earning capacity, runs her
| household and raises four or five chill
| dren in creditable manner is no fat
| head. And this is certainly true. She
is often the brainiest and most i'm
portant member of the family organi-
zation.
But there is undoubtedly a growing
| tendency for the American woman not
| to do her housekeeping or even her
| embarrassing herself. She lives in a
flat, hires cook and a nursemaid,
and in the larger cities the schools
take almost complete charge of the
| children after they are five years old.
| That modern housekeeping and moth
erhood are no longer the skilled and
arduous professions they once were is
shown by the fact that a large and
| increasing number of married women
who have children hold jobs at the
same time. You can find a few of
these in almost any business organiza-
ton, and many of them in journalism
and the arts. A good many of these
married working women are not driv-
| en- primarily by necessity, but have
revolted against the tedium and idle
ness of married life and have sought
| other employment, often in the face
band, who egotistically desires to be
the sole support of the family. Only
too often these women have no train
ing for work.
1t must be admitted, then, that
while marriage is an all-sufficient life
occupation in some cases, in others it
is not. Whether it is or not depends,
1t would seem, partly on circum
stances and partly on the woman's
inciinations and aptitudes. Some
women like and have talent for
housekeeping and Embarrassing, and
some have neither the liking nor anti
tude. 1t certainly seems fair that
these latter should be taught other
professions or trades, and should have
as good a chance as men have to de-
velop their minds and bodies by work
and experience. They are the ones
who are threatened with sedentary
fat-headedness. especially if they mar
~ ,,,Ar who have epoucf rnnnev 70