The Washington times., 1920-08-29
Today
Is Marriage a Success2
What Homer Said.
Faithful Wild Goose.
The FaIthIess Monkey.
sx ARTHUR BRISBANE.

(CopJrGhe i's"l
IL marriage q succsss'
The question Is discussed In the
New York American, and its sdi-
tors report that If they had room
Ten thousand letters from women
would appear every day.
Women, more than men, are In
tsrssted In the success Of mar
riags, and well may be. for thus
far marriage has been practically
womsn's only business.
No question is raised as 10 the
beauty, ssnctity, permanency or
necessity Of marriage. The New
York American invites It's readers
to discuss the question, SIS mar
risge as great a success as 1t ever
can be, as complete q success as 1t
could possibly be made!"
The flying machine Is fairly sue
eessful, but by inventing, planning,
discussing, men are making IL more
successful every day. The auto
mobile ut first broke down every
few minutes, now IT will run
twenty thousand miles without
lifting the hood" That is be-
cause automobile makers were not
content as long as they had break
downs.
In marriage, men have been con-
tent to run along with models two
thousand years old. Frequent
blovouts and breakdowns have
bean taken for granted in the
marriage machine. Now, with
revelations following the war, with
woman suffrage making the wife
the political. equal as we'll as the
moral superior Of her husband, It
Is time 10 consider marriage i'm
provsmsnt. The New York Amer
lean has started useful dis
cussion.
The beauty and value Of mar
riage were well expressed by
Homer, almost three thousand
years ago. The wise Ulysses, hav-
Ing escaped the sable seas"
meets "Nausicaa, with the wrists
of ivory. This beautiful virgin
and her maidens, after going in
swimming and playing ball on
the shore, all Of them except
Nausicaa are terrified when
Ulysses, cast up all naked, "by
waves and stern storms" crawls
out Of the bushes.
Nausicaa, like the sensible girl
she is, sympathizes with the poor
man, gives him oil to rub on his
body, clothes to wear. Ulysses,
Sae the sixth book of Homer's
Odyssey, says to the young lady:
sGod give you in requitaI AL the
amends }ese
Your heart can Wish, . husband,
family,
And good agreement Naught be-
meath the sky
Nor 80 sweet, moro worthy Is,
than firm consent
OF man and wife in household
government,
IL joys their wishers.well, their
enemies wounds,
Bat to themselves the special
gS0d redounds.'
There the right kind of mar
riage was well described almost
thirty centuries ago. ,..
Marriage was old among men
when Homer wrote, it was hun
dreds of thousands Of years old in
q primitive form among animals
when men first appeared on the
earth. The wild goose mates for
life, and only once. If goose or
gander dies the survivor mourns in
loneliness until death.
The ostrich has but one mate,
and the same is true Of other birds
and many animals.
Strange and sad to relate,
among monkeys and men, of all
animals in creation, you find most
rarely fidelity and moral power,
content to spend a lifetime in
partnership, with only one being
Of opposite sex.
You would say, the wild gander
can spend lifetime satisfied
with one wild goose, whose emo
tions and conversation must be
limited. The wild ostrich, what
time he lifteth himself up on high,
can spend a lifetime with the
same unimaginative, small-brained
female ostrich. Surely man should
be content all his life with one
woman, whose moods and possibili-
ties are infinite, whose plumage
changes spring and fall, whose
mind you cannot know thoroughly
even after fifty years of study.
Man ought to be content with
marriage and monogamy, but
often unfortunately he is not.
And often, like the fool that he
is, he imagines that his dissatis-
faction and unfaithfulness indi-
cate superior qualities within him
self. He easily persuades himself
that his wife is mot quite my
equal" or "does not understand my
highly strung nature" II is amaz-'
ing how easily he finds, plastered
with rouge, gilded with peroxide,
some dull creature, unable to speak
any language correctly, incapable
Of any serious thought, yet per-
fectly able to understand his INV