Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-06-29
Woman,s Life and Love
Marry a Man Younger Than You?
BY WINIFRED HARPER COOLEY

Still another friend teifs you that
he has seen ideal marriages between a
man of fifty and woman of twenty
| five. Better be an old man $ darling
| than young man s slave he cries.
| That is not true, of course. but there
| is a germ Of great truth in 1t, or the
axiom would not have survived the
centuries The young lover almost al
ways IS selfish and exacting. He de-
! mands innumcrable things of wife.
! He has not had the hard knocks that
make the mature man gracious and
| thoughtful and appreciative. He does
not know feminine psychology. He has
no background.
And so we see occasional men of
| ffty-widowers. Of course. few bach
clors at that age would be endurable
| If suddenly translated from selfish bach
! clordom to matrimony-who are adOr
! ing and delightful and appreciative hus-
bands. They recall all sorts of little
things that women find important, and
| they regard indulgPntly certain tenn
pers and outbursts which infuriate the
| younger men. They have a sane, bal
anced. understanding attitude which
makes a wife very happy.
That is. some of them have all these
good qualities. Naturally. others are
! exacting and pecvish, and tend to con
!
with the imagined virtues of the de-
| funCt spouse. to the detrimcnt of the
! incumbent!
Having glanced Mt the mating Of our
friends at these various ages ard differ
cnt distances of the years, how about
the man who marries the older woman?
Bernard Shaw wrote play years ago
that had great vogue. candida. y
The poet lover is twenty. his adorpd
II. 4,11 -. 81. 4
is married to a fine man, mature and
just a few years her senior. but that has
nothing to do with our problem. for
she discusses with the poet the folly of
his wedding a woman ten years older
! than he, even were she free.
At the close of the play he goes out
/ broken hearted The thinks), but she
says something like this: Just CON
kider that while l am attractive and
Young at thirty. and our ages do not
seem difFercnt-when you are thirty, l
1 will be ffty-and imagine how plain
and old | will seem then to a man just
in his prime
We frown on the wedding of a
woman with a man ten years her ju-
nior. for we see in the future her tragic
struggle to seem young. She cannot
grow old gracefully and normally, along
with ner contemporaries, DNt must use
every art and artifCe 70 stav0 off cruel
time. But the sadlest is not the
necessity of wrinkle rcmovers and face
massage. and dyed hair and softcncd
lights; it is the psychological effect on
herself. She dPprcciates herself. She
tries to stife her maternal attitude to-
ward him. She watches all youth
jealousy. feeling in every young girl
a deadly rival.
And yet-in spite of all these truths.
| know of many cases (virtually all.
in fact. which I ever have investigated
in twenty years.. which have turned
out TO be ideally happy. The man
may have grown a beard. or Camou-
tagged in some small way to make the
world think him little older but the
mating was extremely fortunate.
Ever so many women have told me of
cases of their friends who made this
doubtful experiment. and always they
concluded: And would you believe it.
they are blissfuly happy? Girls bore
him to death. She loves him with o
touch of the maternal-but so do most
of us-and they are wonderfully
mated
The only solution I can find Is that
folks who loved 50 much that they de-
fed tradition had an unusually deep
affection, which proved unspoilable.
Write and tell Mrs. Cooley about
your problems. She will be glad 70 take
them up and discuss them in this
column.