Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1922-10-25

Why are mothers always anxious to
have their daughters marry, and loath
to have their sons marry2
There's never any trouble at a wedding
TO tell which is the brides family, and
which the bridegroom's. The veriest
stranger could pick oalt which is which
without the slightest chance of making
4 mistake. The, brides mother is
wrcathed in smiles, and wears the COM
placent and triumphant air of the cat
that has Just eaten the canary, while
the bridegroom's mother has the de-
pressed and done-for expression of the
late deceased bird.
From the time girl baby is born her
mother begins to plan for her wedding
She holds marriage up before the girl
as the chief aim and end Of woman's
life. While daughter is still in pigtails,
she begins cultivating callow kids with a
weather eye to their being possible
future son-in-laws when they grow up.
And when the girl finally makes her
debut, mother rolls up her sleeves and
gets on the husband hunting job in
earnest, and never rests until she sits
back with a sigh of contentment in the
front row in church, and listens TO the
wedding march, that to her is q paeon
Of victory. For it marks her triumph
in getting Mamie, or Sadie married.
Far otherwise does woman feel
bout her sons nj marriage. She doesn't
tout matrimony to him. She warns
him against it, and she keeps him out
OF it as long as she can. She doesn't
encourage youn girls to come around
the house unles S. they are so homely
and hopeless she knows son couldn't
be hired to show them any attention.
She picks thousand flaws in every
maiden son fancies, and when, at last
in spite of all mother can do TO prevent
it, son gets married, the wedding bells
ring dirges in her heart.
OF course mothers will deny these
statements, but they are true, neverthe-
less. Else why does the mans mother
always weep at wedding, while the
girls mother wears the grin that won't
come off?
Yet one would think the reverse OF
this would be the case. One would think
that every woman who had, herself,
known wifehood, and motherhood, with
all that they inevitably bring of risk,
and suffering, and sorrow, and anxiety
to woman, would hold her little daugh.
ter back from the altar almost as she
would hold her back from death itself
if she could. For in marriage it is womel
who take their lives and their happineS
in their hands, and chance it all on hav
ing Got the right men instead of round
er for a husband. They do not know
as a man knows, what they are marry
ing. And their mothers are so anxiou,
TO get them married they do not lool
the gift-horse in the mouth, or ever
ask for his pedigree and record of pas
performances. Strange and incredibl,
that mother should be particular abou
the character oe the girl her son marie.
and utterly indifferent as TO the charac
ter of the man her daughter marriesj
A mother also knows how completely
a woman's life is in her husbands hands
and how easily he may break her hear
and make her miserable. He need no,
be q bad man to do it. He may be q:
moral as the Ten Commandments, We,
wreck his wife's happiness by stinginess
by temper by surliness, by utter, lack o.
tenderness, and understanding.
No man with a mean wife. is in as hare
luck as the woman with a mean husband