The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-27
Beware Of Marrying The Overly
 Devoted
Dorothy DiT
A Model Son Or Daughter Will Not Necessarily Make The Perfect Husband Or Wife-FamiIy Bonds
 May Come Before Matrimonial Ties

Nothing is more common that to hear people say: John will make such a good husband. He has been such d good son to his mother" Or: Mary will make such splendid wife. She Is such devoted daugh- ter"
 We speak as if fiIial affection peculiarly fitted a man and woman for matrimony, and as if those who espoused a model son or daughter had sure thing in domestic bliss.
 Never was there more erroneous tneoory. It is one of the curious con tradictions of the holy estate that the virtues of the outside world and the virtues of the home circle are not al ways the same, and that a good man and woman may be a mean husband and wife. For 1t avails a woman nothing if her husband is moral and upright abroad if he Is stingy and grouchy and fault-finding at home. Nor does 1t profit a man to be mar ried to a woman whose character is above reproach, and who takes th" blue ribbon for her cakes, if she is nagging and finding and hen pecks him so that he cannot call his soul his own.
 Many a man and woman married to saints envy those united to cheerful sinners.
 So beyond the fact that loyalty and unselfishneSS and a strong sense Of duty are admirable qualities in any man and woman, and qualities that are greatly to be desired in a hus- band or wife, filial devotion does not denote that the good son and the good daughter are the preferred matrimonial risks.
 F On the contrary, they often add further danger to an already hazard ous proposition, for the woman and the man who marry them commit bigamy and trigamy and quadrigamy, for they marry the whole family, and have the whole family to deal with.
 Now every married woman, speak ing out of the depths of her own eX- perience, will tell any young girl that, if she wants to be happy though married, she must do her own hus- band-training and bring him up by her own hand. She must form his ideas about what a husband has right to expect of wife, and how much money 1t takes to run a house. and what sort of clothes wife is entitled to have, and whether wife should be a doormat or parlor orna- ment.
 This the wife cannot do who mar ries a man who has always been mothers helper. Mother has set her seal upon him to the end of time, and his ideas will always be mothers. He will think that his wife ought to un- derstudy mother and do everything that mother did in the way mother did it. Furthermore. no other woman will ever have quite the place In hls heart that mother has. She will al ways come first.
 Without doubt, it is an admirable thing for a son and brother to be the mainstay of his family. It is heroic of him to work early and late to give his sisters pretty clothes and send his brothers to college. but, unless he IS n financial genius, it comes rather hard on his wife. Once let man elect himself the family goat, and all the balance of the family will sit down and let George do 1t. They will dip their hands in Georges pocket and hate Georges wife if she dare s protest. and suggest that George's duty is to his own family first.
 Whenever you see man who IS taking care of his father and ms mother. and educating his nieces ana his nephews, and paying for his mar ried sisters surgical operations, yon will nearly always find his wife In