The Monmouth inquirer., 1923-07-05
IF You Had to
Live Over Again

band has justified his early promise.
He has achieved success. He COM
mands respect. He started high in
church and in society, and is held up
as a model of morality for young men
to copy. He is particularly gracious
and courteous to women, and it is often
all that / can do to keep from shrek
ing with cynical laughter when some
body says to me that she enyies me
being married to a man so gentle and
SO tender to women, a man with whom
knighthood is always in flower.
'To such tributes to my husband l
make some silly conventional reply,
but if l would I could tell her that my
lord and master never wastes his
courtesy on so ~valueless a creature as
his wife, and that | should drop dead
with surprise if he even treated me
with common politeness in the pri-
vacy OF the family circle.
II suppose that my husband is, as
he is esteemed, a good man, but he
might break every Of the Ten
Commandments into snithereens
every day of his life and be a better
husband. l know that he takes credit
to himself for being too much of a
gentleman ever to strike a woman,
and yet | should rather have had my
body battered black and blue than to
have my heart pierced to the quick
as he has done it thousands and thou
SANDS Of times.
GAS 1 said / went into married life,
thinking it was to be always pink
lined, with the love and tenderness Of
a man to keep me safe and sheltered
from every harm. / was very young,
very affectionate, very sensitive, and
l had been brought up in a family
who were very devoted to each other,
and peculiarly tactful in dealing with
others. / had never been used to
family spats, or heard my mother and
father say an unkind thing to each
other.
Judge, then, of my horror, when,
before our honeymoon had ended, my
husband turned upon me suddenly,
and swore at me because ! accident
ally spilled "a few drops of coffee on
his coat in handing it to him. ] think
when | die that If my body shall be
cut open you will find that oath scared
on my heart, as if It had been branded
there with a white hot iron. / know
that at it something went out Of me
my youth, my joyous confidence for
the future. and that my poor little
pink chiffons of romance shrivelled
Up and persisted in a pinch of dust.
THAT oath was the beginning.
have been sworn at, cursed, gibed at,
made the butt of my husbands sar-
casm. Spoken to as no man would
dare to speak to eny woman who had
an a~ble-bodied brother to defend her,
- 49, 1r1,lOuon rvh0H aotr1d
get up and leave. / have grown ac-
customed to hearing my opinions de-
rided, to being told to shut up, that
| don't know what ! am talking about,
and to having a tempest of reproaches
poured OUT upon ny head for every
trivial thing that goes wrong in the
household, whether | am to blame TOT
1t or not.
"You have seen a dog that has been
so beaten and kicked that he covers
every time any makes a gesture
towards him. / have long fallen into
that mental attitude, ana every time
my husband speaks to me | cringe be-
cause / know that he is going to say
something that VIII hurt me. or find
some fault with me.
Tie has a temper that is wild and
furious. Abroad he is bound TO CON
troll it. At home he let's down the
food gates, and it sweeps over me.
All of my married life haWe gone in
terror of this temper. / have spent
all the wit and ingenuity | possess in
trying to keep everything hidden out
Of sight that could possibly e him.
/ have exhausted all of my diplomacy
in attempting to keep him Modified
| have watched, trembling for the
signs of a gathering storm in his
moods and felt myself happy when he
would deign. to be even ordinarily
civil and. agreeable.
THAT such a nan should be a
ument of ~selfishness goes without say
ing. From the first Of our married
life my husband has simply never con-
sidered me at all in any way. He pays
the family bills with grumbling and
grooming, and bitter reflections on the
way that / manage, but he gives
me a penny for myself to do with as
/ choose. He never gives me a birth
day present, or brings me any gift
when he goes away from home, and
when l have to have a new dress or
hat, he makes so many scathing re-
marks about women's extravaganza
that it takes weeks for me to sum
mon up enough courage to ask him
for the money.
Il have stood all of this because l
was at first too sorely wounded in my
love and in my pride to resent the
way | was treated, and also because |
was under the mistaken belief that
by forbearagce and gentleness could
cure my husband Of his faults.
Il know better now. know that
the only argument that a brute can
understand is brutality, and that the
only way to deal with a bully Is TO
make him afraid of you.
IF l had to live my married live
over again, the first time my husband
swore at me / should not go off and
weep my heart out as / did. / should
turn on him and tell him that | was
a lady, even if ! had the misfortune
to be his wife, and that as long as /
stayed under his roof | should take
precious good care to see that he
treated me with the politeness and
respect due to one. When | think
what have stood for from him | do