The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-01-10
MS SPECIAL FEATURES OF INTEREST TO WOMEN
Don't Sue For Your
 Louer m the Courts

| cannot deal with hearts as If they were so many bricks that you could deliver on demand. You cannot guar antee that you can furnish given amount of affection, up to speolil- cations, on a certain date, as you could & tank of gasoline. Therefore an engagement Is nothing but sentimental option from which either party should be able to with draw at pleasure.
 When all is said, the game of hearts Is the biggest gamble in the world, and every one who takes hand at 1t does so at his or her own peril. If one wins out, well and good. Let him or her sing small and return thanks to Lady Luck. IT one loses, one should, at least, be good sport enough not to howl over ones i'll luck, and try to recover one's gambling loss in the courts.
 The theory that the man or woman who fails to get an unwilling life partner has sustained 8 loss, Is one that will not bear investigation. h. stead of being the victims of mis- fortune, they are the darlings of the gods who are thus providentially saved from the misery of marriage that would be foredoomed to dis- aster.
 To Acquire Happiness
 For there can be no happiness in a marriage which is not entered into with love, with enthusiasm, with high hope, and great expectations by both parties. Even when a mar riage begins under the most auspi- cious circumstances, there is so much that Is disillusioning In domesticity; family life calls for such continual personal sacrifices; the clash If per- sonalities of those living in such proximity as husband and wife, is so wearing on the nerves Shat not many couples reach their silver we'd ding day with a shred of the TO- nance of their bridal hour left to them.
 What chance, then, of happiness has the marriage in which either the man or woman is goaled to the altar by sense of duty, or the fear of breach of promise suit? Love is already dead in his or her heart. He or she is already a-wearied of the other. The illusion is dispelled, the magic gone, and he or she sees the new life ahead as nothing but long and dreary journey, instead of gay adventure.
 Truth First
 Better a thousand times that a man should be faithless before mar riage than unfaithful afterwards Better million times that a woman should change her mind before mar riage than afterwards, for broken engagement may be a disappoint- ment, but broken-up home blights the lives of all who lived in it.
 No penalty should be imposed on those who are honest enough to break an engagement instead of talk ing lying marriage vows on their lips. A man should be commended rather than blamed if he tells a woman he has ceased to love her, and no longer wishes to marry Der. A woman should be honored rather than criticised for having the cour- age to break an engagement that she knows will bring misery on both herself and the man if she fulfilled it.
 Love is not a matter of volition, nor can men and women keep from changing. Absence. environment as sociation, thousand things alter ones view point, and make the mar rage that once seemed to promise a heaven on earth a fate worse than death.
 Happy the man and woman who find this out before it is too late and have the grit to break off an unsuitable engagement rather than risk ending an uncongenial marriage in the divorce courts.