The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-22

Dear Miss Dix: l have been mar ried five years and have a darling ! little boy four years old, My hus- band and l adore him and love each other. My husband has been taking a course of study and Is about to be sent to a far-off school for three months. We are poor and he cannot take the baby and me with him. He Is 30 years old and good-looking. Is 1t dangerous to let him go away for so long? Can trust him or must ask him not to go? I could prevent him from going. What should I do?
 ANXIOUS J.
 Answer: A woman canfiot keep her husband faithful to her by holding on to his coat tails. She has got to let him go out into the world and do mans part. and I should say she would be much more likely, to lose him by standing in the way of his career than she would by leaving him free to go and do the work he wants to do.
 Every worthwhile man is ambi- tious. He wants to rise in the world. And there Is no way in which his wife can so quickly and so surely kill his love for ner as by making herself a stumbling block in his way. She can hold him back by her tears, sby her importunities, by her jealousies and fears, but if she does she makes breach between them that Is far wider than any physical distance could be.
 After all, mans love for his wife and his faithfulness to her Are de- pendent upon his own feelings and his sense of duty and honor. It is not a matter of the wife's watchful- ness or of her always being Sally-on- the-spot She cannot be always on guard, and there are just as many pretty girls and just as many tempta- tions one place as another. If a man Is a I.othario, he will philander under his Nwife's nose. If he is a Darby, no one can vamp him away from his own hearthstone. And that is all there Is to it. When all is said, a wife has got to take her hus- band on trust.
 Undoubtedly. it is bad for husbands and wives to be separated for very long time. because they grow away from each other, and form new tastes and new interests. They do not de- velop together, nor have all of their memories in common, which makes one of the binding ties in married life.
 But three months Is a short space of time. especially short to a busy man with his mind occupied with his studies, and 1t should only serve to make keener his love and apprecia- tion of the home he has left.
 And here are two points to consider: First, that the love that cannot sur vive three months absence from wife and child Is so weak thing that 1t would not live long anyway, and, secondly. that woman interferes with a mans career at her peril and that he never forgives the one who holds him back in the race.
 My Dear Dorothy Dix: Five years ago my husband died. and after pay ing all of his debts I had nothing left. not even my home. My son was to postpone his wedding in order to take care of me. But his promised wife wrote me a very affectionate let- 1 ter, saying that she knew how my son | loved me, but that if would not prevent the marriage she would promise always to take care of me, and should always keep my place In my sons affections.
 l So took my furniture and fixed l'up a house for them. But they had not been married two weeks before fully understood that I was to do all of the housework, and when their child came I was also turned into a nurse girl. Now my daughter-in- . law tells me that unless I get out and find some other home she will take her baby and leave. My son Is l devoted to his child so I must get out with no place to go, and I am too What is heart-broken old woman to do M. W. l Answers: Surely there is no' more | cruel fate in all the world than that of the poor old woman who is turned out of her sons house by her sons