San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-18
The Business Contract Marriage"
Not Solution of Welded Happiness
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
Americas Most Popular Woman Writer for Women

One OF the amusing elements IN the
life of an editorial writer is to re-
ceive, almost every day, among a
score of really interesting letters, a
pathetic demand from some girl in
Polo, Illinois, for a reliable skin food
% a plea from the mother Of boys IN
rNogales, Arizona, as 20 the safest
Treatment for warts.
x Yesterday my mail contained three
queries as to my opinion OF the new
tAlmon-Hensley theory of marriage.
dlree as to my view of spIritualism
lcnd spirit writing and Communication
with the dead, and one urgent reques;
tfor directions to prepare bottle for
"a baby about TO be wearcd at four
months.
I Having dealt with baby bottles anil
warts in my day, l can answer such
Inquiries as the last personally. But
!Uarriage and spiritualism are not 60
simple. Firstly. they are topics Of
poignant and worldwide interest, and
ksecondly-there are no answers.
Loving How One Chooses.
Here. on a brilliant winter morning
On California, is a defense of Mrs.
Hensley's theories by Gelett Burgess,
swho is, by the way, a friend Of mine.
b Mrs. Hensley. well Known East
fern club woman, says that within
fifty years our present marriage sys-
ttem will be replaced by a marriage
teontract that may be dissolved as
Simply as a business agreement.
Mr.. Burgess says that the good
Old Joined together : let
Hot-man-put-asunder theory Of mating
8 growing obsolete" And "it is only
q question of time when women will
have a right to love when and how
sney choose" He calls our present
marriage ideas merely a mental
style"
There is something rather careless
~ the phrasing of that middle seu-
hence, that women shall love when
and how they choose, but We all
know what he means.
None Of US can love when and
how" she chooses, for love doesn't
move in given directions at chosen
tines. But the thought there is, Of
ecurse, that there shall be 10 restraint
npon love-upon, specifically, sex
love.
One WOman's Loves.
: But A. for loving when and how
ore chooses-well, knew girl years
zgo, knew of Eer from a member Of
Abe family, rather, who hsd an unfOr
aunate tendency toward new loves in
The months preceding motherhood.
4 Hope-for that was h'r somewhat |
appropriate name-HOpe was about TO |
become a mother by her first husband |
when she met the man who became. a |
year later, her second husband. She |
obtained a divorce three months be-
fore her first baby was born.
For two years she was happy, with |
her infant and his stepfather, then |
another baby sent in his little mar
cOnigrams, and Hope grew restless. |
dissatisfied, and promptly fell in love
again.
Again she left her hus' and, return
ing to her fathers home to await her
baby, her divorce. and her third mar |
rage, all Of which eventuated placid. |
~,
Hopes father was an enormously |
Tich man Il need hardly say it, for |
penniless women have a fashion of |
steering clear Of these costly vaga-
ries) and he had spoiled Hope. Bu.
now he put his foot down. Her third
marriage, he decreed, should positively
be her last.
A "Sex Complex"
So some three years after that third
marriage, when Hopes third baby was
expected to join his two stepbrOthers.
Hopes father listened to Ter tale of