San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-29
What Is Enough to Marry On?
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
WOMEN"
AMERICAS MOST POPULAR WOMAN WRITER


my mother to wait until We have three
thousand q year.
And mother" she added, "thinks
that we ought to have at least ten
thousand in the bank besides for
emergencies"
Should I marry a man who is
making twenty-five dollars a week.
writes another small girl, this one In
Michigan.
what is the smallest income safe
for young couple nowadays" asks
an anxious mother from Alabama.
And-perhaps most impressive OF
ala man writes me from big
Pennsylvania city, that he knows OF
five cases, his own included, OF men
who feel themselves utterly unable 10
marry because they are not making
money enough to risk the doubtful re-
sponsibility and expense of wife.
~ All these men are between the ages
OF twenty-eight and thirty-five.
An Absurd Task.
To set certain sum as the correct
income for young couple is as ao-
surd as to settle anything else about
them by rule their height, their ages,
or the color of their eyes.
Twelve hundred a year is fortune
to- one pair, fifty thousand too little
for another. =,
An only moderately clever and
thrifty woman can be happy on fifty
dollars a week: a far more brilliant,
restless girl will fret her heart out
and involve herself in debt on five
times the sum. ii
There is nothing new to be said
about it. With love, with courage,
with simplicity and common sense,
girl can marry today-anywhere!- on
eighteen hundred q year, and live de-
delightfully."-, and have everything in
the world worth while-even including
the dearest thing of all.
With a little more love, courage,
simplicity and common sense, she can
marry. on twelve hundred, and again
have everything in the world worth
while-joys and satisfactions that no
king can buy.
Shopworn, But True.
It's shopworn phrase, that no
king can buy!" But when it happens
to be true, it is surely one Of the most
sensational combinations of words in
the language.
And what is more obvious than that
a king absolutely cannot buy the JOY
of three rooms squeezed into some
picturesque old crowded street near a
river. and the flavor of Sundays
roast, Mondays creamed onions, Tues
DAYS scalloped tomatoes, and Wednes-
days allowance of milk, all baked to-
gether. ..--.t..
No king in the. world, as all women
know, can buy the deep content OF
sitting across q three-foot table from
e woman who loves him for what he
is, and not for what he has, and talk
ing with her about a future when
A.-they shall have a five-room house,
somewhere In the country"
1t seems to me--fame, wealth, hos
pitality, travel, frocks, servants, all
duly .considered--it seems to me that
the adventure Of a man and woman,
starting poor into life, Is the greatest
thing in the whole world
The Beginning OF Riches. :.
This has beer the beginning OF
hundreds and thousands Of rich and
successful people; 1t is, in fact, that
usual gambit for wealth and success.
Ask one or two Of them some day
to look back-and then watch the
light that comes into their eyes.
Watch them as they remember the
days of poverty, laughter, love and
youth. They may not tell you every
thing. But they all end on the same
phrases: 1--WE never lived so we'll
we never were so happy in our lives"
"We used to 60 to the postoffice
SUNDAYS and stand in line, to see If
there was a check in the mail!' they
will remember.
Jim used to sweep the dining room
nd ha /
Dishes"
.Do you remember the night we
pawned your watch? i
'Do you remember the time we had
TO walk home four miles after q won,
derful dinner party"
These things are marvellous adven- |
lures. They make for gales OF laugh |
ter, for associations, for memories.
If Mary and Dick could see them
in the movies, they would find their
fingers locking and they eyes filling
at the sheer beauty, and sheer pathos,
Of it all. II
The Ideal Marriage"
But when il comes to embarking
upon this glorious escapade, Mary
hesitates and Dick is frankly afraid. |
They might get sick, he says, he
might lose his job. He doesn't want |
his wife to worry about anything! /
The consequence Is that the ideal
SAxriage has come to be one in which
neither husband nor wife does any |
thinking-much less worrying-at all.
Mary knows nothing of Dicks af-
fairs, and cares less, and Dick dresses
for dinner every night, and they en-
terrain.
You and I know hundreds Of such
marriages.
Almost Immediately Mary finds her
self with nothing to do.
She can have her hair done one day.
lunch and play bridge the next, and
shop a third day. Then what?
The beds with their big fat tasseled
spreads are soon made, the colored
woman comes in and cleans the
kitchen, and the marketing for two
Is done by telephone.
Mary is beautiful-with nobody to
see it. Mary is idle. She has not
enough money to travel, to do things
on a large scale. In a year or two
she and Dick are beginning to hate
luncheons, to hate dinners and bridge.
and even to hate all their friends in
q greater or lesser degree.
A Life Of Comparisons.