The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-23
What Sort Of Man Should Your Daughter
 Marry :?
Dorothy Dir
"A Man Of About Thirty With Future But No Past, Who Makes His Way By His Own Energy, Who Is Interesting, Generous and Good Ma
 tured"-Is One Mothers Choice

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 What sort of husband would you pick out for your daughter? A group of women were discussing this subject recently, and one of them said:
 My daughter is modern girl and she neither desires my advice about choosing a husband, nor would she demean herself by listening tc any words of wisdom that might fall from my lips on the subject. She will probably choose a man for her lifemate because he has romantic eyes, or hair that looks like q trained seal, or because he plays 3 good game of golf, or his dancing step matches hers.
 But if I could choose a husband for my daughter my first care would be to pick out man without past and with a future. I'd seIect a youth who could file good, clean bill of health along with his marriage IT, cense, for I don't want my little daughter to have to help harvest any wild oats crop.
 "The idea of reforming a man is one that is singularly appealing to the vanity of young girls. But we older women know that it's a mir scle that mighty fews women ever work, and when they do 1t ism worth the time and labor it costs to do 1t. I'd pick out, to begin with, Q man who didn't need to be reformed. No use in taking damaged goods when you can have good stuff at the same price.
 'If were picking out my daugh- ter's husband I would cast a proph- etjc eye on his future. I would try fp xuh al "a years heuce--whether he would still be salesman or the head of the sales department of his firm; whether he would be a struggling, shabby, dis couraged lawyer or a doctor, or at the top of his profession.
 This isn't so hard to do because, barring sickness and acts of God, as the shipping manifests say, the go- getter always get it, and the pep less never do.
 "Dreamers and poets and Peter Pans make fascinating lovers, but poor husbands. The men who hold tkeir wives affections are the men who know how to get along in the world for when romance begins to fade nothing takes its place in a wife's heart like pride in her hus- bands achievements. Besides, most husbands are just husbands after you have been married 10 years, but a comfortable home Is always com fortable hone.
 If I were picking out my daugh- ter's husband 1 would say with the Psalmist. Give me neither poverty nor riches I would not pick out rich man for my daughters husband because the boy who has had much money is almost invariably spoiled. He is nearly always selfish, undis- ciplined, without self-control. He has been able to indulge every whim and follow every fancy, and he finds it almost impossible to make the sacrifices and submit to the dtscl- pline of matrihony. Look how often brilliant marriages end in disaster.
 Nor is the girl who marries a rich. young man, even secure hnan- .efalIygasbecause the man who has never earned any money does not know how to take care of 1t, and I've sseen many girl started off on her Honeymoon on a private yacht walk ing in her old age to save cartare.
 "While I would not pick out a rich husband for ny daughter neither would I select one who vas abjectly poor, because, while it IS true you cannot buy happiness with money, ii is equally true that you must have money in order to be happy. You can't think about the state of your hearts when your stomach is crying for food
 "You must have a certain amount of comfort and freedom from anxiety in which to invite your soul, and no couple is likely to love long when they have brought upon each other the misery of a marriage that makes fife a horrible struggle with the bill collector and a daily crucitiXlon or avery taste and habit.
 T would not choose for my daugR- ter a husband who could not support her in reasonable comfort put would rather she married man who was making $5,000 a year by his own efforts than one who had an income of s5OOOO a year that he had in- herited would choose for her an energetic young chap, who had proved that he had the ability in him fo climb and with whom she could that ever comes to any woman, that of helping along the man she loves
 q would choose for my daughters husband a man about thirty years of age-no boy, becaCse boys have not come to themselves and do not know the kind of wife they really want and need Also. boys are tyrannical and hard to get along with, for life has not disciplined them nor taught them tact or patience
 Nor Would I choose an old man who has become so set In his habits and ways that he cannot adapt him self to the give and take of matrii mony Likewise, he is out of sym pathy with youth. He has had his fling. He is tired of dancing and theatres and parties, and when he gets married he wants to stay put, and he forgets that a young wife is aching for all the pleasures of which he Is weary.
 But the man of thirty is still young enough to enjoy things, young enough to get a girls viewpoint and enter into her hopes and plans, yet he is old enough to be wiling to set tie down to the business of life.
 "Id choose for my daughters hus- band the man who was generous but no spendthrift, because between a man who has a Yale lock on his purse and one who has holes in his pockets there Is small choice.
 'Td pick out for her husband a man who was (educated and inter ested in wide variety-of things be- cause after the billing and cooing of courtship is over there are going to be forty or fifty years in which woman's happiness is going to de- rend on whether her husband bores her to tears, or whether he hands out a spellbinding line of conversa- ton.
 Above all. I'd pick out for my daughters husband a man wo was good-natured and cheerful and kind ly, for in the long pull of matrimony