The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-05-20

Here IS Httle neartDrcaK1nS E tragedy that is being enacted before my eyes. A young woman who is an idolized only child married nice young man, ana, at her parents tr- gent request, the young couple made their home with them. A baby was born, and the grandfather and grandmother's cup of bliss over flowed.
 A few months ago the firm for which the young man worked trans- ferred him to their office in a dis tant city. but the girls parents re fuse to let her go to him. They tell her that it will break their hearts to be separated from her and the baby and that if she does such a cruel thing as leave them they will never forgive her and she can never dark en their doors again.
 Their ultimatum is: Choose be- tween your husband and us Ana they back up their claim by tempt ing her with the comfort and ease and luxury that they can give her, and warn her of the poverty and struggle she will have with poor young husband earning only Smal! salary.
 The girl is almost distrausht. She loves her husband, and she loves her parents, and she is humanly fond ef the SOIC sue bL He. soIit ldS thp r- tie so much of her young husband, wait ing and watching for her coming, and her old parents. lonely and deso- late without her and the baby. and the comfort of having a limousine to ride in, and servants to wait on her. and the hardships of having to be your own cook and nursemaid, and fight your way on the street cars, that she has gotten bewildered, and doesn't know which way to turn, nor what to do.
 To begin with, parents like this girls should have something done to them with boiling oil in it. They have no right to tear their daugh- ter's heart in two by forcing her to choose between them and her hus- band. for they know that either way means suffering and tears for her. Either way they bring down misery on the head of an innocent girl whose only fault is that she loves too well.
 If the father and mother succeed in separating her from her husband they darken her whole life, they leave her widowed in soul, and the prey of never-ending self reproaches and regret. If, on the other hand. she goes to her husband. she will al- ways mourn her lost parents and long for mothers and fathers af- lection and sympathy.
 Without doubt, it is a hard thing for fathers and mothers to have to give up their children and be sepa rated from them, but it is the law of life that the young birds must leave the home nest and the parents who truly and unse1fishly love their sons and daughters do not try to clip the young wings nor hobble the young feet by dwelling upon how desolate they will be when left alone.
 They strengthen their children rather than weaken them. They make the hard things their children must endure easier by facing them cheerfully. They do not make their children's load heavier by adding to it their own whines and complaints.
 Unselfish love would not make par ents try to keep their daughter with them ard prevent her from going to her husband. Instead. it would buck her up and give her the grit and meet whatever hardships may be waiting for her.
 For when a woman marries, there can be no question as to where her allegiance lies. It Is to her husband, to the new firm that she is helping to found. At the altar she pledges herself to it's fortunes. and she is bound to follow these wherever they lead.
 If woman is not willing to take q sporting chance with man, she should never marry him. If she loves her parents better than she does him, and they are more necessary to her happiness than he Is, she should stay single and at home. If she can not exist outside of some little com munity where she sees the people every day that she has known all of her life, she should qualify for spinsterhood and her ancestral hearthstone.
 She shouldn't ruin some good mans life by marrying him. and hampering his career by her refusal to leave mamma and papa, and Birds g Center or Rabbit Track. and the La dies Aid society of the First Pres byterian church.
 Yet many women do that very thing, and many man has his wife shut the door of opportunity in his face because she will not leave the east to go west. or she will not leave her wall paper. or she nags at her husband until he gives up some big