The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-10

A woman writes ma that she has been married to a man for sixteen years, yet she has, never gotten &C., qnaInted with him. She. says he is good and kind. but indifferent to her. He never finds>,fault with her and never praises her. He spends his evenings at home by his own fire side, but a mummy would be just about as conversational.
 All of this has got the woman guessing, and she can't figure out I whether her husband still cares for her or not, or whether he regards his marriage as a success or a failure. Good gracious, sister, don't imagine for an instant that you have anything unique in the way of A husband! All men are full of curious pecularities. and no woman ever gets acquainted with one. no matter whether she has been married to him for sixteen years or sixty. For. as an old colored friend of mine says, Husbands is the most undiscovered nation of people there is." ....
 No woman ever understands, for in- stance. why 1t Is that, man who was an ardent and impetuous wooer turns into a husband with about as much sentiment and pep to him as a cold buckwheat cake, as soon as the marriage ceremony is said dyer him. Nor can she form any idea of why the man who was willing to risk his life to get her takes so little interest in her after he has got her.
 She cannot doubt that he loved her,
 because he gave great and undis-
 putable proof of that by assuming her support for life. Nor can she see
 any reason for his change of atti- tude. She still carries the same line
 of bait with which she caught him. She still has the same eyes that he | likened to violets drenched in dew,
 but he doesn't notice them. She still has the same white hands that he | used to hold by the hour. but if she wants anybody to hold them she has
 to hunt up some man to whom she
 is not married to undertake the job. | No woman can ever understand why
 a man doesn't put forth the same ef-
 fort to make his home a going con-
 cern as he does to make his business
 or profession a success.
 | If every man tried to sell himself to his wife as he does to his em- ployer. or & big customer, or a val
 uable client, there would be no dis
 gruntled, dissatisfied married women in the world.
 If every man studied his wife's pecularities of disposition if he played
 on her weaknesses as deftly and
 handled her as tactfully as he does
 merchant who Is about to place a
 big order, or rich patient. every
 wife in the land would be eating out
 of her husbands hand.
 | If every man paid his wife a fair
 wage for her services, as he does
 his stenographers and clerks, 1t would l take the heaviest curse off matri- mony for millions of wives.
 But, although to have a contented
 wife and peaceful and happy home
 means more to a man than to make
 million dollars, not one man in a hundred ever gives any real serious
 thought or makes any honest effort
 to make his marriage a success. He
 leaves the most important thing in
 his life to chance. and he wins out I or loses, according to whether Lady
 Luck Is with him or not.
 Women never can understand why their husbands refuse to handle them
 Automatically, when 1t would be
 money in their pockets to use the
 velvet glove instead of the strong
 arm method.
 Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into doing anything, and
 doing without anything. He knows
 that if he hands her a few cheap compliments about what a wonderful
 manager she is and how she helps
 him, she will squeeze every nickel.
 Every man knows that if he tells his wife how beautiful and lovely she looks in her last years dress, she wouldn't trade 1t off for the latest Paris importation. Every man knows that he can kiss his wife's eyes shut until she will be blind as a bat, and that he has only to give her a warm smack on the lips to make her dumb as an oyster.
 And every wife knows that her husband knows these things about