The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-08-09
Wife Walls
fMOnOtOnv
ofHerDayS
By MARTHA LEE

OQ6 OL TIE NA4CA
ion In the lives Of young married
couples is discomfort. Sometimes II
8 because friend husband does not
arm as much as Mrs. Zilch's ball
nd chain. Or because Bill does
rot take her any place any more.
III he wants TO do is sit home and
Isten to the radio. Or he is too
Wrapped UP in his business TO pay
nv attention to her any more.
With Bill It is the same thing.
,eor Helen isn't what she was when
u married her. She has become
arsless about her appearance. She
nas not taken marriage seriously
enough. She never wants to go
n place or she always is wanting
10 run to some party or other.
And so it goes. 1t usually is the
little monotonous things about mar
riage, the routine things that get
the couples down. When something
really big comes along, a real
serious trouble, they stand by each
other like soldiers, because the big
troubles have romance about them.
Like the Movies.
They smack of the movies or a
great novel, because Bill and Helen
can dramatize themselves And,
after all, we all have a secret aching
in our hearts to have great things
happen in our lives, things that
shake our souls and other peoples
too, when they hear about them.
AS a matter of fact, there is
nothing quite so noble as a man or
woman who has the power to make
all the little routine things about
marriage into romance. Just be-
cause a woman's husband does not
have a profile like Barrymore, just
because he can not leap from
chandelier TO staircase in one bound,
a la Fairbanks, just because he does
not have the suavity of the Menjou,
is no sign he is not romantic.
The point is, he is too welI-bred
to haunt it before people who are
not interested in such goings-on
except on the screen. Perhaps his
only chance to show his wife cour-
teSy and attention is by putting the
cap back on the tooth paste every
morning. But, as long as he does
that, his gesture is as sincere and
as full of romance as any of the
movie situations screened.
Monotony Wearies Her.
And the wife, perhaps her only
chance to show devotion is by bak-
ing hot biscuits at z O'Clock on a
July morning, because her husband
loves hot biscuits.
A woman, who cries that her life
is too monotonous, started all this
eutburst.
Dear Martha Lee-As long as everyone
is talking about what's wrong with mar
rage, I would like to give some of my
Jews on the subject. I have been mar
ried five wears. I am not one of those
romen who feel a psychological need for
~orking.'' as you say some do. I am not
s~pecially disconnected with my husband.
rather like my home. But what I object
10 is the monotony. the lack Of romance.
Il is all so deadly commonplace.
Every day it is the same thing. House
work meals. dishes. I get up in the
norninc and do the same things over
gain. Ny husband gets up and goes
through the same routine day after day.
I don't know whether it is the age we
ars living in or what. but everything is
standardized. even marriage. If there is
ANYTHING wrong with marriage, that is it.
ROMANCER.
NV dear Mrs. Romancer, there
still are UNEMPLOYED spots in the
world. You and your husband still
can 90 pioneering and have the sort
Of romance your heart seems to cry
for. The trouble with you is you
have been taking your fiction too
seriously.
Change Your Ideas.
Really, if you will change your
viewpoint on things, I am sure you
can find all the romance you want
in what you call the commonplace
routine of marriage. And as for
modern city life, it was no more
romantic and dangerous to traipse
through the woods with Indians to
the right and left Of you, in the
pioneer days, than it now is to
any of the downtown streets,
what with the automobiles to dodge
and the traffic rules for pedestrians.
It may be romantic to grind your
own -four and weave your own
cloth, but there is enough romance
in the history of progress to keep
my soul from crying out for the
good old days. All you need is a
change of viewpoint, and life will
become un~believably romantic to