The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-05-14
Women Vie7U
Childbirth
aSPriUiIege
BY MARTHA LEE

Men are B6LG4uS p4Stty lACN Va
hearing us women heap our browS
with verbal wreaths because we
women occasionally supply the
worlds population with an added
numeral III the form Of baby.
For about 600 years motherhood
has been placed upon high pedes-
tai, won only by dint Of tremendous
sacrifice.
Before that time there was lit
tie sentiment connected with the
propagation of the race. Women
were married and had children, ana
that was that.
But about 400 A. D. the flower OF
sentiment reared its head, and
henceforth Good Women were taken
by men in holy matrimony, and they
became Good Wives. Their preca-
rious position on the pedestal OF
sentiment was something at which
to gasp. And once they were
mothers, the handling of thou
sand-year- old parchment treasure
map was rough beside the way those
women were carried around from
then on.
Nanny Songs Climax
To some people, the climax of the
whole business was the writing OF all
the Nanny songs.
Anyway, women in the past forty
years have started to be sensible.
They have stopped ali sorts of tricks
that were considered feminine IN
the gay nineties. They no longer
faint and get shocked at the
slightest provocation. They have
entered into life. Business, pro-
fessional, artistic, literary, social,
every form of life that modern
existence offers is peopled with at
least a sprinkling of women.
And with these other changes,
which have been all to the good for
women, has come a changed attitude
toward motherhood. Motherhood no
longer is looked upon as an obllga-
ton. It is regarded as a privilege.
More important, it is regarded as a
job that must be done, the same as
lots of other jobs must be done.
Refuse to Be Deluded
Women no longer expect their
husbands to consider them martyred
because they do the job they were
put on earth to do. I don't know
whether it's the mems fault or the
fault of the women themselves. Per-
haps the reason women have
changed is because men demanded
that their wives take a sensible out
look regarding motherhood.
But I'm more inclined to believe
it is because women "smartened
up" too much to delude even them
selves with such sentimental tosh.
Listen to this modern wife:
Dear Miss Lee--I have been married
three years and have son year and
half old MY husband is a darling, but
he is killing me with kindness. Here's the
trouble. have been raised to take life
as it comes. took wifehood and with 1t
motherhood as a matter OF course.
Now my husband has been raised to be-
Iieve mat being a mother is something
extraordinary. And since I have had our
child he treats me as though 1 were some
sort of invalid We can't do this and
can't do that because I am not strong
| enough.
When I insist that am, he laughs ann
saws 1 am such a child. 1 do not under
stand such things, but that 1 mustn't pe
! in too big a hurry. whatever that means.
NV child is a year and half old. I am
perfectly healthy person, and am SICK
| of being treated this way.
When I object to strenuously you would
| think the burden of having a child had
undermined my mentality in some way.
AS a result am loving my husband less.
Can YOU answer that one?
LITTLE MOTHER"
If you weren't so terribly III
earnest this would be almost funny.
There are so many women who
simply yearn for man who would
treat them so considerably.
You are in mess, though. Start
out on your own. You have right
to lead a normal, active life. In
sist upon it, because if you don't
;ou probably will leave him after
another two months of such one
sided bantering. If necessary, get
your doctor to weed out your hus-
bands antedeluvian ideas.