Evening star., 1935-06-08
Pertinent Discussion Along Lines Of Interest the Won


husbands on their way up,
~ to keep themselves attrac-
tive, to do their part, to be
always cheerful and pleasant; in
short, to be true helpmates. This ad-
vice Is bosh and you know 1t. It Is
wrong counsel to give young girls
planning marriage. For every wife
who has given her man a hand up
and helped him to be q success ! can
match you with q woman who has
been sloppy and lazy and yet has got
hers. know plenty of wives who
have spent their lives helping their
husbands, then when they were mid
dle-aged were deserted for young and
better looking women. So teach my
girls to be selfish, to take and take
and take and never give. Why don't
you give straight advice and not plas-
ter things with the old-fashioned soft
soap? A WIFE.
A NSWER-Well, the old-fashioned
= soft soap as applied to husbands
seems to have been mighty efhcacious
in lubricating the domestic machinery
Ill bllC Pdot, dilo tIlC WOtilCll WllO AoCu
1t didn't get into the divorce courts so
often as the modern ones do who
scorn 1t, as you do. Also, it seems TO
have creased the road for many a
man who was on the up-and-up and
facilitated his getting where he was
going.
II you will read the biographies of
so-calied self f-made men, you will be
struck with the fact of how often the
wife had the biggest hand in the job.
Almost every man who started out
poor and humble and who became rich
and famous pays tribute to the wife
who toiled and scrimped and saved
in order to help him get start; who
washed his shirt at night and pressed
his one suit of clothes so that he
could make a decent appearance the
next day; who encouraged him when
he was down-hearted and lost faith
in himself and who literally made of
her shoulders the ladder by which he
climbed to success.
RUT don't recall Of ever hearing
~ that the Daughters of the Horse
leech were of any help to their hus-
bands In getting on In the world. Nor
have I observed that the wives who
take and take and take from their
husbands and give nothing in return,
as you recommend their doing. are
any great inspiration or incentive to
the men to whom they are married
that leads them to great achieve
ments.
On the contrary, they are a distinct
handicap. First, for the very practical
reason that it takes superman to
make any headway against an extrav-
agant wife who must have everything
she wants and who will not help him
save the little nest-egg out of which
every fortune must be Matched. Also,
because it Saps q mans courage to
have a Stacker for a wife instead of
| one who is fighting shoulder to shoul-
der with him. He has not the will to
fight for her as he does for the wife
whom he knows will struggle to the
death to push him on to victory.
IOF COURSE. there are occasional
men who have the strength and
ability to achieve success without the
help of any woman. but most of the
men who do things have had ambi-
tious wives who were the driving
force behind them.
They have had wives who loved
them, who were willing to sacrifice
themselves for them. They have had
wives who made them happy. And
so, If for no other reason, it pays a
woman to be helpmate instead Of q
parasite because her husband is more
likely to make good and she shares
In his fortune.
or COURSE, there are cases where
wife slaves and sacrifices and
pinches pennies to help her husband
get q start. And when he has be-
come rich. largely through her efforts,
he turns her out of the home like an
old workhorse whose days of useful
ness are over, and puts in the palace,
whose very foundation stones she has
laid, pretty young wife. But where
that happens once there are hun
dred thousand cases of men who feel
q never-dying gratitude to the women
who have been comrades as well as
wives and to whom they feel they
owe their success.
Every day we see fat old women
blazing with diamonds and hung with
r,aarls q urofasniio snecfacln until unaI