The Coolidge examiner., 1937-03-04

married women have had to face
in the past thirty years, and one
that will recur from time to time
i'll the years to come. Society
doesn't censure him now as once
it did, and the law, instead of hold
ing him firmly to his marriage
vows, amiably condones divorce. A
few weeks in an amusing and pleas
ant western city and he is free, not
responsible any more for the wom-
an and children to whom he has
been loved as husband and father
for SO many years.
Whatever the woman does under
the circumstances, she loses. This
is one of the times when she can't
win If she holds him he is restless
and reSentful. If she lets him go
her life is too often ruined by the
bitterness, the disillusionment, the
loneliness, the general disturbance
of the whole current of her days.
Our social scheme today permits
the man to feel himself acting quite
honorably when he leaves the wom-
an of whom he is tired and goes to
the new love; and his discarded
wife is only setting herself against
the current when she protests
But all the same she doesn't have
to let him go if she doesn't want
to. Nine times out of ten the smart
er thing, the thing that makes for
happiness in the end, is NOT to let
him go. Ruth may know in her
heart that Walter is making a fool
of himself; that what he feels for
Jane won't last; that Jane couldn't
make him a good wife, or any
man a good wife.
Ruth'S course, if she wants to
handle the whole thing intelligently,
is to make home pleasanter than
ever; to be always serene and pa
tient; to bide her time. Her course
is to make herself charming; not
for Walter, for he won't see her at
all for awhile, but on general prin-
ciples. Her course is to keep her
self busy, find work inside the house
and out that interests her, that lifts
her a little bit above the narrow
circle of home. Ruth attracted Wal
ter once against all comers; the
most sacred hours of life are those
associated with her; whether he
marries Jane or doesn't the hour
is going to come when he sees Ruth
in the old light.
And then in a few years we have
the very ordinary spectacle of a
husband pretending that his passion
for Jane was just warm friendship,
forgetting completely that he asked
Ruth to set him free, restored to
the home circle and to his wife's
affections.
But the wife has to get rid of
the last shred of jealousy before
she can succeed in this sort of cam
paign. She has to see the other
woman's viewpoint to realize that
all of us, all our lives long, are get
ting humiliating iolts and Shocks;
to say to herself that what happens
to so many other women may well
happen to her. She has to aban-
don all hope of recriminations and
reproaches until the heat of the af-
fair has long died away, and treat
it as she would fever. Such a
wife can be reasonably sure of a
successful ending; and what else
matters? And when the skies are
clear again she will have to refrain
from triumph; this detection in her
husband is no more serious than her
own defects as a wife; if he has
failed her signally in one way, she
has failed him in a score of others.
She has kept his life dull when it
might have been exciting; she has
slumped into disorder and ineffi-
cheney when the other woman has
been always fresh and attractive.
Not that it is always Ruth'S fault;
this trial comes to even the most eff
ficisnt, capable and loving of wives.
Propinquity or chance will drag a
mans affections from their legiti-
mate anchor as long as men are
men, as long as the other woman is
the other woman. The law that
sends a fatal germ into one mouth
and spares a thousand others, that
takes away one Woman's only child
while leaving another woman a safe
and happy nursery of half dozen
children, that gives one little sister
curly hair and another a talent for
the violin, that burns one house
and leaves its fellow standing, op-
crates in this matter, too. Your
husband may be one of the men
who simply isn't going to be faith
full; that may be your slice of the
trouble of life.
Don't try to dodge it when it
comes. Face it as you would sick
ness, poverty, war, with spirit and
courage. Remember in the mat
ter of your husbands affection, no
woman takes anything away from
you. You lost it before she found
it. Only honesty and sweetness and
sheer fineness of character can get
it back.
g Bell Syndicate.-WNU Service.