The Coolidge examiner., 1937-03-04
BY KATHLEEN NORRIS

BY KATHLEEN NORRIS
T F A bottle of slow poison stood
in the medicine closet OF her
home, no woman would go
there hourly and take spoon
full of it.
But there is another kind of poi
son, more dreadful in its effects,
that thousands of women keep on
tap and take regularly. 1t is the
poison called jealousy. And jeal-
ousy and insanity are first cousins.
One woman I knew was not par
ticularly fond of her husband until
another woman wanted him. Then
she writhed, whimpered, foamed
with all the symptoms O. disor-
dered mind. She set traps for him,
she tried to bribe his office nurse
to spy on him, she bored every one
she knew with hysterical outbursts-
of rage When the other woman was
mentioned she became actually sim
ister; she knew it for a fact that
Marian cheated at cards, she knew
it for a fact that Marian wasn't
straight, she knew everything dis
agreeable that could be imagined
about Marian. Some one happened
to speak of Marian's child.
''Ha, she's defective, you know!"
said the discarded wife, with a
laugh. THE poor little thing'u nev-
er be normal!" The husband was
mentioned. Il hear Johns wearing
corsets and having his face lifted"
the jealous wife screamed rather
than said, with peals of laughter.
And this was quiet, apparently
pleasant woman, who never before
had shown any signs of the volcano
that was ready to burst forth at the
first touch of jealousy.
In the old days, when home and
church influences took care of chill
dren's morals, girls-and jealousy
is rather feminine characteristic,
girls grew up conscious that it
was a pitfall, and determined to
fight it.
Look out, my girls" writes the
father in Little Women" from a
Civil War camp, II want each one
of you to fight her bosom enemy"
It's an old-fashioned phrase; our
children wouldn't know what we
were talking about if we reminded
them to fight their bosom enemies;
no one ever has told them that with
in each one of us lie the powers
that can destroy our very souls.
Sex jealousy is perhaps the most
poignantly painful and destructive
of all; it is the only sort of jealousy
men ever seem to feel. It is the
tragedy of its agonies that it de-
stroys in the man or woman who
gives way to it
It is durable. A jealous woman
may emerge from this fiery trial
all the stronger and finer for it, but
very few mothers seriously analyZe
their children's characters in these
days, and try to strengthen what is
good in them, and weed out what is
bad, so that many wives come to
the test completely untitled for
what is a real spiritual crisis.
Ruth, for example, is thirty-three.
She was married nine years ago
and has two boys, both in school.
She was always a trifle heavy, and
she has settled now into something
like stockiness; she was always
somewhat unimaginative. and she
is managing this affair with a COM
plete lack of imagination.
Walter has fallen in love with the
woman in his office, Jane Deane.
Jane is twenty-eight. divorced, and
extremely plain at first view. But
hers is one of those faces that pres
emily seem almost beautiful, in
spite of homely big mouth, prom
inent teeth, straight dark hair, sal
low skin. Jane has magnificent
gray black-lashed eyes, a lovely
voice, and a delightful disposition.
Ruth discovered the affair six
months ago; she Immediately col
lapsed. She put up no fight. She
lay for days weeping on her bed;
her face grew dark with anger and
swollen with tears; she would not
come to meals. To her little boys
she said between sobs that Daddy
didn't love them any more; he was
in love with Mrs. Deane; he was
going away to leave them. Once
an extremely pretty woman, Ruth
lost all semblance of good looks;
she stopped golf; she went no.
where; she put on seventeen
pounds.
She stubbornly refuses Walter a
divorce, and she continues to make
his life wretched at home. Every
time he goes out of the house she
calls after him spitefully: "All
right, go to your Jane!" In short,
she has taken the path best calcu-
lated to wreck what might be sal
vaged in their marriage, and to
make Walter dislike her.
Now, this situation of husband
perhaps a good and faithful hus-
band, being strongly attracted to
another woman-is one that many