The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1940-07-04
BELL syndicate-WNU service.)

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If there are no babies, curiously
enough, the situation is worse. 1t
doesn't seem so, at first. Marge's
mother says firmly; mo babies I'M
til you can afford them" and Rob's
mother warns him that a baby
would be calamity. They are
free to go about with the old crowd,
insofar as they are able to afford
it, and Marge has nothing 10 do
when the simple homework is over
but to shop, have her hair done, fix
flowers in vases.
But shopping is expensive, lunches
downtown with the girls cost money,
beauty parlors are ruinous to budg-
cts. Marge sees frocks and hats she
wants, and kitchen ware and gor-
geous bridge lamp. Also she hears
the girls talking of the winter sports
that weekend. Everyone is to give
Connie $40 and Con and Fred will
manage everything. Ten dollars,
with Rob's whole salary only seven
times that every month!
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And the childless young marriage
has an even deeper and much more
serious handicap. 1t is this. The
marital relation is a fragile and
sacred thing; its physical aspects
inseparable from the more subtle
elements of mind and soul. Uncon-
trolled mating would destroy even
animals, and animals are protected
from it by Nature herself. Mating
seasons are interrupted by the long
periods of bearing and rearing the
young.
When human beings interrupt this
process, passion, here called love,
soon burns itself out. The imma-
ture boy and girl, never trained for
life at all, not developed in re-
sources and interests and character,
tire of each other, and the emo
ton that should extend itself through
long and beautiful years, that should
be only a part of q thousand other
balanced elements in married life,
is destroyed.
So what about the long engage
ment? In Italy and Germany and
England and France, seven and
eight and even ten years are not
supposed to be too long for a man
and woman to maintain dignifed
friendship before conditions permit
them to marry. Certainly five years
would not be too long. They must
learn to control themselves in many
ways if they are to be happily mar
ried; control extravaganza, laziness,
temper, selfishness, over-indulgence.
Why not practice self-control in the
most important matter of sex?
Sex Self Control Essential.
Thousands of fine men and women
achieve confluence even in marriage
for one reason or another; thou
sands of happily married folk, eff
cient and successful in their lives,
know that that one thing will be al
ways denied them. Why all this
hullaballoo about the children not
being able to wait? Of course they're
able to wait, if they're properly
trained to respect themselves and
each other, and to regard marriage
as a state some day to be entered
upon with reverence, with an in
creased appreciation of its high priv
ileges and an increased sense of it's
responsibilities.
To those who wait, who study the
duties and cares of marriage Sc
riously, who develop fine and deep
rooted friendship and congeniality
of taste while waiting, marriage
comes as an almost miraculous con-
summation of hope and desire and
love. The long-anticipated home is
a sacred place. Their community of
tastes, their memories of long plan
ming, make every hour together a
fresh delight. The man has COM
pleted his professional training. The
girl has discharged to the full her
duty to her own people. They are
a man and woman, this husband
and wife, not a pair of passionate
children.
Statistics seem to indicate that
one of our national dangers now is
the young divorce. More than half
our divorces are of persons under
"a, and two-thirds of those after
marriage periods of TESS than three
years.