Evening star., 1943-12-10

ouSp INV VIC olC lIlS an Cpl-
demic of homesick brides and if
you have tears to shed, prepare to
shed them, for in all the length and
breadth of the land there are no
more piteous and miserable crea-
lures than they are. Of course
nostalgia isn't a fatal complaint
In time they will recover from it,
and perhaps 40 years from now
they will be able to laugh at their
sufferings, but for the moment they
have touched the bottom of despair
and disilluSion and disappointment.
This is not what they expected of
marriage. This is not what they
married for. When they started
off so blithely on their honeymoons,
they thought that they were ex-
changing mama's fussing and
papa's bossing for freedom, and life
in a dull little town for the bright
lights of a city, and they would
never get off of the merry-go-round
of parties and night clubs and the
aters. And, anyway, just being
with Tom, Dick, or Harry would
be all they would need to make
them happy.
But somehow their dreams failed
to click the way they expected them
to, and by the time they had combed
the rice out of their hair and un-
packed their wedding presents they
began to have a little gone feeling
at the pit of their stomachs. 1t is
all very we'll to be emancipated
from parental authority, but free
dom didn't look so good when they
discovered that the reason they
could do as they pleased was be-
cause nobody knew or cared what
they did.
And even their husbands were SO
changed that the wives scarcely
knew them. No longer were they
the impassioned lovers, Wooing
them with honeyed phrases and
showering upon them lovely gifts.
They treated them just like their
papas did their mamas. They took
them for granted.
And the men were tired when
they came home at night and didn't
want to step out, and seemed to
think that all that a girl, who had
always had dates to burn at home,
wanted to do was to sit up and
look at them read the paper.
Probably there isn't woman who
left her own home to go to live with
her husband in some strange place
who hasn't gone through this awful
ordeal of homesickness. Many one
has told me how she walked the
sore because she felt less lonely in
crowds than she did shut up in
room alone. Another has told how
she spent day after day at the
movies Just to take her mind off of
her misery, until she acquired per-
manent distaste for the cinema
And another has often told me that
Just to have something to do and
to keep from going crazy she ripped
up her whole trousseau and made it
over by hand.
And it doesn't help to better the
situation for the homesick brides
husband to have no sympathy with
her, and to be bitterly affronted by
discovering that he isn't enough for
her, and that she isn't perfectly
happy just spending her time wait
ing for him to come home at night.
She has him. What else could a
reasonable woman desire?
The homesick bride has always
been a pathetic figure. Now she is
a tragic one, for the war is turning
her out in mass production and the
country is flooded with thousands
of girls, many of them mere chill
dren. who are following their hus-
bands around from camp to camp,
with no one to look after them, no
one to take care Of them. often with
not even a place to Law their heads.