Evening star., 1943-06-16
BY Dorothy Dir

Apparently when the novelists
write the romance of the present
war, it will not end as old-fashioned
love stories used to end with land so
they were married and lived happily
ever afterwards" but in "and so
they were married and got a di-
vorce." Furthermore, its plot will
not be concerned with the devices of
stern parents trying to separate two
loving hearts, but with the efforts of
a boy and girl, who married in a
hurry, to unite with their teeth the
knot they tied with their tongues.
And probably the title of the current
best seller will be On to Reno"
For there is nothing so true as the
old adage that those who marry in
haste repent at leisure, and in the
long, dreary watches at night on
ships at sea, and In the sweating
foXholeS of the tropics, and on the
burning sands of the desert, and in
the cold wastes of the frozen North
many lad will have plenty of time
to think over his impulsive marriage
and wonder why he was fool enough
to do it.
For so many war marriages have
behind them no real affection. They
were founded on nothing more than
a pang of homesickneSS, or loneli-
ness, or boredom, or a fit of the
blues. or too many bottles of beer. 1t
is the thought of leaving home and
all the dear familiar life he is ac-
cuStomed to that makes many a boy
marry the girl he has never even
thought he was in love with, just as
he is starting into the Army.
1t is not a deathleSS passion, but
being hungry, or tired, and having
that down. -and-out feeling that
causes many another lad to step
around to the justice of the peace
with the fuffy-ruffleS he met at the
USO dance; or that makes him
think that he has found his aftln-
ity in any female who will let him
weep on her breast after the top
sergeant has baWled him out: or
that makes him the helpless vic
tim, after his fourth cocktail, of
any girl on the prowl.
Such marriages are predeStined
failures that are almost inevitably
bound to end in divorce. And
scarcely less hazardous are those
boy and girl marriages that are the
result of war hysteria and the cas-
lily aroused emotions of youth, when
mere children, who do not know
their own minds, nor what they are
going to want in a husband or wife
when they grow up, get married
because it is romantic and exciting
and all the other youngsters are
doing it.
Their gossamer affections cannot
stand the strain of separation. The
soldier husbands back is hardly
turned before the bride wipes her
weeping eyes and begins to look
around at other boys. The lad for
gets just as quickly and, being girl
hungry, transfers his movable affec-
tions from the wife back home to
the pretty maidens he meets at the
camp festivities.
More than that, the soldier boy
grows up into a man. Disciplined
by Army experience, his outlook
broadened by being thrown in con-
tact with many men with many diff
ferent experiences, having his tastes
and habits changed by being in far
countries, many youth begins to
wonder what he ever saw in simple
Susie that got him, and breads the
thought of spending the balance of
his life listening to her prattle.
Hence, many furlough wedding
ends in one or the other of the high
contracting parties going AWOL.
Being realists, the younger gen.