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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75448 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber’s Note
+  Italic text displayed as: _italic_
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Yours Sincerely_
+
+  _Dorothy Dix_]
+
+
+
+
+  _Dorothy Dix—Her Book_
+
+
+  Every-day Help
+  For Every-day People
+
+
+  [Illustration: Decoration]
+
+  SECOND EDITION
+
+
+  FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
+  NEW YORK and LONDON
+  1927
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
+  FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
+  [Printed in the United States of America]
+  Published, August, 1926
+
+
+  Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention
+  of the Pan-American Republics and the
+  United States, August 11, 1910.
+
+
+
+
+_Contents_
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+          FOREWORD                                                    xi
+
+          INTRODUCTION                                               xix
+
+        I HOW A HUSBAND LIKES TO BE TREATED                            1
+
+       II CHARM                                                       10
+
+      III THE ORDINARY WOMAN                                          22
+
+       IV TEACH THE CHILDREN TO LOVE FATHER                           27
+
+        V STRIKE A BALANCE WITH MATRIMONY                             32
+
+       VI JEALOUSY                                                    39
+
+      VII HAVE A GOAL                                                 44
+
+     VIII THE GOAT FAMILY                                             48
+
+       IX SPOILING A WIFE                                             53
+
+        X THE ABSENCE CURE FOR FAMILY ILLS                            58
+
+       XI THE DEADLY RIVAL                                            63
+
+      XII LEARN A TRADE, GIRLS                                        67
+
+     XIII TRIAL DIVORCE                                               76
+
+      XIV MARRY THE MAN YOU LOVE                                      81
+
+       XV ARE YOU GOOD COMPANY FOR YOURSELF?                          87
+
+      XVI KEEPING YOUNG                                               92
+
+     XVII GOSSIP, THE POLICEMAN                                       96
+
+    XVIII THE LUCKY WORKING WOMAN                                    100
+
+      XIX AN INDOOR SPORT                                            105
+
+       XX SHOULD WOMEN TELL?                                         109
+
+      XXI DOMESTIC BOREDOM                                           114
+
+     XXII TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY                                   118
+
+    XXIII WOMAN’S GREATEST GIFT                                      122
+
+     XXIV GRAFTING ON THE OLD FOLKS                                  127
+
+      XXV ARE YOU A GOOD FATHER?                                     132
+
+     XXVI THE MORAL MUSCLES OF YOUR CHILDREN                         136
+
+    XXVII THE MOTHER-IN-LAW                                          140
+
+   XXVIII WHY OUR FAMILIES RILE US                                   145
+
+     XXIX OUR LIVES ARE WHAT WE MAKE THEM                            149
+
+      XXX HUSBAND LOSERS                                             154
+
+     XXXI MARTHA OR MARY?                                            159
+
+    XXXII THE T. B. M. AT HOME                                       163
+
+   XXXIII DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET YOUR HUSBAND SEE YOU LOVE HIM       169
+
+    XXXIV QUEER THINGS ABOUT MARRIAGE                                174
+
+     XXXV HUSBANDS—THE LIVING CONUNDRUM                              180
+
+    XXXVI THE POWER OF SUGGESTION                                    185
+
+   XXXVII WOMAN’S MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY                             190
+
+  XXXVIII HOW TO BE A GOOD HUSBAND                                   195
+
+    XXXIX GIVING CHILDREN ADVANTAGES                                 200
+
+       XL SELL YOURSELF TO YOUR CHILDREN                             205
+
+      XLI TAKING HUSBANDS “AS IS”                                    210
+
+     XLII BEING A GOOD WIFE                                          215
+
+    XLIII INVALIDISM A GRAFT                                         222
+
+     XLIV SELFISHNESS MADE TO ORDER                                  227
+
+      XLV SELF-CONTROL                                               231
+
+     XLVI OLD FATHERS AND NEW DAUGHTERS                              236
+
+    XLVII LOSING A WIFE’S LOVE                                       240
+
+   XLVIII THE LURE OF THE MARRIED MAN                                245
+
+     XLIX FORGET IT                                                  249
+
+        L LOST LOVE                                                  254
+
+       LI THE SHOW WEDDING                                           259
+
+      LII WHEN YOUR CHILDREN ARE GLAD YOU DIE                        264
+
+     LIII WHAT PRICE PLEASURE?                                       269
+
+      LIV THE IDEAL MOTHER                                           273
+
+       LV HOW TO CATCH A WIFE                                        278
+
+      LVI DANGEROUS GIRLS                                            283
+
+     LVII WHEN A GIRL LOVES A MAN                                    288
+
+    LVIII MARRIAGE LESSONS                                           293
+
+      LIX THE SUPERIOR BUSINESS WOMAN                                297
+
+       LX NEW IDEALS FOR OLD                                         301
+
+      LXI WHY DIVORCE IS COMMON                                      305
+
+     LXII THE CHILDREN PAY                                           310
+
+    LXIII THE LEARNED PROFESSION OF HOME-MAKING                      315
+
+     LXIV A FATHER’S INFLUENCE                                       320
+
+      LXV THE RICHES OF POOR CHILDREN                                325
+
+     LXVI A MAN’S RIGHT TO HIS HOME                                  330
+
+    LXVII DEVOURING FRIENDS                                          334
+
+   LXVIII THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS                                    338
+
+     LXIX PREPAREDNESS FOR OLD AGE                                   343
+
+
+
+
+_Foreword_
+
+
+
+
+_Dorothy Dix—Her Book_
+
+A FOREWORD BY RICHARD DUFFY
+
+
+To the accurately estimated millions of readers who are familiar with
+Dorothy Dix’s understanding and interpretation of the plain facts
+of everyday life and also its enigmas, it may appear a presumption
+that one should attempt a foreword of explanation to make clear why a
+choice of her daily contributions to the press, not only in the United
+States and Canada, but also in farther regions of the world, should
+be deemed worthy of the more permanent shelter of book covers. But it
+becomes at once justifiable when we try to present a true account of
+the work of “The Little Lady of New Orleans,” as one of her oldest
+editors calls her. She herself confesses that, among the hundreds of
+letters she receives each day from men and women, young, adult and
+aged, there recur the questions: “Are you a real person, or only a
+newspaper syndicate name?” “Are you a man, or are you a woman?” “Are
+you married or single?” “Have you ever been married?” “If you have not
+been married, would you marry?” “If you have been married—and are not
+now—would you marry again?” “Have you any children? If so—are they
+boys or girls—and how many?” It must be emphasized that the questions
+above recorded are not asked by correspondents merely curious, who put
+the questions just to probe the author of the Dorothy Dix articles.
+Not at all, these questions are asked in letters revealing the puzzles
+of life that entangle the very writers who address Dorothy Dix. Before
+they make the simplest inquiry as to the trustworthiness of Dorothy
+Dix, they tell their own troubles in the way we all have of saying:
+“Of course what I have said to you is wholly confidential. Now let me
+know where you stand—I mean about absolute personal fidelity.” To a
+hard-boiled business man, or business woman, such a remark seems trite.
+Yet, we must remember that hard-boiled business persons run to the
+courts every so often to discover between themselves, at great expense,
+how personal fidelity, in gush and in fact, sharply contrast.
+
+The self-styled hard-boiled people and the people who pretend they
+are less sophisticated than they are, look to Dorothy Dix for a way
+out of all their troubles. These two classes are to be reckoned with,
+because they are always telling their troubles to some confidant—the
+less known, the better. But the vast majority of the people who write
+to Dorothy Dix for counsel and guidance are profoundly sincere and
+earnest, not so much because they fear to be otherwise, but because
+they are so firmly persuaded of the sincerity and earnestness of life
+itself, when they look it square in the face and without pose of any
+kind. All and any of these correspondents of Dorothy Dix are struggling
+with their problems of how to make life livable. In the case of the
+young woman who has a good job and, at the same time, has a good home
+with her parents, the question arises whether she should marry the man
+she likes, and who on his part likes her, and then undertake to become
+a parent herself without a salaried job and without the safeguard
+of the home provided by her father and mother. On the other side
+there appears the problem of the young man, who would marry, but for
+responsibilities, psychological as well as financial, that make him
+stop, look and listen before he leaves a dependent father and mother
+unsupported.
+
+We pass to the men and women who are actually married and suddenly
+discover that they are facing the real and inevitable conflict of life
+at home as compared with the daily battle of the business world. Some
+husbands are go-getters, but they do not get anywhere because their
+wives are shiftless as home managers, or because they are spendthrifts,
+and would always, without trying, spend twice as much money as any
+husband has, or can earn. Some wives are the best of helpmates, but are
+linked to husbands who simply cannot or will not achieve the quiet
+fame of a weekly pay-envelope which is the rock foundation of “Home
+Sweet Home.”
+
+Some wives are afflicted with the disease of “social climbing.” They
+spend their days and nights proving to their husbands that for every
+dollar earned, it is better to spend two dollars, in order to take a
+chance at three, by inviting the Smiths to the theatre and to supper
+afterward. Such wives usually overlook the fact that the Smiths, with
+whom they would curry favor at great expense, are themselves spending
+two dollars for every one dollar gained on the principle that it is a
+good investment to obtain equal social standing with the Joneses.
+
+Also to be encountered in this book are the varied specimens of
+husbands and wives who have become tired of each other and seek from
+Dorothy Dix guidance towards a way out of what they consider the
+morass of marriage. Then, too, we meet the father, or the mother, who
+is perplexed about the way children grow up nowadays—as tho the way
+children grew up has not always been a surprise to parents since the
+days of Romulus and Remus. To sum up, all _dramatis personæ_ in the
+stupendous play of life, being enacted day in and day out, as we live,
+are brought on the world’s stage before us, not so much by Dorothy
+Dix as by themselves in the confidences they repose in her and the
+disclosures they make about themselves.
+
+Despite this fact there never has been nor will there be anything
+merely approaching a betrayal of confidence by Dorothy Dix. She talks
+to the whole world of men and women, and their worries and concerns are
+so alike that all shadow of individual identity is lost. She talks to
+them, not from the pedestal of the highbrow, but from the average level
+of a human being, who herself has fought the grim battle of life—as may
+be learned from her personal statement, which immediately follows these
+pages. One of the most distinguished of living American novelists, on
+being shown a few letters in her day’s mail, asked:
+
+“How many such letters do you receive a month?”
+
+She replied: “It takes me from three to four hours each day to answer
+my correspondents—and then I have to write my articles besides.”
+
+“Great Scott!” exclaimed the novelist. “You have more plots in a day’s
+letters than any hard-working novelist could invent in a year.”
+
+But none of these potential plots is available even for the most
+prolific of story-writers, because they are not “plots” to Dorothy Dix,
+but sacred testimonies to the help the “Little Lady of New Orleans” has
+been able to render through many years to her ever-increasing number of
+friends and confidants.
+
+
+
+
+_Introduction_
+
+
+
+
+_Introduction_
+
+MY PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
+
+
+I have had what people call a hard life. I have been through the depths
+of poverty and sickness. I have known want and struggle and anxiety and
+despair. I have always had to work beyond the limit of my strength.
+
+As I look back upon my life, I see it as a battlefield strewn with the
+wrecks of dead dreams and broken hopes and shattered illusions—a battle
+in which I always fought with the odds tremendously against me, and
+which has left me scarred and bruised and maimed and old before my time.
+
+Yet I have no pity for myself; no tears to shed over the past and gone
+sorrows; no envy for the women who have been spared all that I have
+gone through.
+
+For I have lived. They have only existed. I have drunk the cup of life
+down to the very dregs. They have only sipped at the bubbles on the top
+of it.
+
+I know things they will never know. I see things to which they are
+blind. It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with
+tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all
+the world.
+
+This of itself is a compensation for many sorrows, but I have more. I
+have proved myself to myself. I know that I have the strength to endure
+and the courage to carry on, and that I will not be craven enough to
+run up the white flag, no matter what other difficulties I may be
+called upon to meet.
+
+The skeleton at the feast of the woman who has always been happy and
+prosperous is fear. She becomes panic-stricken when she thinks that
+she may be called upon to meet trouble; that she may have hardships
+to endure; that her soul may be torn with suffering. She suffers
+with apprehension at the thought of poverty, and wonders how she
+could endure to go shabby and do without the things to which she is
+accustomed. She wonders helplessly what she would do if she had to earn
+her own living.
+
+_I am not afraid of poverty_ because I have been poor and I know that
+poverty has its consolations and brings you pleasures that money cannot
+buy. Nor am I afraid to support myself. I have earned my bread and
+butter for many years. I know the joy of work and I know that to a
+woman, just the satisfaction of knowing that she is self-supporting
+turns her crust into angel’s food.
+
+None of the fears with which happy women torture themselves upon
+occasion have any terrors for me. I know them for the bogies they are,
+and know, too, that they fly away before the person who does not cringe
+before them.
+
+Often I am tempted to envy the woman who has always had some strong
+man to stand between her and the world, some man whose tenderness and
+love has guarded and protected her. But I am consoled for not being a
+clinging vine when I wonder what the vine would do and think how broken
+it would be if the sturdy oak on which it hangs were laid low.
+
+I have learned in the great University of Hard Knocks a philosophy that
+no woman who has had an easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live
+each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading to-morrow.
+It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. I put
+that dread from me because experience has taught me that when the time
+comes that I so fear, the strength and wisdom to meet it will be given
+me.
+
+Little annoyances have no longer the power to affect me. After you have
+seen your whole edifice of happiness topple and crash in ruins about
+you, it never matters to you again that a servant forgets to put the
+doilies under the finger bowls or the cook spills the soup.
+
+I have learned not to expect too much of people and so I can still
+get happiness out of the friend who isn’t quite true to me, or the
+acquaintance who gossips about me, and I can even find pleasure in the
+society of those whose motives I see through.
+
+Above all I have acquired a sense of humor, because there were so many
+things over which I had either to laugh or cry. And when a woman can
+joke over her troubles instead of having hysterics, nothing can ever
+hurt her much again.
+
+So I do not regret the hardships I have known because through them I
+have touched life at every point. I have lived. And it was worth the
+price I had to pay.
+
+  DOROTHY DIX.
+
+
+
+
+_Dorothy Dix—Her Book_
+
+
+
+
+_Dorothy Dix—Her Book_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+HOW A HUSBAND LIKES TO BE TREATED
+
+
+Altho marriage has been the chief business of woman since Eve
+pulled off the first wedding in the Garden of Eden, women have not
+yet mastered the first indispensable principle of success in their
+profession. Millions of women have been married. Hundreds of thousands
+of women marry annually, and yet, as a class, women do not know how to
+treat a husband.
+
+Here and there is a shining exception to this rule, and the result is
+an inspiring picture of domestic bliss. But the great majority of women
+still go stumbling along into misery and divorce because they have not
+had the wit to find out how to rub man’s fur the right way, and make
+him purr under their hands.
+
+In a word, women fail to strike just the right note in their attitude
+towards their husbands. Sometimes they treat them better than they
+deserve. Sometimes worse, but seldom do they treat the men just as the
+men would like to be treated.
+
+Perhaps the real reason that women fail in this most important
+particular is because they make the mistake of treating a husband as
+if he were a rational human being, and the same sort of an individual
+inside of the home circle that he is outside of it.
+
+Never was there a greater error. The John Smith to whom a woman is
+married is no more the John Smith of the business world than he is some
+other man.
+
+The John Smith, who is a lawyer, or a doctor, or a grocer in the
+outer world, is a big, strong, broad, self-reliant man who looks at
+everything in a large way, and is just, and tolerant, and even stoical
+in meeting the vicissitudes of life. The woman who marries him has
+perceived all of these qualities, and loved him for them, and she
+naturally expects him to exhibit these characteristics in home life.
+
+Fatal blunder. John Smith, the business man, may be dealt with on a
+plain, sensible, aboveboard platform, but John Smith the husband, has
+to be jollied, and cajoled, and petted, and wheedled along the road he
+should go, if there is anything doing in the domestic felicity line in
+the household of which he is the alleged head.
+
+Now the majority of husbands average up quite as well as the majority
+of wives, but even when a man is really good, and true, and strong,
+experience teaches his wife that there are three ways in which he likes
+her to treat him. They are:
+
+(a) Like a baby.
+
+(b) Like a demigod.
+
+(c) Like a good fellow.
+
+No matter how big and strong a man is, nor how many other men he
+bosses, he wants his wife to treat him as if he were a delicate infant
+who had to be petted, and nursed, and dandled, and chucked under the
+chin. There isn’t a man living whose secret ideal of a perfect wife
+isn’t a woman who puts the buttons in his shirt, and lays out his
+collar and tie in the morning, who has his slippers toasting on the
+radiator when he comes home of an evening, and who cooks just the
+particular thing he likes to eat, with her own hands.
+
+Talk about your women who can hand out intellectual companionship!
+Produce your living pictures! Exhibit your paragons of virtue! They are
+simply not one, two, three with the wise dame who pets and fusses over
+her lord and master. And it isn’t because the man really wants his wife
+to wait on him. That doesn’t enter into it at all. He’s just like the
+three-year-old who howls for mama to put on his shoes or butter his
+bread when there are seven nurses standing around to do it.
+
+Men are babyish in wanting their wives to show them off. The
+expression on the face of little Tommy while his fond mother is telling
+the smart things that he said, is exactly the same expression that
+is on Tommy’s father’s face while his wife is bragging about how he
+organized a trust, or won a big lawsuit, or was elected judge.
+
+Wise,—oh, a daughter of Solomon is the woman who puts her husband
+through his paces for the benefit of company. Matrimony is one long,
+glad sweet song in the household of the lady who acts as a showman for
+hubby.
+
+Consider also a man when he is sick, or thinks he is sick. How does he
+want to be treated then? Like a baby. He wants his wife to sit by his
+bed, and hold his hand, and weep tears of sympathy, and if she doesn’t
+believe he is going to die every time he has a headache, he considers
+her a cold, heartless icicle and doubts her affection.
+
+Therefore, the very first principle in treating a husband is to treat
+him as if he was your littlest baby, and if you do, he will gurgle, and
+coo just as your two-year-old does when you smother him with kisses,
+and asks: “‘Oose de most booflest boy on earf, an’ mudders itty, pitty
+wonder, and world beater?”
+
+Secondly, every husband likes to be treated as if he were a demigod.
+
+Men won’t admit it, but in his soul every husband feels that he has
+conferred such an inestimable boon upon his wife by marrying her that
+she can never really repay him, anyway, but that it is up to her
+to keep busy on the job. Therefore, the least she can do is to act
+grateful.
+
+The real reason why there is a continual conflict in most families over
+the money question is not because husbands are stingy, but because a
+man likes to dole the money out, piece by piece, so that the woman who
+gets it may have a living exhibition of his generosity.
+
+When a man complains about how extravagant his wife is, and how much
+her hat and dress cost, it doesn’t mean that he begrudges her a single
+garment or the price thereof. On the contrary, it is his way of
+boasting to the world of how prosperous he is, and how well he provides
+for his family. Stupid, indeed, is the woman who does not comprehend
+this, and who does not keep her glad rags hanging in public, so to
+speak, and continually beat upon the cymbal, and chant pæans of praise
+about how good her husband is to provide her with her lovely clothes.
+
+Nor is this as silly as it sounds. The average man gets practically
+nothing out of his labor, after he has supported his family, but his
+board and clothes, and it is pretty discouraging to spend your life
+toiling for those who take all that you can give, and make no sign of
+appreciation in return. So it is not strange that husbands like their
+wives to treat them as a beneficent providence from whom all blessings
+flow.
+
+Husbands like to be treated as good fellows.
+
+If the average married man could put up one prayer more fervent than
+all the rest it would be this: “Lord, send me a wife who laughs, and a
+home that isn’t an understudy to a funeral parlor!”
+
+But his prayer isn’t often answered.
+
+Now one of the great reasons why so many husbands and wives make
+shipwreck of their lives together is because a man is always seeking
+for happiness, while a woman is on a perpetual still hunt for trouble.
+When anything uncomfortable happens to a man he tries to forget it,
+to put it behind him, to get it out of his thoughts, even if he has
+to drown it in drink. When a misfortune befalls a woman she gloats
+over it. She keeps pressing her finger on every sore until she makes a
+raging abscess of it. Then she goes on a jag of tears.
+
+The result of this feminine peculiarity is that the average home is not
+a cheerful place, nor is the average wife a joyous companion, and that
+is why a very large number of husbands seek their amusements elsewhere,
+and with other people. The greatest danger that menaces domesticity is
+that so many wives are killjoys.
+
+The question is often asked—why do men, who are penurious and niggardly
+to their families, and who never pay a household bill without
+grumbling, spend money so lavishly on their vices? The answer is easy.
+A man’s home is dull, and the money that his family costs him gives
+him no fillip of pleasure. The other does. The home has been made to
+mean to him nothing but hard duty, ungilded by any joy. The opening
+of champagne for chorus girls is to the tune of gaiety and laughter.
+Therefore, he is willing to pay for one and begrudges paying for the
+other.
+
+Once I was listening to a group of intelligent people discuss the most
+desirable quality in a wife. They named the usual standard virtues
+until suddenly one man burst out in a voice surcharged with genuine
+emotion.
+
+“I tell you,” he said, “what a man wants in a wife more than anything
+else is a cheerful companion. Goodness? Bah! All women, at least the
+kind a man marries, are good. Economy? A man likes to spend money
+on his wife. Amiability? Who wants a simpering doll always about?
+Domesticity? Stuff and nonsense. A man’s stomach isn’t the most
+important part of him. Besides there is a good restaurant on every
+corner, if he is bound to gorge himself on food.
+
+“I tell you what a man wants is cheerfulness in his wife. He wants to
+come home at night to somebody who will meet him with a smile, somebody
+who has got a lot of bright little things to tell him, and who can make
+him laugh, somebody who is willing to put on her prettiest dress and
+go out with him if he wants to go to any place of amusement.
+
+“He doesn’t want to come home to a woman who is sodden with tears,
+or who is running over with the accumulated worries of the day that
+she dumps on him, who is full of her own and other people’s hard luck
+stories, and who looks like a chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah.”
+
+Of course, whether a wife is melancholy or not does not, from an
+ethical standpoint, alter her husband’s duty to her. He should be
+strong enough to love and cherish her no matter how lacrimose she
+is; but the martyr’s crown is a piece of headgear that is distinctly
+unfashionable at the present time, and most men duck wearing it.
+Wherefore, it behooves the Amalgamated Order of Doleful Wives to
+cheer up, and try to be more lively companions to their husbands if
+they don’t want those gentlemen to stray off in search of ladies with
+sunnier dispositions.
+
+As a matter of fact, men are, emotionally, very primitive creatures
+with a few simple domestic wants. They desire to be petted, and
+jollied, and looked up to by their wives, and then they want to be
+treated as good fellows. They want their wives to be chums with them,
+and not reforming institutions, or lecture bureaus.
+
+The average man simply pines for cheerful comradeship from his wife.
+He wants her to enjoy the things that he does, to like the people he
+likes, to amuse herself with the things that divert him. He wants to
+hear her laugh, to see her eyes sparkle, and for her to treat him as
+on a par with herself, as if they were joyous fellow sinners together,
+instead of her being a living reproof to him as a poor low-browed
+creature, with musical-comedy tastes that make her shudder.
+
+Yet do you ever notice the ordinary married couple out together? It
+is one of the most piteous sights on earth. The man is spending his
+money trying to give his wife a good time, and she meets his noble
+efforts with the rasping qualities of a crosscut saw. That is what
+gives eternal pungency to the old Weber and Fields joke about the man
+who, when asked if he was going to take his wife with him on a trip to
+Paris, replied: “No, I am going on a pleasure excursion.”
+
+Of course whether it is any more a woman’s place to get along with her
+husband than it is his to get along with her is another fight, which I
+am not trying to referee here. So also is the question of how a wife
+likes to be treated. What I have tried to show is how a husband would
+like his wife to pull the wool over his eyes and put on the velvet
+glove before she tries to manage him—because men really enjoy being
+bamboozled by women who turn out a nice artistic job. What they object
+to is not being henpecked, but the raw way in which their wives do it.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CHARM
+
+
+Over and over again girls ask me these questions: What is charm? What
+is the secret of the attraction that some women have for men?
+
+What is the “come-hither” look in the eye that some women have that
+makes every man who beholds it get up and follow them?
+
+Why do some girls always have hosts of beaux flocking about them, while
+other girls just as good-looking, just as clever, just as good dancers,
+just as anxious to please, never have a date or a single sweetheart to
+bless themselves with?
+
+And to all of these questions I have to answer, sadly and
+disconsolately, that I do not know. I have to give up the conundrum,
+which is perhaps the riddle that the Sphinx, who is partly a woman, has
+brooded over through the centuries in her desert solitude, without ever
+being able to solve it.
+
+In Barrie’s delightful play, “What Every Woman Knows,” Maggie’s
+brothers, discussing her with the brutal frankness with which brothers
+approach the subject of a sister, agreed that she wasn’t young, nor
+brilliant, and that she was homely, yet all the men were after her.
+Finally one of the brothers said: “But she’s got that damned charm.”
+And that was that.
+
+When a woman has that damned charm she can snap her fingers in the face
+of flappers and living pictures, and marry as early and as often as she
+pleases as is witnessed by the many fat, pie-faced women we all know
+who have had two, and three, or more, husbands apiece, and who still
+have a waiting list in case anything untoward and fatal should happen
+to the gentlemen to whom they are at present united in the holy bonds
+of matrimony.
+
+But what is this charm, what is this rabbit’s foot that some lucky
+women carry, and others do not? To say that it is personality is to
+attempt to explain one mystery by another mystery, for we do not know
+in what personal magnetism consists, or by what power one individual
+draws us, while another repulses us.
+
+We know that it isn’t beauty, because the best lookers among girls
+are seldom the most popular, and men who profess to worship beauty
+are generally content to adore it from a safe distance, and show no
+disposition to marry it. It is notorious that beauties seldom make good
+matches. Nor does charm consist of intelligence. Being a highbrow booms
+no woman’s stock, socially or matrimonially, while a witty woman cuts
+her throat with her own tongue.
+
+To be a spellbinder is for a girl’s fairy godmother to have wished a
+curse instead of a blessing upon her, for no woman is more anathema to
+men than the human phonograph. Even dancing, chief of accomplishments
+in these jazzy days when it is of more profit for a woman to have her
+brains in her heels than in her head, is but a passing attraction,
+while amiability and a sweet nature, woman’s traditional one best bet,
+are like a sticking plaster, potent to hold a man after marriage, but
+of small value in luring him into it.
+
+Undoubtedly, charm in its perfection is a gift of the gods, but
+happily, in these days, when nature proves a cruel stepmother who is so
+mean and stingy that she does not give us all that is coming to us, we
+have learned to circumvent the lady. No woman need be as ugly as God
+made her, nor as unattractive as she was born. Drug-store complexions
+can put the inherited ones to the blush, and any girl who is willing to
+take the trouble can acquire a line of lures and graces that will make
+any bona fide siren tremble for her job. To the girl, then, who wishes
+to acquire charm, and who especially wishes to attract men, I would
+say, first, stress your femininity.
+
+I don’t mean be namby-pamby and weepy and dish-raggy, without any
+backbone. That type of woman has gone out of fashion as completely as
+bustles and hoopskirts. No man now would be bored with the sort of
+perfect lady his grandmother was. But the eternal feminine remains
+still the eternal attraction for men, and the more womanly a woman is,
+the gentler, the tenderer, the sweeter, the more she appeals to men. If
+you will notice when a man speaks of the woman he loves, he invariably
+calls her “little” no matter if she is six feet high and weighs 200
+pounds. What he means is that she gives him the reaction of depending
+upon him, of looking up to him, and that in some subtle way she
+flatters his vanity by giving him the sense of masculine superiority.
+
+You never see an aggressive, double-fisted woman, who fights her way
+as a man does, get anywhere. And in his soul every man adores frills
+and furbelows, and likes to see women dolled up. That is why girls make
+such a terrible mistake when they ape mannish ways, and wear mannish
+clothes. When a girl puts on knickerbockers she throws her trump card
+into the discard.
+
+To the girl who wishes to acquire charm I would also whisper this
+secret: Make of yourself a mirror in which other people look upon
+themselves. Especially let men see a flattering reflection of
+themselves in your eyes. Can your own personal vanity. Listen with
+bated breath while other people tell you of their exploits, but never
+mention your own. Enthuse over their cars, their dogs. Marvel at their
+adventures. Sympathize with their disappointments. Give the glad hand
+to their successes, and you will be universally regarded as a woman of
+perfect taste, wonderful insight, profound judgment, a brilliant talker
+and a companion of whom one could never weary. It is the tireless
+listeners, and not the endless talkers, whom men take out to dinner.
+
+To the girl who wishes to develop charm I would likewise earnestly
+recommend an intensive course of self-analysis. I would say to her:
+“Study yourself. Find out what you can wear and what you cannot wear.
+Find out the things that you can do and get away with, and the things
+that you cannot do without making yourself appear either a dumbbell or
+a figure of fun. Then, having ascertained what are your best points,
+turn the spotlight on them. Emphasize them until you make everybody sit
+up and take notice, so that even casual acquaintances will remember
+you as the girl who always wears pink, or the girl who always dresses
+in black, or the girl with the Mona Lisa smile, or the girl who is so
+jolly and such a cut-up, or the girl who listens to you with such an
+absorbed expression on her face that you could go on talking to her
+forever. I would urge girls to try to be themselves, plus, as they
+say in business, and to raise whatever charms of body, or mind, or
+heart, they have to its _n_th power. That is the best way to acquire
+personality, the “something different” about us that sets us apart from
+every other human being, instead of our being just one of the herd.
+
+Don’t be a copycat. Don’t understudy the mannerisms of another girl
+just because she happens to be popular. Imitation airs and graces have
+about as much sparkle to them as imitation diamonds. Besides, you never
+can make a go of it. You can’t put on another woman’s characteristics
+any more than you can her clothes, and make them seem as if they were
+your own birthday suit. They are always a grotesque misfit. Charm has
+to be made to order and cut to the measurement of the individual. That
+is why one girl may do bold, outrageous things and everybody only
+shrugs his shoulders and laughs at her, while another girl is sent to
+Coventry for not doing half so much. That is why some women always have
+a masculine shoulder offered for them to weep upon, while men tell
+other women not to be fools whenever they shed a tear.
+
+So the trick is for the girl to find out what her own class is and
+qualify for the blue ribbon in that instead of trying to force her
+way into a bunch of prize winners where she doesn’t belong and where
+she will be thrown out by the judges. Yet many girls make the mistake
+of doing this very thing. A quiet, serious-minded, mouse-like little
+girl observes that some gay and dashing girl, who has quicksilver in
+her veins and over whose lips laughter bubbles as spontaneously as a
+mountain spring, is much admired and sought after and is the life of
+the party wherever she goes.
+
+“Aha! Vivacity is what makes a girl popular,” says the demure one to
+herself. “I will also be sprightly, and merry, and make a hit.”
+
+So she tries to imitate the high spirits of the gay girl, but she can’t
+do it. Her home-made vivacity is as flat as home-brew beer beside
+imported champagne. Instead of being bright, she is loud. Instead of
+laughing, she giggles. Instead of being sprightly, she jumps around
+like a monkey on a stick. She is so afraid she won’t talk enough that
+she chatters incessantly, and instead of amusing people she bores them
+to death.
+
+Yet the very girl who is such a failure as a live wire could have
+charmed every one if only she had given a master performance of girlish
+sweetness, and gentleness, and quietness. She could have been a great
+success if she had remained the shrinking violet that nature made her,
+but she was a rank failure as a gaudy sunflower.
+
+Then there is the big, Amazonian woman who tries to be cute and
+cunning, because she sees some baby doll getting the glad hand when
+she curls up on sofas, and sits on one foot, and perches on the edges
+of tables, and who only succeeds in looking like a performing elephant
+instead of a playful kitten when she performs these stunts. And there
+is the woman without an inch of funny bone in her whole anatomy who
+tries to tell good stories because she sees some jolly woman raconteur
+set the table in a roar at dinner parties, and who wonders why people
+burst into tears instead of into peals of mirth when she recites her
+carefully memorized jokes.
+
+They couldn’t fill other women’s rôles, yet the big woman could have
+made us worship her as a goddess if she had stayed on her pedestal
+instead of coming down and trying to do double somersaults in the
+ring. We would have listened eagerly enough to intelligent talk from
+a serious thinker who didn’t try to be funny, for Heaven knows we get
+tired enough of amateur jokesmiths who think we want to be perpetually
+tickled in the ribs. Believe me, girls, there is much wisdom in the old
+proverb that advises the shoemaker to stick to his last. We are most
+admirable when we are what nature made us with the aid of a few little
+arts and embellishments to throw the original model up into higher
+relief. So I counsel you to make the most of yourselves. Abandon the
+foolish attempt of trying to make yourselves over into a poor copy of
+some woman who is admired. Charm isn’t standardized. It has a million
+forms, and every woman should illustrate her own particular version of
+it.
+
+After all what we call charm is largely a matter of personality and
+the girl who wishes to cultivate that elusive something that we call
+personality does well to pay much attention to her dress. This sounds
+like superfluous advice to the sex whose brains are mostly cut on the
+bias and shirred in the middle, and which is more concerned over the
+hang of a skirt than it is over the state of its immortal soul. It is
+not too much to say that three-fourths of women’s thoughts and interest
+in life and heart-felt desires and envies are concentrated upon
+clothes, and the marvel always is that they can put so much effort on a
+subject and get such poor results.
+
+For the great majority of women only think of dress in terms of
+fashion, and they follow the mode of the moment as sheep follow their
+leader over a wall. They wear blue or purple, pink or green, short
+skirts or long skirts, tight ones or full ones, without any reference
+to their complexions or whether their ankles are sylphlike or like
+the legs of a piano, or whether they are living skeletons, or have
+featherbed figures. The result is that thousands upon thousands of
+women look as if their worst enemy had bought their clothes, and their
+hats are a premeditated insult to their faces. But they go their way,
+serene and happy, having done the worst they could by themselves, but
+blissful in the knowledge that they are wearing what everybody else
+is wearing. Apparently it never enters the average woman’s head that
+by clothing herself in the feminine uniform of the hour she makes
+herself indistinguishable in the mob, or that she could call attention
+to herself by breaking away from it, and dressing to suit her own
+particular type. Still less does it occur to her that her clothes offer
+her an invaluable mode of self-expression, and that by them she can
+emphasize her good points and camouflage her defects.
+
+Yet every moving picture, every play she sees, offers a girl an object
+lesson in the psychology of clothes that she does not heed. She never
+asks herself why the innocent, trusting maiden, too artless for her own
+good, always wears a white muslin and a blue sash; why the ingenue is
+always a mass of fluffy ruffles; why the betrayed heroine always wears
+a slinky black dress; why the adventuress is clothed in crimson and
+spangles; why the vamp invariably wears long jade earrings, and a quart
+of beads, and very little else.
+
+Yet astute stage managers have found that the surest way to make an
+audience visualize a woman in a certain way is to have her dress the
+part. A girl might, of course, be as innocent in a crimson dress as
+a white one; a woman might be as heartbroken in a pink silk and lace
+negligee as she is in a bedraggled black alpaca, but it would take a
+long argument to convince us of it, and we wouldn’t weep nearly as
+freely over her woes as we do when we get an eyeful of her in the
+clothes that tell us at once just what a poor, innocent, persecuted
+heroine she is.
+
+Surely this should suggest to every girl the wisdom of retiring to her
+closet, and having a heart-to-heart session with her wardrobe, and a
+vivisection party with her character, and thereby try to find out how
+to dress her soul as well as her body, so as best and most effectively
+to press-agent her individuality, so to speak.
+
+If she is of the bold and dashing type, let her flaunt herself like a
+sunflower in daring costumes and flaming colors, but if she is of the
+quiet and gentle sort, soft fabrics, chiffons and laces and pastel
+shades belong to her, and make her look like the traditional modest
+violet that every man dreams of securing as a wife. Let the girl who
+is flat-chested and athletic rejoice in her sport clothes. That is her
+note, and brings out a certain piquant boyishness which is her greatest
+attraction. But let the girl who is plump, with gracious curves, make
+the most of her femininity by decking herself out in the frilliest
+frocks that she can find. Each will lose in charm if she swaps her
+plumage for the other’s.
+
+Dangling ornaments, floating ribbons and jingling bracelets belong to
+the gay and foolish and frivolous, but they detract from the dignity of
+the stately, thoughtful, serious-minded woman. A tailor-made suit is
+equal to a certificate of virtue, and when a girl is applying for a job
+a plain, dark-colored suit will do more to land her the position than a
+gilt-edged reference. Nobody ever believes that a girl in a low-necked,
+no-sleeved frock can ever be a competent business woman. She doesn’t
+look it. Every woman knows that her eyes seem twice as blue if she
+has a blue lining to her hat, and that she can turn a spotlight on
+her every freckle by wearing a spotted dress. In the same way she can
+bring out her characteristics by the way she dresses. If she wishes to
+emphasize her cuteness, she can do it by dressing like a baby doll.
+If she wishes to be thought a goddess, she can add to her divinity
+by long-trailing robes. If she wishes to be thought a good sport and
+treated as a pal by men, sport clothes are hers, while if domesticity
+is her long suit, she can turn the trick by wearing ruffled little
+white aprons at home. So study your type, girls, and dress the part,
+if you want to make the most of the attractions with which nature has
+endowed you.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE ORDINARY WOMAN
+
+
+I wish that I had the distributing of some of the Carnegie medals for
+heroes. I would give one to just the Ordinary Woman. It is true that
+she never manned a lifeboat in a stormy sea, or plunged into a river
+to save a drowning person. It is true that she never stopped a runaway
+horse, or dashed into a burning building, or gave any other spectacular
+exhibition of courage.
+
+She has only stood at her post thirty, or forty, or fifty years,
+fighting sickness and poverty and loneliness, and disappointment so
+quietly, with such a Spartan fortitude that the world has never noticed
+her achievements. Yet, in the presence of the Ordinary Woman, the
+battle-scarred veteran, with his breast covered with medals signifying
+valor, may well stand uncovered before one braver than he.
+
+There is nothing high and heroic in her appearance. She is just a
+commonplace woman, plainly dressed, with a tired face and work-worn
+hands—the kind of woman that you meet a hundred times a day upon the
+street without ever giving her a second glance, still less saluting
+her as a heroine. Nevertheless, as much as the bravest soldier, she
+is entitled to the cross of the Legion of Honor for distinguished
+gallantry on the Battlefield of Life.
+
+Years and years ago, when she was fresh and young, and gay, and
+light-hearted, she was married. Her head, as is the case with most
+girls, was full of dreams. Her husband was to be a Prince Charming,
+always tender and considerate and loving, shielding her from every care
+and worry. Life itself was to be a fairy tale.
+
+One by one the dreams fell away. The husband was a good man, but he
+grew indifferent to her before long. He ceased to notice when she put
+on a fresh ribbon. He never paid her the little compliments for which
+a woman’s soul hungers. He never gave her a kiss or a caress, and
+their married life sank into a deadly monotony that had no romance to
+brighten it, no joy or love to lighten it.
+
+Day after day she sewed and cooked and cleaned and mended to make a
+comfortable home for a man who did not even give her the poor pay of a
+few words of appreciation. At his worst he was cross and querulous. At
+his best he was silent, and would gobble his food like a hungry animal
+and subside into his paper, leaving her to spend a dull and monotonous
+evening after a dull and monotonous day.
+
+The husband was not one of the fortunate few who have the gift of
+making money. He worked hard, but opportunity does not smile on every
+man, and the wolf was never very far away from their door.
+
+Women know the worst of poverty. It is the wife, who has the spending
+of the insufficient family income, who learns all the bitter ways of
+scrimping and paring and saving. The husband must present a decent
+appearance, for policy’s sake, when he goes to business; certain things
+are necessities for the children; and so the heaviest of all the
+deprivations fall upon the woman who stays at home and strives to make
+one dollar do the work of five.
+
+That is the way of the Ordinary Woman; and what sacrifices she makes,
+what tastes she crucifies, what longings for pretty things and dainty
+things she smothers, not even her own family guess. They think it is an
+eccentricity that makes her choose the neck of the chicken and the hard
+end of the loaf and to stay at home from any little outing. Ah, if they
+only knew!
+
+For each of her children she trod the Gethsemane of woman, only to go
+through that slavery of motherhood which the woman endures who is too
+poor to hire competent nurses. For years and years she never knew what
+it was to have a single night’s unbroken sleep. The small hours of the
+morning found her walking the colic, or nursing the croup, or covering
+restless little sleepers, or putting water to thirsty little lips.
+
+There was no rest for her, day or night. There was always a child in
+her arms or clinging to her skirts. Oftener than not she was sick and
+nerve-worn and weary almost to death, but she never failed to rally to
+the call of “Mother!” as a good soldier rallies to his battle-cry.
+
+Nobody called her brave, and yet, when one of the children came down
+with malignant diphtheria, she braved death a hundred times, in bending
+over the little sufferer, without one thought of danger. And when the
+little one was laid away under the sod, she who had loved most was the
+first to gather herself together and take up the burden of life for the
+others.
+
+The supreme moment of the Ordinary Woman’s life, however, came when she
+educated her children above herself and lifted them out of her sphere.
+She did this with deliberation. She knew that in sending her bright boy
+and talented girl off to college she was opening up to them paths in
+which she could not follow; she knew that the time would come when they
+would look upon her with pitying tolerance or contempt, or perhaps—God
+help her!—be ashamed of her.
+
+But she did not falter in her self-sacrifice. She worked a little
+harder, she denied herself a little more, to give them the advantages
+that she never had. In this she was only like millions of other
+Ordinary Women who are toiling over cooking-stoves, slaving at
+sewing-machines, pinching and economizing to educate and cultivate
+their children—digging with their own hands the chasm that will
+separate them almost as much as death itself would.
+
+Wherefore I say the Ordinary Woman is the real heroine of life.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TEACH THE CHILDREN TO LOVE FATHER
+
+
+Are you teaching your children to love and admire their father? Do you
+ceaselessly point out to your children their father’s good qualities?
+Do you hold their father up as a hero before your children’s eyes? Do
+you teach your children to appreciate their father? If you do not,
+you are not giving your husband a fair deal, nor a run for his money.
+Fatherhood calls for just as many sacrifices as motherhood does. The
+only coin in which these can be repaid is affection and gratitude, and
+if he is defrauded of these he is poor indeed.
+
+From the time the first baby is born the average man becomes literally
+the slave of his family. He sells himself into bondage so that his
+children may live soft; that they may have advantages that he never
+had in his youth; that they may enjoy luxuries he never knew. He works
+overtime and grows prematurely old and bent, that his boys may go to
+college and belong to smart clubs and have automobiles, and that his
+daughters may attend fashionable schools, and dress like fashion
+plates, and go in the right circles.
+
+It is father who stays at home and works through hot summers and cold
+winters, when the family goes to Europe. It is father who wears the
+shabbiest clothes. It is father who has the worst room and the smallest
+closet space in the home. The percentage of money that father spends
+on himself and in gratifying his own personal tastes and desires is
+negligible. Virtually all the money he has earned by a lifetime of hard
+toil has been lavished on his family.
+
+Whether this pays or not, whether all of this labor and anxiety and
+self-denial have been worthless or not, depends altogether on his
+children’s attitude toward him. If they love him; if they are grateful
+to him; if they appreciate what he has done for them, it is the best
+investment that a man ever made, and it makes him richer than any
+millionaire. But if his children are indifferent and callous; if they
+take all that he has done for them as no more than their due, and
+without even a “thank you”; if they see in him nothing but a shabby
+little man who hasn’t been particularly successful as a moneymaker,
+then all his life work goes for nothing. His sacrifices are without
+reward. He is bankrupt in heart.
+
+Now, the attitude of children toward their father is almost entirely
+determined by their mother; and whether they look upon him as a
+superior being to be adored and worshiped, or merely as a cash register
+that they can punch whenever they want any money, depends altogether
+upon what she has taught them. There are women who teach their children
+to hate and fear their father by making him an ogre to them. When the
+children are bad the little culprits are always threatened with what
+their father will do to them. The mother thus makes the father the
+hanging judge who inflicts punishment on the small sinners.
+
+In this way the mother fills the child’s imagination with a picture of
+its father as of some dread creature who is always lying in wait to
+chastise him, and who could never have any sympathy or understanding
+with him, and with whom he could never have any possible companionship.
+
+“I’ll tell your father on you when he comes home,” is the curse that
+millions of women lay between their children and their husbands, and
+that seals the children’s hearts forever against the fathers who have
+given them their very life blood.
+
+There are other women who teach their children to regard their fathers
+simply as money-making machines that exist solely for their own use and
+benefit. What the children want they must have at any cost to father,
+and mother undertakes to nag it out of him. The children see that
+mother has no consideration for father and they grow up to have none.
+
+She never tells them that they must not even ask for something they
+desire because business is bad and their father is harassed and worried
+about money. She never tells them that they must stay at home and let
+father have a little trip, because he is sick and nerve-worn. She lets
+them wring the last penny out of him with no more feeling for him than
+if he were some sort of automatic device worked by her for supplying
+their desires and needs.
+
+Other women teach their children to despise their fathers by always
+criticizing them and calling attention to their faults. They are
+forever telling the children that their fathers are lacking in
+enterprise, that they are poor business men, that they are too easy
+and let people take advantage of them, that they are high-tempered and
+hard to get along with, that they have this and that weakness, until
+the child’s mind is thoroughly poisoned with the idea that his father
+amounts to nothing and his opinions are not to be respected.
+
+Very few women ever deliberately set themselves to teach their children
+to love and appreciate their fathers. Very few women ever try to make
+their children see their fathers as heroes who, for their sakes, are
+fighting the battle of life as bravely and gallantly as any knight of
+old. Very few women teach their children to show any gratitude to the
+fathers who have sacrificed so much for them. Why so many women fail
+in this important duty is partly through carelessness and a lack of
+thought, but mostly because of an unconscious mother jealousy. They
+want to be first with their children and monopolize their love. But it
+is a cruel thing to the child, and to the father. It robs them both of
+so much joy in each other that they miss.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+STRIKE A BALANCE WITH MATRIMONY
+
+
+I get hundreds upon hundreds of letters from disgruntled wives
+bemoaning their fates. They tell me that they are sick and weary of
+the monotony of domestic drudgery; that they have few amusements;
+that their husbands are indifferent to them and never pay them any
+compliments or show them any affection; that their husbands find fault
+with them for their every mistake, but never give them one word of
+praise for all the good work they do.
+
+And these women have brooded over the hardships of their lot until they
+have grown morbid and they see the world as one great gob of gloom,
+with themselves as the blackest spot in it.
+
+Without doubt, marriage is a cruel and a bitter disappointment to
+nine-tenths of those who enter into the holy estate. Especially is it
+disillusioning to women because they build such impossible hopes upon
+it, and go into it with such a blind faith that they are going to find
+it an earthly paradise.
+
+It is incredible, but it is true, that despite her lifelong knowledge
+of the daily life her mother has led and her observation of the
+domestic strife in the households of her married friends and neighbors,
+every girl honestly believes that her own matrimonial venture will be a
+perpetual picnic, and that the man she marries will remain the perfect
+lover.
+
+Of course, it doesn’t happen, and when the woman finds out that her
+own marriage brings her more kicks than ha’pence; when she realizes
+that she must share the common lot; when she has to bend her back to
+the hard and dreary labor of making a family comfortable, for which
+she gets neither the glad hand nor a pay envelope, and when she has to
+put up with a man who seems to have cornered the whole visible supply
+of pure cussedness, why, it gets upon her nerves, and she feels like
+flunking it.
+
+So she beats upon her breast and cries out that this is not the
+marriage of which she dreamed. This sordid existence is not what she
+married for.
+
+Of course, it isn’t. But it is marriage as it is. None of us realize
+our ideals. Our dreams never come true. And even when we get what we
+want, it is so warped and twisted that it is no longer the object of
+our desires, and we have paid for it more than it is worth. That is
+life.
+
+To these unhappy wives I would offer this bit of homely counsel:
+
+Sit down, sisters, and have a real heart-to-heart session with your own
+souls. Put out of your mind firmly and for all time the idiotic idea
+that there is any lot of perfect peace and happiness, any road you
+might have traveled that is not strewn with tacks. Worry and anxiety
+and sickness and sorrow and disappointment and loneliness are the
+portion alike of the highest and the lowest, and you cannot escape the
+human lot. It is life.
+
+Then take a calm and dispassionate survey of your own situation. You
+will find your work tiresome and monotonous. So does every other person
+in the world find his or hers. The thing we do for our daily bread is
+bound to become a grind. Do you think for a moment that the banker
+doesn’t get sick and weary of grappling with credits and loans; that
+the author doesn’t have to flog himself to his desk; that the actor
+doesn’t weary of the lines he has said over thousands of times; that
+the film star is not nauseated with grease paint?
+
+Every one thrills to his task at first as you did to your new pots and
+pans and bridal furniture. But the novelty wears off, and then comes
+the long, grim stretch of carrying on, because it is your job to which
+you have set your hand and which you mean to make a good job just
+because it is yours. That is life.
+
+You complain that your husband takes your good work as a matter of
+course, but he howls loud and long over your mistakes. That is what
+happens to all workers. If you were a stenographer and spelled one
+word wrong; if you were a saleswoman and made one error in your
+calculations, your boss would pass over the thousands of words you had
+spelled correctly and the hundreds of good sales you had made, to call
+you down for your blunder.
+
+If you were a writer or an actor, you would find that the critics would
+forget all the good work you had done to call attention to the weakness
+of your new book, or bemoan the performance you gave in a new part. As
+long as we walk straight no one notices it, but when we fall off the
+path we attract attention. It is life.
+
+These unhappy wives ask, “What shall I do?” and one knows not how
+to answer the question. To tell them that, if they are patient and
+forbearing, and go on doing their duty as wives, they can change mean
+husbands into good ones is to tell them a wicked lie, and mislead them
+with false hopes. The leopard changes his spots just about as often as
+a man does his disposition, and I have yet to see the tightwad become
+generous; the surly, glum man turn into a ray of sunshine in his home;
+or the hard, cold, selfish man become the perfect lover to his wife.
+
+Nor is divorce the solution of the unhappy wife’s problem. Marriage
+is not an episode of which you can say when you get a divorce, “This
+unpleasant chapter of my life is ended. I will shut the book, and
+forget all about it, and be perfectly happy henceforth.” Marriage sets
+its ineffaceable seal upon a woman, it colors her whole life; and
+divorce can no more give her back her lost joy, and faith, and trust,
+than it can restore her lost girlhood.
+
+Besides, there are nearly always children to consider; children whose
+welfare a good mother places above her own; children for whom a home
+must be kept together; children who must be educated; who must be
+started in life, who need a father’s support and control. Divorce
+is not for the woman with children unless conditions are absolutely
+intolerable. And for the woman herself divorce is often a jumping out
+of the frying pan into the fire, for when she finds that she is rid
+of an unkind husband, she has to face a world that is unkinder still.
+Generally the woman has no private fortune. The courts award her but
+a meager alimony, and the collecting of that is generally about the
+hardest job on earth. She is trained to no business or occupation.
+Nobody wants her services, and she comes to know that the grumbling of
+an ill-tempered husband is no harder to endure than the howl of the
+wolf outside of her door.
+
+Perhaps the best advice that one can offer these unhappy wives is to
+try to forget what they expected of marriage, and to just put it on
+a business basis, so much for so much, with a settled determination
+to make the best of a bad bargain. Their little flier in Heart’s
+Consolidated hasn’t paid the dividends they expected it to. Well, our
+speculations seldom do. Their matrimonial partners have proved hard to
+get along with. Well, many business men endure cranky men partners, who
+rasp their nerves, for the sake of the good of the firm.
+
+And on the credit side of the ledger the unhappy wife can set this
+down, that she has, at least, her home, and her settled position in
+society, and they are great gain. It takes years and years of struggle
+and striving for the lone woman to reach the goal where she can have
+her own house, and gather about her the household gods that women
+worship, and that bless one by their presence.
+
+I am not arguing that a woman would consider a house, no matter if it
+were a palace, a satisfactory substitute for a tender, loving husband,
+but I am trying to induce the woman who has an indifferent husband to
+realize that she is not half as badly off as she thinks she is, as long
+as she has her creature comforts.
+
+Fortunately, the law of compensation always holds. The man who is a
+poor husband is often a good provider. Flirtatious husbands often atone
+for their sidesteppings with diamonds and furs. Stingy ones leave women
+rich widows. Even grouches leave their wives free to amuse themselves
+in their own way. After all, life is a series of compromises. If we
+don’t get the best, we are very foolish to throw away the second
+best and the wise woman who finds marriage a failure doesn’t go into
+physical and spiritual bankruptcy. She gets the best out of what she
+has. She makes the most of her bargain.
+
+All of which just boils down into this: Dry your eyes on your best
+embroidered towels, O ye disgruntled sisters, and realize that you are
+not so unfortunate as you think you are, and what you are called upon
+to bear is just life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+JEALOUSY
+
+
+A woman wants to know if there is any cure for jealousy. She says that
+she knows her husband loves her devotedly. He is true and faithful to
+her. He is as domesticated as the house cat and casts no roving eye
+at the pretty flappers. Nevertheless, every time he speaks to another
+woman she endures grinding torments of suspicion.
+
+There is only one cure for jealousy. That is to use a little common
+sense, but this puts the remedy out of the reach of the green-eyed,
+because jealousy is a form of insanity.
+
+It is a lack of mental balance that makes people imagine things that
+do not exist, that causes them to see deep, dark plots in the most
+innocent acts and that makes them deliberately torture themselves by
+believing that the ones that they love most are traitors to them. Also,
+it is what the alienists call “the exaggerated ego” that makes any man
+or woman believe that he or she can supply another individual’s whole
+need of human companionship.
+
+For jealousy isn’t confined solely to lovers. Some of the most acute
+attacks are the jealousy that men and women feel for their in-laws.
+Sometimes parents are even jealous of their own children. Wives are
+often jealous of their husband’s business, and always jealous of the
+old friends of their bachelor days. But however and wherever it is, and
+no matter how causeless and needless it may be, jealousy poisons the
+life and ruins the happiness of all of those who indulge in it. It is
+the source of endless quarrels between husbands and wives, and it slays
+love quicker than any other one thing. Indeed, the jealous bring down
+the curse they fear upon their own heads.
+
+By their suspicions the jealous materialize the very thing they most
+dread, for there is no surer way of driving a man or a woman into
+philandering than by keeping dangling continually before his or her
+eyes a romantic possibility in which he or she is likely to indulge
+at any moment. Many a married man would never think of himself as
+a lady-killer—in fact, he would consider that he was married and
+settled, and done with sentimental episodes, except that his wife
+keeps alive his belief in himself as a heart-smasher by her jealousy.
+If she considers him so fascinating that she is afraid to let him
+have a casual conversation with another woman, or take a turn around
+a ballroom floor with a pretty girl, he argues that he must be some
+sheik. And so he buys him some Klassy Kut Kollege Klothes and sets his
+hat on the side of his head and proceeds to justify her once groundless
+suspicions.
+
+Furthermore, jealousy is its own undoing, because it strikes a death
+blow at our personal liberty, which is dearer to us and more necessary
+to our happiness than any man or woman ever is. None of us likes to be
+called upon to furnish an alibi. None of us enjoys being put through a
+questionnaire about everything that was said to us and everything we
+said. None of us but resents not being free to go and come as we like
+within reasonable bounds and to hold ordinary social intercourse with
+any one we choose. So if husbands and wives went about deliberately
+to kill every particle of affection that their mates have for them,
+they could take no better way to do it than by spying upon them, by
+attributing unworthy motives to them, by curtailing their freedom and
+by making such jealous scenes that, for the sake of peace, they are
+forced to lie and deceive. Besides, jealousy is an unforgivable insult.
+
+There are women who have conniption fits every time their husbands make
+themselves agreeable to their dinner partners or take a chance-met
+old woman friend out to lunch. There are wives who never believe that
+their husbands can admire a beautiful woman or enjoy the society of
+a brilliant one innocently. They attribute the basest motives to the
+men they love and accuse them not only of being faithless, but of the
+grossest animalism, which was far and away from the thoughts of the
+poor gentlemen.
+
+Finally, jealousy is an indication of the inferiority complex. The
+woman who is jealous of all other women in her heart believes them all
+her superiors. She believes them better looking, more intelligent,
+more charming, with more attraction for her husband than she has. That
+is why she is so afraid of their getting him away from her. You can’t
+imagine a queen being jealous of a milkmaid or a Lillian Russell being
+jealous of an ugly duckling, or a star dancer not being willing to
+have her husband to tread a measure with some lump of a girl who would
+walk all over his feet. All of this being true, then, the way to cure
+jealousy is to apply common sense to the situation. Try to look at it
+fairly and squarely. In the first place, your husband or wife wouldn’t
+have married you if he or she hadn’t preferred you to every one else
+in the world. If you had charm before marriage you have it still, if
+you will take the trouble to use it. In the second place, you know that
+you enjoy talking to other people, and that your contact with them is
+perfectly harmless. Why not believe your husband or wife is as decent
+as you are? In the third place, why keep your husband or wife always
+fed up with the idea that he or she is a fascinator that no woman or
+man can resist? It makes them want to try and see if they can stand
+them up. And lastly, if you are married to a man or woman whom you
+believe to have so little truth and honor, and who cares so little for
+you that he or she can’t be trusted out of your sight, why worry about
+him or about her? He or she isn’t worth a single pang of jealousy.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+HAVE A GOAL
+
+
+The great trouble with the majority of women is that they have no
+plan of life, no real objective. They are the victims of fads. They
+wobble about from interest to interest. The thing they were crazy about
+yesterday they throw into the discard to-day. They waste their time,
+and energy, and ability in pursuing will-o’-the-wisps. Like the hero of
+the popular song, they are on their way, but they don’t know where they
+are going.
+
+This is why so many women fail, as is abundantly proved by the fact
+that when a woman does make up her mind about what she wants to do,
+when she has one settled ambition instead of a lot of vague desires,
+she is almost invariably successful. Let her once determine to tread a
+definite path and she not only arrives, but she arrives with bells on.
+
+Of course, the reason that women tackle the business of existence in
+this hit-or-miss fashion is not really their fault, poor dears. It is
+because of the idiotic way in which we bring up girls on the assumption
+that each one has a regiment of fairy godmothers and guardian angels
+looking after her and taking care of her, so that she doesn’t need
+to bother her pretty little head about learning how to take care of
+herself. So we don’t teach a girl, as we do a boy, that our lives are
+just what we make them, that we are the architects of our own fate, and
+that whether our lives are ugly, and botchy, and of little worth, or
+beautiful, and well-rounded, and valuable, depends upon our having some
+plan of life in our heads and working to it.
+
+We tell the boy that he who is jack-of-all-trades is good at none, and
+that if he wishes to be a carpenter, or a master plumber, or a bank
+president, or a surgeon, he must serve his apprenticeship in his chosen
+trade or profession and concentrate on the study of it if he means to
+succeed. He will never get anywhere as long as he goes from job to job
+and dabbles first at one thing and then at another. But we don’t teach
+girls that it is just as important for them to have some definite plan
+of life and prepare themselves to do some particular work as it is for
+their brothers. Most girls in these days have to earn their own living
+until they are married. But most of them do just as little work as they
+can get by with, and they do this little aimlessly.
+
+Here and there is a stenographer who works by a plan. She has set
+herself to become a highly paid private secretary. Here and there is a
+shop-girl who has her eye on a buyer’s job and trips to Europe. Here
+and there is a milliner or a dressmaker whose dream is of her own shop.
+Here and there is a boarding-house keeper whose ambition it is to run
+a hotel. Very seldom do these women fail to attain their desires. They
+know what they are trying to do and they make every lick of work count.
+They bend every energy to one end instead of wasting it on a hundred
+ineffectual endeavors. They put their backs, their hearts, their brains
+into their work and that combination invariably spells success.
+
+But the great majority of working women simply potter purposelessly
+along. They don’t expect to do what they are doing very long, and
+so they don’t take the trouble to try to learn how to do it well.
+They have no interest in their work, no ambition. They haven’t even
+bothered to pick out the thing to do for which they have a natural
+aptitude. They have taken up the occupation they follow just because
+they happened to do so. They don’t give a single lobe of their brain to
+studying it or trying to fit themselves to be competent. They take life
+as casually as that. Yet they may have to do this same work for thirty
+or forty years, for it is by no means certain that every girl will get
+a husband or that the husband will be able to support her if she does
+get him.
+
+Women do not even have any plan about following the great career of
+wifehood and motherhood to which they all look forward. Probably every
+girl who goes to the altar desires to be a good wife and mother. But
+she does not crystallize these vague intentions into any concrete
+plan of action. Not one woman in a thousand sits down in her bridal
+bungalow or apartment and works out a scheme for handling her husband
+without friction, for running her house economically and for making
+her marriage a success. On the contrary, she trusts it all to luck. If
+she is a good housekeeper, she feeds her husband well. If she doesn’t
+like to cook, she gives him dyspepsia by sitting him down to dinners
+of underdone meat and overdone bread and watery vegetables. If she
+is amiable and good-natured, she gets along with him. If she is high
+tempered, she rows with him. If she is thrifty, she saves his money and
+they prosper. If she is extravagant, she runs him into debt.
+
+It is because wives have no plan about what they do as wives that
+matrimony is such a gamble. And it is the same way about motherhood.
+There is no other thought in the world so terrible as that mothers
+bring up their children without any plan about what they are trying
+to make them. They are shaping an immortal soul, and they don’t even
+know what they are trying to make of it. That is the capital crime of
+aimlessness. Women will never succeed until they conquer this weakness
+and learn how to plan their lives. You cannot do anything effectively
+unless you know what you are trying to do.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE GOAT FAMILY
+
+
+Kind reader, meet my friends, the Goats. They are not rich, for, altho
+Mr. Goat has been an able and energetic business man all his life, and
+Mrs. Goat has been a thrifty housekeeper, they have never been able to
+get much ahead because they have always had such a horde of parasites
+to support. Ever since they had a home they have run a free hotel. They
+have literally been eaten out of house and home by self-invited guests,
+by forty-seventh cousins who always cashed in the blood relationship
+for board and lodging, and by old friends who suddenly remembered, when
+they happened to be in their town, how they loved the Goats and hated
+to pay for their own beds and meals.
+
+Any one of their many acquaintances who wished to take a vacation
+without expense, or have an operation performed, or go to the opera,
+or see the sights of the city, just wished himself or herself on the
+Goats, and arrived bag and baggage to camp in the spare bedroom. And
+that was all there was to it; a pleasant and economical arrangement so
+far as the guests were concerned. And if it was inconvenient to the
+Goats and they had to sleep around on cots and do without new clothes
+to pay for the food that the deadbeats gobbled up, why, nobody bothered
+about that. And the Goats never complained. They never made a move to
+chuck these grafters out, not even rich Cousin Susan, who could have
+bought the family up a hundred times over, when she came and stayed six
+months, wore Mother Goat to a frazzle waiting on her and ran them into
+debt because she couldn’t eat anything but the most expensive foods.
+No, they feel that it would be a stain on their escutcheon to assert
+themselves and look out for themselves a little, and so they lived up
+to the Goat coat-of-arms, which is a doormat couchant, with everybody
+trampling over it.
+
+By and by the eldest Miss Goat got married. Her husband proved to
+be a bumptious, egotistical, opinionated fellow, and when he was
+about the whole Goat family had to walk on eggs and suppress all
+their own opinions and tastes to avoid irritating him. Indeed, when
+their daughter married, the Goats acquired a new son, as the phrase
+goes, because every Sunday and on high days and holidays the young
+couple arrived to take dinner with papa and mamma. It was so sweet
+to be all together at such times, and it was also so economical and
+saved them the work and worry of getting their own dinner. Then the
+son Billy got married. Not being born a Goat, Billy’s wife had not
+the suffer-and-be-strong complex in her. On the contrary, she was a
+go-getter, and what she wanted she had to have. Therefore, Father Goat
+was often called on for money to help pay Mrs. Billy’s bills, which had
+to be met regardless of what sacrifice it entailed on the Goats at home.
+
+Mrs. Billy died, and, of course, Billy took his motherless children,
+one of them a tiny baby, back home for mother and sister to take care
+of. They did it for a few years, until Billy married again, altho it
+reduced poor, worn-out mother to a physical wreck. The family didn’t
+approve of Billy’s choice of a second wife, but, with the Goat faculty
+for swallowing anything, they accepted her and felt that at least
+one burden would be removed from them and that Billy would take his
+children and set up his own home.
+
+It appears, however, that the second wife refuses to be bothered with
+stepchildren, and so Billy has brought his brood back for mother and
+sister to rear and support. It takes all the money he can make to
+provide for his wife and her relatives whom she has saddled upon him.
+
+Mother Goat says that no sacrifice is too great to make for her
+darling son, nor does she hesitate to offer up as a burnt offering
+her unmarried daughter, Nanny Goat, who labors in an office all day
+to make the money to help maintain the family, and who comes home at
+night and does most of the housework.
+
+But Nanny is beginning to show un-Goatlike traits. She doesn’t see why
+she should work to feed a lot of bum company who sponge on them instead
+of paying their own board somewhere. She doesn’t see why she should
+spend her Sundays and holidays, cooking dinners for sister and brother
+and the in-laws when they might just as well eat at home or go to a
+restaurant. And she doesn’t see what right brother has to foist the
+care of his children and their support on his old parents and his young
+sister.
+
+“I am spending my life slaving for other people and bearing other
+people’s burdens,” wails poor little Nanny Goat. “I earn a good salary,
+but I can never have any pretty clothes or indulge myself in any of the
+amusements I crave, because all my money is spent on people who just
+make a convenience of us, and who think more of being invited somewhere
+else to tea than they do of living on us without cost for a month. All
+my youth, when I ought to have the pleasures of the young, is being
+given to trying to raise my brother’s children, and do for them the
+things that he himself is too weak and pusillanimous to do. And I am
+sick and tired of it. I am tired of supporting grafters that are more
+able to work than I am. I am sick of being bled white by blood-suckers.
+I am sore at having to do other people’s duty for them, and I want to
+know how I can get out of being a perpetual Goat as long as I live.”
+
+Alas! poor little Nanny, it is easier for the leopard to change its
+spots than it is for one who was born a Goat to cease being one. Still,
+the thing can be done, if you have nerve enough to butt your way to
+freedom. Shut the door in the face of the deadbeat visitors. Make your
+brother act the part of a man and assume his own responsibilities. And
+you will find that you have gained not only relief but that you have
+gone up a hundred per cent in every one’s esteem.
+
+For while we all make use of the Goat family, we hold them in contempt
+because they let us make goats of them.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+SPOILING A WIFE
+
+
+A man asks: “Can a husband be too good to his wife?” Yes. A husband
+can be too good to his wife. So can a wife be too good to her husband.
+Husbands and wives are just as easily spoiled as babies are, and
+they react to spoiling exactly the same way that babies do. They
+become peevish, and fretful, and unreasonable. They howl for the
+moon. The more they are given in to, the more they demand and the
+more unrelenting their tyranny becomes. They smash things in sheer
+wantonness, and they need nothing on earth so much as to be turned
+across somebody’s knee and given a good spanking, and made to behave
+themselves.
+
+All of us know plenty of men and women, with many fine and noble
+qualities, who would have made splendid husbands and wives if they had
+not been badly spoiled by their overindulgent wives and husbands. But
+instead of being disciplined, and forced to control themselves, and
+made to act like reasonable human beings, they had their weaknesses
+indulged, their selfishness encouraged, their exactions given in
+to, until they became a curse to themselves and to those who had the
+misfortune to be married to them.
+
+Of course, when my correspondent speaks of a man being “good” to his
+wife, he means it in the sense of being indulgent to her. No man can
+be too good to his wife in the way of being kind, and tender, and
+sympathetic, and just, and fair to her. But he is not good to her—in
+fact, he does her a cruel wrong—when he is overly indulgent to her. He
+ruins her life no less than his own because the spoiled wife is never
+happy. She is always discontented, restless, dissatisfied, wanting
+something she hasn’t got and that is just beyond her reach. She thinks
+only of herself, and her pleasures, and the self-centered can always
+find flaws in their lot. The only contented wives are those who are
+doing their part toward making their marriage a success. The grafting
+wives are always whiny, and complaining, and disgruntled.
+
+A man, for instance, is too good to his wife when he lets her lie down
+on her end of the matrimonial partnership. His part of the contract
+is to work and make the money to support a home. Her part is to make
+a comfortable home. There are many women who refuse to do this, and
+who force their husbands to live around in boarding houses and hotels.
+There are many more women who are so lazy and shiftless that they keep
+their houses as dirty as pigstys, and never give their husbands a meal
+that isn’t a first-aid to the undertaker. There are men who have to get
+up and get their own breakfasts before they start to business, while
+their good-for-nothing wives slumber and sleep. There are men who have
+to come home after a hard day’s work and help get the dinner, and wash
+the dishes, and bathe the baby, and sweep the floors, and do all the
+housework that their trifling wives have left undone.
+
+Nothing but being a bedridden invalid excuses a woman for not doing her
+share of the work and for not feeding her family on properly cooked
+food, and any man is very silly who puts up with slack housekeeping
+from an able-bodied wife. She would get busy quickly enough with the
+broom and the cookbook if she knew she would lose her job unless she
+made her man comfortable.
+
+A man is too good to his wife—or too bad to her—when he lets her ruin
+him with her extravagance. There are men of ability, men who are
+industrious, men who are filled with ambition and who were on the high
+road to success when they married. But they got spenders and wasters
+for wives, and thereafter their lives became just a frantic struggle
+to keep even with the bill collector. Strive as they would, they could
+never get ahead. They had to let every opportunity pass them because
+they never had a cent to put into any enterprise. Every dollar had
+gone to pay for the wife’s clothes, and entertaining, and trying to
+keep up with people better off than they.
+
+The man who never says “No” to his wife’s ceaseless demands on his
+pocketbook may think that he is being good to her, but in reality
+he could do her no worse turn. For you can no more satisfy a greedy
+woman than you can a greedy child. Such women are the daughters of the
+Scriptural horse leech, forever crying: “More, more, more!” And in the
+end, when the crash comes, the extravagant wife is crushed under the
+ruin she has brought upon her household.
+
+A man is too good to his wife when he makes all of the sacrifices and
+she monopolizes all of the privileges. There are households in which
+the husband has no rights or consideration whatever. He goes shabby,
+while wife is arrayed like Solomon in all his glory. He walks, while
+wife rides around in a limousine. He stays at home, while wife goes
+forth to summer and winter resorts. His tastes, his comfort, his
+pleasure are never considered. He cultivates selfishness in his wife
+by never demanding a square deal from her and by never making her give
+as well as take. And his reward is his wife’s contempt, for no woman
+respects a man upon whom she can wipe her feet.
+
+Oh, yes, a man can easily be too good to his wife. The really good
+husbands are not those who make spoiled babies of their wives, but
+those who encourage their wives to develop into self-controlled,
+helpful, useful women.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE ABSENCE CURE FOR FAMILY ILLS
+
+
+One of the most pathetic things on earth is the unnecessary unhappiness
+we endure. The big, heartbreaking tragedies no one may escape. The loss
+of those we love. Frustrated hopes. Disappointments. Despair. These are
+the inevitable portion of humanity, and there is dignity in meeting
+them with courage.
+
+But to have your life poisoned by the sting of a gnat; to be done
+to death by pin pricks, to be robbed of your happiness by petty
+aggravations, that is a different matter, and one rages alike against
+the futility of it, and the ignominy of it. And, curiously enough, we
+neither endure with fortitude these little, petty ills that spoil the
+peace of our days, nor do we try to seek a remedy for them.
+
+Take family troubles, for example, which are responsible for more real,
+heartbreaking, never-ending misery than anything else in the world. A
+man and a woman drawn together by some fleeting physical attraction get
+married. When that is over, they find that they have not one thing on
+earth in common. Their tastes differ on everything from politics to
+pie. Their every idea and opinion is antagonistic. They do not think
+the same thoughts, or speak the same language. They may be people of
+the highest integrity, models of all the virtues. They may try to do
+their duty nobly and with self-sacrifice. But their home is a dark and
+bloody battleground where they fight over every topic like dogs over a
+bone, and they make life a hell on earth for each other.
+
+Sometimes parents and children cannot get along together. Sometimes
+a nice, domestic old hen hatches out a swan. Sometimes a swan finds
+that nature has bestowed an ugly duckling upon her, and great is the
+clacking, and the clucking, and the feather-picking around the barnyard.
+
+Often brothers and sisters cannot agree. They clash on every subject
+under the sun. They express their opinions of each other with the
+brutal candor of near relationship, and leave each other sullen and
+sore with resentment. They never sit down to a meal without being
+verbally armed to the teeth, and the maimed survivors feel as if they
+had been through the battle of the Marne. Sometimes there is just one
+particular member of a family who is a perpetual storm center, and who
+has but to blow in at the door to shatter the peace and harmony of the
+household.
+
+Being obliged to live with disagreeable and antagonistic people is the
+greatest affliction that can possibly befall us. Nothing compensates
+for it. Not tho we dwell in a palace, with every meal a banquet, and
+have everything that money can buy us. Better it is to dwell on a
+housetop, or in a lodging house, and eat at a quick lunch place, and
+have peace, than abide in splendor with those who irritate the very
+soul out of us.
+
+Nor are we consoled by the fact that the very people who are so
+impossible to live with love us well enough to die for us.
+
+We know well enough that it is mother’s affection for us, and her
+anxiety about us, that makes her nag us incessantly, and hand out
+advice to us until we are ready to scream. In their philosophical
+moments men and women realize that even their in-laws knock them for
+their own good.
+
+But it is the result, and not the theory, with which we are concerned,
+and as you listen to the wail of those who cry out against uncongenial
+marriages, and the moans of anguish of the in-laws who dwell under
+the same roof, and listen to the sounds of fratricidal strife, when
+everybody could be so happy if they didn’t have to live with each
+other, you wonder that so few people have the wisdom and the courage to
+apply the one sure cure for their misery. That is to separate. Apart
+they would be happy. They would even love each other. They would get a
+perspective on each other’s good qualities. But living together they
+merely get on each other’s nerves, and hate each other.
+
+The old idea that blood is thicker than water, and that just
+because you happen to be born in a certain relationship to a group
+of individuals makes you automatically love them, and desire their
+society, hasn’t a word of truth in it. It is not even true in the
+relationship between parents and children.
+
+As long as their children are young and helpless, most mothers have
+an animal fondness for them. But when they are older, it very often
+happens that a mother cannot get along in peace with her children. She
+does not understand them. She has nothing in common with them, and she
+is glad enough when they are grown and leave home.
+
+No theory has been more mischievous than the old convention that people
+who were of the same family had to keep on living together, no matter
+how much they rubbed each other the wrong way, nor how unpleasant this
+enforced companionship was. There is no sense in doing it. No rhyme
+nor reason for it. Because Aunt Jane is Aunt Jane is no reason why you
+should take her into your home and be bored the balance of your life
+by her reminiscences, nor is there any reason why you should have your
+temper continually rasped by antagonistic sisters and brothers when
+there are plenty of agreeable strangers in the world.
+
+Try the absence cure on your domestic troubles. Get up and leave an
+unpleasant home. You have no idea how much better you will love a lot
+of your relatives when you put about a thousand miles between you and
+them.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE DEADLY RIVAL
+
+
+It would be interesting to know how many estranged husbands and wives
+began drifting apart with the advent of the first baby. Children
+are popularly supposed to be the tie that binds a man and woman
+indissolubly together in body and spirit in marriage. Often this is
+true, and in their love and hopes and ambitions for their children
+a husband and wife literally do become “two souls with but a single
+thought, two hearts that beat as one.” Also very often for the sake of
+their children men and women endure a marriage that they have come to
+loathe and hate, and are bound together like prisoners whose balls and
+chains clank at every movement they make.
+
+Unhappily, children’s hands do not always draw husbands and wives
+closer together. They just as often push them apart, and when this
+happens it is oftener the woman’s fault than the man’s. Few men prefer
+their children above their wives, but for the great majority of women
+their husbands exist only as their children’s father and as purveyors
+to their children.
+
+The first baby definitely and for all time puts the husband’s nose out
+of joint. Up to that time, husband has been king of the domestic realm.
+His wife has put on her prettiest clothes and adorned herself for him.
+She has been chum and playmate. She has exerted herself to amuse and
+entertain him. She has looked out for his comfort, has seen that he
+had the best of everything, and he has reveled in the bliss of having
+the center of the stage and the spotlight turned always upon him. Then
+arrives the baby, and from having been the worshiped head of the house,
+husband finds that he is nothing, with no one so poor as to do him
+reverence.
+
+Wife no longer cares what sort of a figure she cuts in his eyes, or
+whether he admires her or not. She looks sloppy around the house
+because the baby pulls at her clothes and musses her chiffons. When
+husband wants to go out at night she refuses because she can’t leave
+the baby, and if he drags her along anyway, she interrupts the most
+thrilling part of a play to ask him if he thinks the nurse has
+forgotten to give the baby his bottle.
+
+There are no more chatty evenings at home, because she is off
+worshiping before the baby’s shrine. She quits reading anything but
+baby books, and her conversation gets to be about as stimulating as
+sterilized milk. She is too busy with the baby to show her husband any
+of the little attentions that men so love, or to see even that he has
+the things he likes to eat.
+
+There are thousands of homes which are run exclusively for the
+children. There is never any food on the table except just the simple
+things that children can eat. There is never any conversation except
+about the children. The wife never manifests the slightest interest in
+her husband, or shows him any affection. All of the tenderness, the
+caresses, the sympathy and understanding is lavished on the children.
+It is the children’s likes and dislikes and prejudices that are
+remembered and catered to.
+
+There are many wives who begrudge every cent that a husband spends on
+himself because they want the money to throw away on the children. They
+will nag their husbands into giving up smoking so that they can buy the
+baby a real lace cap. There are wives who literally work their husbands
+to death that their daughters may go off to finishing schools, and
+their boys have the latest model sports automobile.
+
+Now the average man loves his children, but he has not this crazy,
+obsessing passion for them that their mother has. When the first
+baby comes he is proud of it and fond of it, and he wants it to have
+every proper care and attention, but he doesn’t want to spend hours
+sitting by its crib, gloating over it and marveling at how naturally it
+breathes. He wants to go about the ordinary affairs of life as he did
+before the baby was born, and he wants his wife’s companionship.
+
+But she will seldom go with him, and when she does, she is no fun
+because she doesn’t enter into the spirit of anything. She has left
+her whole interest in life behind in the nursery. Nor is she an
+entertaining companion at home any more. And it gets on his nerves
+being told to “sh-h-h-h-sh” every time he shuts the door, for fear he
+will wake the baby.
+
+He even discovers that his wife is relieved when he goes out without
+her, and leaves her undisturbed to her infant adoration. And so the
+rift is first made between them. Each starts on a life in which the
+other has no part, and that takes them farther away from each other as
+the years go by.
+
+If the true co-respondent were ever named in many a divorce case, it
+would be the first baby. There are always plenty of women a man can
+find who will play with him while his wife is busy in the nursery; who
+will listen to him and flatter him, while his wife is telling the baby
+he is the most boofulest thing in the world. While mama is holding
+the baby’s hand, some vamp is generally holding papa’s. It is a great
+thing to be a good mother, but it is equally as great a thing to be a
+good wife. And it is a bad thing to do either one at the expense of the
+other. Often children are better off for a little wholesome neglect,
+but a husband never is.
+
+Remember that, ladies, and don’t make your baby your husband’s deadly
+rival.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+LEARN A TRADE, GIRLS
+
+
+These few lines are addressed to the thousands of girls who have
+finished school and who are now standing, as the poet puts it, “where
+the brook and river meet” wondering “where do we go from here?”
+
+I want to urge you, girls, with all the earnestness of which I am
+capable, to psychoanalyze yourselves and try to find out what talents
+and aptitudes nature bestowed upon you, and then to go to some school
+where you can develop your gift and fit yourself to be self-supporting.
+
+I give this advice to the rich girl no less than to the poor girl, for
+in these days of shifting fortunes we have the new poor as well as the
+new rich, and no woman knows how soon she may be called upon to earn
+her own bread and butter or starve. If she has been taught how to do
+this, losing her money is merely an inconvenience to her; but if she
+does not know how to earn a dollar, it is a tragedy.
+
+No women in the world are so pitiful as those who have, as the saying
+goes, “seen better days” and, with their money gone, are suddenly
+flung out into the world to make their own living, with no trade, no
+profession, no skill in any line, no knowledge of how to make a penny.
+They can only eke out an existence by doing the most ill-paid work, or
+else they become parasites, or are forced by hunger, and shabbiness,
+and need into the sad sisterhood of the streets.
+
+Don’t risk such a fate befalling you. Prepare yourself in time against
+it. Have that within yourself which will not be affected by the fall
+in stocks or the depreciation of real estate. Many things may rob you
+of your fortune, but you cannot lose your trained brain and skilful
+hand. They will be a resource that you can always fall back upon in any
+emergency.
+
+Of course I know, when I urge you girls to fit yourselves to learn some
+gainful occupation by which you can support yourselves, that you smile
+and say to yourselves that you do not expect to earn your own living
+long. You are going to marry and follow woman’s oldest profession, that
+of wife and mother. That is as may be. In the past the great majority
+of women have been able to count, with a fair degree of safety, on
+being able to marry, but it is by no means a foregone conclusion that
+the girl of to-day will get a husband.
+
+There has been a most decided decline and falloff in matrimony and home
+life, and it is foolish for girls to think that they have the same
+chance of marrying that their mothers and grandmothers had. Now, for
+the girl who is sitting around and waiting for some man to come along
+and marry her, it is a catastrophe to be passed by. She becomes the
+sour and disgruntled old maid, eating the bitter bread of dependence,
+the fringe on some family that doesn’t want her. Or else she has to
+take any sort of a poor stick of a man as a prop to lean upon.
+
+Far different is it with the girl who has fitted herself for some
+definite work and is competently doing it. She has a profession in
+which she is vitally interested. She has an occupation which fills her
+time. She makes enough money to indulge herself in the luxuries that
+women love, and so marriage becomes to her merely an incident of life,
+not the whole thing. If the right man comes along, well and good. If
+not, also well and good. She has her pleasant, independent, interesting
+life as a girl bachelor. The world to her is full of such a number of
+things besides wedding rings.
+
+Furthermore, girls, even if you do marry, you may still need to keep on
+being a bread-winner instead of becoming a breadmaker. The high cost
+of living has to be reckoned with, and not every man under present
+economic conditions is able to support a family alone and unaided. In
+the past the good wife helped her husband by doing the housework, and
+turning, and mending, and pinching the pennies. In the future the good
+wife will doubtless help her husband by keeping on with her well-paid
+job and assisting in making the money to give her family the living
+conditions, and her children the education that the man alone could not
+afford to give them. So, except among the rich, marriage is going to
+mean a retirement from business no more for women than it is for men.
+
+Another reason why I urge you, girls, to learn some gainful occupation
+and perfect yourself in it is because it will do more than any other
+one thing to make you happy. It will keep you from being bored, and
+boredom is at the root of all fretful discontent. People who are busy,
+who have a definite object in view and are striving to attain it,
+find the day all too short, are always content and cheerful. And talk
+about thrills! You never really know one until you hold your first
+pay envelope in your hand and it surges over you that the money in it
+represents your own work that was good enough for somebody to pay for.
+
+Being able to make your own living sets you free. Economic independence
+is the only independence in the world. As long as you must look to
+another for your food and clothes you are a slave to that person. You
+must obey him. You must defer to him. You must bend your will to his.
+
+But when you can stand on your own feet you can snap your fingers in
+the face of the world and tell it where it gets off. You do not have
+to endure tyrannical parents. You do not have to put up with a cruel
+husband. You can support yourself, and you are free.
+
+So I urge you, girls, never to rest until you have fitted yourselves
+to earn your own bread, and butter, and cake. And remember, the better
+your work the more you earn. It is efficiency that pulls down the big
+pay envelope.
+
+It doesn’t make a bit of difference what you do, my dear. It is the
+way you do it that counts. You can make a success or a failure of
+any occupation under the sun. The fat pay envelope is the reward of
+superexcellent work. It isn’t the perquisite of any particular trade or
+profession.
+
+We do best those things that we enjoy doing, and so I urge you to
+sit down quietly and study yourself and try to find out what nature
+intended you to be.
+
+Probably you have no very decided talent, no cosmic urge that makes you
+feel that you must paint, or sing, or dance, or cook, or keep books, or
+else life will be dust and ashes in your mouth.
+
+But you are sure to find that there is something that you like to do
+better than other things. It may be trimming hats. It may be messing
+around the kitchen. It may be that you are quick at figures and can
+always remember dates. It may be that you write a good hand, or always
+got a hundred in spelling at school.
+
+There is always some one thing for which you have a turn, as the phrase
+goes, and that points the road for you to follow.
+
+If you have no mechanical skill, don’t do anything that requires
+deftness of the hands. If you can’t spell, don’t waste any time trying
+to be a stenographer. If you cannot add up a column of figures three
+times without getting four different results, pass up bookkeeping. You
+will never make a success of anything for which you have no aptitude.
+You will always hate it and be bored by it.
+
+The successful people are those who love their work so well that it
+is a sheer joy to do it; who never count the labor that they put into
+it, and who are so interested in it that it is perpetually in their
+thoughts.
+
+Therefore choose the thing that you like to do and get fun out of
+doing, and don’t just blunder into taking the first job that presents
+itself or make the mistake of taking up some profession to which you
+are not called because some other girls are doing so or because it
+seems to you romantic or elegant.
+
+Of course, in these days of the emancipation of women, every road is
+as free for a girl to follow as it is to a boy, but you will find that
+those women make the greatest successes who stick to purely feminine
+lines. There is just as much need for woman’s work in the world as
+there is for man’s, and when it is equally well done it is equally well
+paid. In some occupations it is a little better paid because there are
+fewer women experts than there are men.
+
+There are very few women who have risen from the ranks to become
+presidents of banks, or trust magnates, or big manufacturers; but every
+community has in it women who have made tidy fortunes as dressmakers,
+or milliners, or boarding-house keepers.
+
+Teaching, nursing, cooking, sewing; home-making in all its
+ramifications and branches; buying and selling pretty things; the
+building and furnishing of houses; the healing of the sick, all of
+these are strictly within the feminine province, and you will not make
+a mistake if you choose whichever one of these occupations appeals to
+your fancy. Women have been unconsciously trained along these lines for
+centuries and have for them an inherited aptitude. It takes the average
+man years of profound study to acquire the sense of color that a girl
+baby is born with. And any dub of a woman can give an architect points
+on lights, and kitchen sinks, and the heights of shelves and about
+closets. So stick to your last and capitalize your feminine intuitions
+instead of trying to invade masculine fields. Even women writers and
+women artists are more successful when their work is most womanly.
+And great actresses will be remembered for the feminine rôles they
+portrayed, not for the masculine parts they essayed and in which they
+were grotesque failures.
+
+Having selected your occupation, perfect yourself in it. Master its
+technique. Don’t be satisfied to be an also-ran. Make of yourself a
+blue-ribbon winner. You will have to work longer hours and harder doing
+ill-paid work than you will doing highly paid work. The difference
+between a $15 cook and a $10,000 chef is just a matter of skill. One
+woman gets $5 for a hat, another $50. It is just the touch to a bow or
+ribbon or a twist to a bit of velvet that does it. Whether you get a
+thin pay envelope or a thick one as a stenographer, or bookkeeper, or
+clerk, depends upon how expert you are. So make up your mind that you
+are not going to work for a pittance, and go after the big salary by
+making yourself worth it. Employers are just pining to pay the price of
+good work.
+
+Then tackle your job as if you meant to make a life-work of it.
+Don’t look upon it as a bridge of sighs that you have to travel over
+with reluctant feet from the schoolroom to the altar. Think of it as
+something you are going to do as long as you live; something that is
+going to be your friend, and comforter, and stay, and to which you will
+give the best that is in you. That won’t keep you from marrying if the
+right man comes along, and it will be a powerful stay if no man comes.
+Not many girls do this. They regard their work as only a makeshift
+until they can marry, and so they never take the trouble to learn how
+to do it properly. That is why they fail, and why they are ill-paid.
+Don’t be one of them. Choose a congenial occupation and put your heart
+and your back into it, and your success will be assured.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+TRIAL DIVORCE
+
+
+I believe the one thing that would do more than anything else to stop
+the utter wrecking of homes and the half-orphaning of children, in the
+case of unhappy marriages, would be the institution of trial divorce
+and the refusal of the courts to make any divorce decree absolute under
+two years. For so many husbands and wives think they have ceased to
+love each other, when they are only too much fed up with each other’s
+society. So many persons think they long for freedom, when they only
+need a rest. So many persons think divorce a panacea for every ill, who
+find out, when they try it, that the remedy is worse than the disease.
+
+The great majority of men and women are romantically in love when they
+get married, and they expect to live ever afterward in a state of
+storybook bliss. Then comes the inevitable disillusionment, when they
+find out that they have married ordinary human beings instead of angels
+and motion-picture heroes. Comes the clash of personalities. The fight
+of the selfish to get the best for one’s self. The rebellion at the
+sacrifices that matrimony demands.
+
+The woman begins to nag. The man gets grouchy and surly. Each magnifies
+every fault of the other. Resentment and disappointment blot out every
+memory of love and tenderness, of goodness and nobility. They come to
+the point where they feel that they cannot stand each other a minute
+longer and rush off to the divorce courts.
+
+But the ink is hardly dry on their decrees before they begin to view
+each other in a kindlier light. The man, living in his club or at
+a boarding house, wandering from restaurant to restaurant, hating
+the cooking and getting his digestion upset, begins to think of his
+ex-wife’s good points. How true and loyal and devoted she was! What a
+good cook and housekeeper! And he wonders that he didn’t have enough
+sense of humor to laugh at her nagging instead of letting it get on his
+nerves.
+
+The woman, trying to make a home for herself with less money than she
+is accustomed to, bewildered and terrified at having to face life for
+herself, with no man to depend on, begins to recall her husband’s
+virtues instead of his faults, and to reflect that it is better to have
+even a husband who is short on compliments, and shy on attentions, and
+long on knocks, than to have no husband at all.
+
+And in their secret souls both are conscience-stricken when they look
+at their children and see them lacking a mother’s or a father’s care
+and a real home. So there are thousands of couples who are merely
+disgruntled with each other who would come together again if a trial
+divorce gave them time in which the galled spots that the matrimonial
+yoke has made on their necks could heal and they could find out that
+they hadn’t got such bad teammates, after all.
+
+The trial divorce would do much to solve even those cases in which
+husbands and wives think that they have fallen out of love with their
+lawful mates and have found their affinities in others. Nine times out
+of ten the reason that men and women lose their affection for their
+husbands and wives is just because they are bored with them. They have
+had an overdose of them. They have seen them too long and at too close
+range.
+
+Every woman knows that when she starts off on her summer vacation she
+sees her husband as just a hump-shouldered, fat, bald-headed man, who
+is slouchy about dressing; but after she has been away a week she
+begins to remember what a classical nose he has. In a fortnight she
+thinks how handsome and distinguished-looking he is, and by the end of
+the month he is a perfect Valentino to her. The man has just the same
+reactions about his wife. She goes away fat and frumpy and middle-aged,
+and she returns merely plump and more attractive than any flapper to
+him.
+
+Many men and women who think they are permanently tired of their
+husbands and wives are only temporarily weary of looking at the
+same face and listening to the same line of conversation across the
+breakfast table, and if a trial divorce gave them a second choice they
+would find that they preferred the old love to the new.
+
+For the lure of the “other woman” and the “other man” is chiefly that
+they are unattainable and unknown, and these charms vanish before the
+trial divorce that makes them possible and familiar. It gives the
+foolish, infatuated husband and wife a chance really to compare the
+long-haired poet or the short-haired flapper with the partners they had
+and are about to lose.
+
+Give a man time to forget his wife’s nagging, and his peaches-and-cream
+complexioned secretary will not look as good a risk, after all, to him
+as his faithful old wife. Give a woman time to forget the mean things
+her husband said to her when they quarreled, and she will think a long
+time before she exchanges her good provider for some impecunious glib
+love-maker.
+
+The truth is, that few men and women find in divorce the solution of
+their woes that they expected. They picture it as a state of bliss in
+which they will be free of all woes and cares, an earthly paradise in
+which there will be no fretting wives or fault-finding husbands, and in
+which they will be able to do exactly as they please. But they find
+its golden apples Dead Sea fruit that turns to ashes on their lips. The
+man who has resented his wife’s tyranny and writhed under her curtain
+lectures, strangely finds out that he wants to go home, when he has no
+home to which to go, and nobody to care whether he ever comes back or
+not.
+
+The woman who has thought she would be happy if she no longer had to
+live with a neglectful husband, finds that the world also neglects her
+and that her freedom has merely brought her the freedom of earning her
+own living. And when this hard and bitter knowledge soaks into the
+consciousness of men and women many of them would be glad enough to go
+back again to their old husbands and wives if they could.
+
+So, when we unscramble our scrambled marriage laws, let’s put the trial
+divorce into them.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+MARRY THE MAN YOU LOVE
+
+
+A young woman wants to know whether it is better to marry the man she
+loves, or the man who loves her. Both, I should say. Marriage should be
+a mutual benefit association in which both parties give and receive;
+in which they love and are loved in equal measure. Cupid, however, is
+no dispenser of justice. He rarely holds the scales even. Very few
+husbands and wives feel the same amount of affection for each other. In
+almost every married couple one kisses and the other submits to being
+kissed, as the French proverb cynically puts it.
+
+This being the case, it is better for the woman to be the kisser than
+the kissee, because, while it is misfortune to a woman never to be
+loved, it is a tragedy to her never to love.
+
+Of course, every woman desires to be worshiped by some man, and she
+dreams of having a husband who will be a perpetual lover and spend his
+life laying tributes at her feet. She feels that she would be perfectly
+happy doing the goddess-on-a-pedestal act, and occasionally deigning
+to bestow a kind word on her adorer, as one throws a bone to a dog.
+Obsessed by this romantic vision, which flatters her vanity, many a
+woman is beguiled into marrying a man for whom she has only a mild
+liking because he is so crazy about her. She thinks that he can supply
+enough love for two, and that she will be happy and satisfied with just
+being loved.
+
+It does not take her long to find out that she has made a sad mistake,
+and that there is nothing with which we can get so easily satiated as
+we can with the affection we do not return. We have no appetite for it
+and it is tasteless in our mouths. Nor are there any greater bores than
+those who love us, who cling to us, who want to be always with us, but
+whom we do not love and of whom we get tired to death.
+
+All of us know doormat husbands whose wives ruthlessly trample them
+under foot. We all know peevish, disgruntled, discontented wives, whose
+husbands slave to give them luxuries for which they never get so much
+as—“Thank you.” We have all held up our hands in horror when some wife
+left a good, devoted husband and eloped with another man or packed her
+trunk and hiked out for Hollywood, and we wondered what was the matter
+with these women that they were not satisfied with their husband’s love.
+
+The trouble with them was that they had married men who loved them
+instead of men they loved. If they had been doing the love-making and
+trying to hold the affections of husbands whom they suspected every
+flapper of trying to steal from them, they would have been too busy,
+too thrilled and interested to get into mischief.
+
+There are many reasons why a woman who is contemplating matrimony
+should lay greater stress upon the state of her own affections than
+she does upon the man’s. The principal one, of course, is because a
+woman is ten times as much married to her husband as he is to her, and
+therefore it is ten times more important that she should be pleased
+with her bargain than it is that he should be satisfied with his.
+
+A married man has a million interests, and distractions, and
+amusements, and compensations outside of his home, and if his wife does
+not turn out to be all that his fondest fancy painted her, he has his
+business to fall back upon, his ambition and his career to console him.
+He is never wholly dependent on his wife for his happiness. But a woman
+stakes her all on her matrimonial gamble, and if she does not love her
+husband, if she does not find happiness in her home, she has nothing.
+
+A woman’s emotions make her life. What she feels is of more interest
+to her than what she does. She cannot substitute liking for loving any
+more than she can water for wine. And no matter how much she admires
+the man to whom she is married, no matter how grateful she is to him
+for his kindness to her, unless he can raise a thrill in her breast
+everything is cinders, ashes and dust to her.
+
+She feels that she has missed the best thing in life, the thing she
+most wanted; and she is restless and dissatisfied, and is forever on a
+still hunt to find her real soul-mate.
+
+To the average woman, marriage is a state of perpetual sacrifice. She
+must go through the agony of bearing children, and the long, weary
+years of ceaseless care and anxiety in rearing them. She must work
+harder than any hireling at the dull and monotonous task of cooking and
+cleaning and scrubbing and sewing and mending that it takes to make a
+comfortable home. And the only thing on earth that can make all of this
+worth while is love for her husband. That sets a star in her sky. That
+gilds the humblest task. The woman who stands over a stove cooking a
+dinner for the husband to whom she is utterly indifferent is a slave
+driven to her appointed task by her sense of duty. The woman who stands
+over a stove cooking dinner for a husband she adores is a priestess
+making a burnt offering of herself on the altar of her god.
+
+The woman who marries the man she loves is never bored, and boredom is
+the particular curse of the feminine sex. She throws herself heart and
+soul into her husband’s interests, and is more eager for his success
+than he is himself. She is never dull, because the smallest thing that
+concerns him is of more import to her than the events that shake the
+great outer world. She can find food for thought and scope for her
+activities in the fact that her husband likes onions with his beefsteak
+or prefers mushrooms. Her days are filled with pleasurable excitement
+in preparing for his homecoming of an evening, and when she hears his
+key in the latch her heart strikes up “Hail to the King.”
+
+The woman who marries the man she loves is never dissatisfied, never
+disgruntled. He may be a poor thing, but he is her own, the one she cut
+out of the bunch and which she marked with her own brand. Having got
+the one thing she wanted most, she can well afford to pity her poor
+sisters who have only limousines and pearls and the merely tolerated
+husbands who are the purveyors thereof. A woman should always marry
+a man with whom she is very much in love, because it insures her a
+stimulating and interesting life. The reason that most women run down
+and get slack and slouchy is because they are bored to tears with
+domesticity. They do not care for their husbands and so they take no
+trouble to please them.
+
+But the woman who is in love with her husband, who married the man she
+wanted, is on her tiptoes all of the time. She means to keep him and
+she takes no chances on disillusioning him with curl papers, and cold
+cream, and bad cooking, and tantrums. She is eternally in pursuit; and
+while there may be times when she gets tired and feels as if she would
+like to sit down and take things easy, still there is no denying that
+the love chase puts pep in any lady’s day.
+
+A woman should never marry any man except the one with whom she is very
+much in love, because every woman craves romance, and if she doesn’t
+get it at home she is very apt to seek it abroad, or else she goes
+through life hungry, unsatisfied. The wives who get into scandals; who
+think they find soul-mates in their preachers, or their doctors, or
+long-haired poets; the wives who run off after strange cults and who
+burden down the mails with letters to movie actors are all women who
+married men they didn’t love.
+
+The women who are crazily in love with their husbands make their own
+angel’s food at home and don’t have to go around trying to pick up
+stray crumbs on the street. Of course, the woman who loves her husband
+better than he does her has her moments of acute jealousy, but even
+these are full of ginger and are better than the dull stagnation of
+having a man that you don’t take the trouble to lock up at night
+because you know you can’t lose him.
+
+Truly, it is more blessed to give than to receive, and it is better for
+a woman to love than to be loved.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ARE YOU GOOD COMPANY FOR YOURSELF?
+
+
+Do you ever think what poor company most of us are for ourselves? It
+is strange but true that the one individual on God’s earth who bores
+the average man and woman more than any one else is just himself
+and herself. There is no society they so dread as their own, and no
+expedient so desperate that they will not resort to it rather than be
+left alone with themselves. They will fasten themselves like leeches
+on kinspeople and friends who try to shake them loose. They will stay
+on in homes where they know they are not welcome. They will put up
+with any discomfort in order to herd together. They will hold up the
+telephone poles at the corners of streets, and walk the aisles of the
+department stores until they are ready to drop with fatigue.
+
+They will belong to clubs where they foregather with the dull and
+prosy and fat-witted, and where they spend hours listening to egotists
+monologue about how great and wonderful they are. Evening after evening
+they go to vaudeville performances whose every turn is so stupid it
+is enough to make even a hero scream with pain, and to see moving
+pictures whose scenarios are an insult to the intelligence of an idiot.
+
+Anything—anywhere, to get away from themselves, to escape having to
+spend an hour in their own company. So universal is the belief that it
+is the limit of social and mental poverty to be reduced to your own
+society for company, that we speak of those who live alone as being
+lonesome, and pity them accordingly.
+
+It does not even occur to us that they may have that within themselves
+which could make them gay and witty companions to themselves, of whom
+they would never tire.
+
+It is easy, of course, to see why many people are bored to tears with
+their own company. Men and women who never read anything can’t have
+very much that is new and interesting to say to themselves. After they
+have discussed the state of the green grocery trade with themselves,
+on which they are rather fed up anyway after having wrestled with
+it all day, or mulled over the last gossip about the neighbors next
+door, and wondered for the millionth time how the Joneses can afford a
+new car, and where the Smith girl has been spending the evening when
+she came home at 3 A. M., they find that they have exhausted their
+conversational repertoire.
+
+But if they are reading people they can never have a dull instant
+when they are alone, for every book, every magazine, every newspaper
+is a magic carpet that takes them in an instant into the uttermost
+parts of the world. There isn’t a strange sight they may not see, or a
+secret whispered behind a closed door they may not hear; nor a romance
+unfolded whose thrill does not touch their hearts and stir their pulse.
+Education and cultivation would be worth while if they did nothing else
+except take the curse off loneliness.
+
+You can see how people who are envious and jealous and quarrelsome and
+mean-spirited dread to be left alone with themselves. They have devils
+from hell for company, those men and women whose souls are filled with
+bitterness and hate, and who are forever thrashing over old grievances,
+recalling old wrongs, bringing to life again old enmities.
+
+We all avoid the pessimistic and the cynical—those who can see nothing
+cheerful or good in the world, and with whom even a chance meeting
+seems to take the warmth out of the sunshine, and God out of His
+heaven, and make all life dark and foul. How terrible, then, must it
+be to live with yourself when you have nothing to say to yourself that
+does not leave a dark-brown taste in your mouth? It is not strange
+that those who have lived hard and selfish and grasping lives are poor
+company for themselves.
+
+You cannot imagine a widow spending a cheery evening recalling how she
+nagged her poor, dead husband, how cross and peevish and complaining
+she was, or how little she had done to repay him for all that he had
+done for her. Neither can you imagine a woman enjoying telling herself
+that if she had been less extravagant, and content with simple things,
+if she hadn’t demanded fine clothes and jewels and trips to Europe,
+that her husband would not have had to kill himself working, and that
+she might now have some one to talk to, living and breathing, instead
+of a demon of remorse.
+
+It is not strange that a man wants other company than the recollection
+of how his coldness and neglect turned the bright, joyous, loving,
+tender girl he married into a quiet, sad woman who cringed like a
+whipped dog before his cruel fault-finding. Nor is it strange that
+the man who has driven hard bargains and overreached in trade, who
+has ground down the faces of those who worked for him, who has taken
+advantage of the ignorant and the trustful, and built his fortune
+on the ruins of widows and children, does not find his own society
+exhilarating.
+
+When we are old we have nothing but our memories left us. They are
+enough company if they are filled with the smiling faces of those we
+loved, who recall to us kindly acts we have done, helping hands we have
+held out, and if they murmur to us of kindly, gracious deeds. But they
+are terrible companions if they are filled with memories of cruelty
+and wrong. Considering that, do what we may, we can never escape from
+ourselves, that we are bound to endure our own society, is it not a
+pity that we do not emulate the poet who said, “My mind to me a kingdom
+is,” and make ourselves better company for ourselves!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+KEEPING YOUNG
+
+
+None of us wants to die. No matter how strong our religious faith, nor
+how lustily we sing “Heaven is my home,” none of us is in a hurry to
+go there. We prefer to stay in a world in which we are acquainted and
+acclimated. Likewise, we all dread old age. It fills us with horror to
+think of becoming bent and tottering old men and women, our vigor of
+mind and body gone, sans hair, sans teeth, sans everything. So from
+time immemorial humanity has been on the still hunt for some magic that
+will stay the devastating hand of time and enable it to hold on to the
+youth it prizes so dearly. The ancients sailed the world over seeking
+fabled islands and miraculous fountains of perpetual youth. We moderns
+pin our faith to the surgeon’s knife and the druggist’s bottles, to
+monkey glands, and face liftings, and paints, and powders, and hair
+dyes.
+
+All in vain. The black oxen of the years march over us, treading out
+our youth and beauty, our strength and high spirits, and nothing that
+we can do will stop them. So it seems a pity that we should waste so
+much thought, so much struggle, and effort, and energy, and money in
+essaying an impossible task. For do what we may, we cannot keep young,
+and when we try to camouflage age as juvenility the only people in the
+world that we fool are ourselves.
+
+We can dye our hair the gold, or the black, or the jet of girlhood, but
+we cannot put under it the fresh face of sixteen. We can have our skin
+gored and tucked until all of our wrinkles are taken out, but there
+still remain the tired, old eyes that have seen fifty or sixty years.
+We can starve ourselves until we get the figures of flappers, but we
+are not lithe and graceful. We are living skeletons. We can roll our
+stockings and borrow our granddaughter’s clothes, but it doesn’t make
+us look like debutantes. It makes us look like those afflicted with
+senile dementia. The truth is, the more we fight age the harder it
+fights back and the sooner it conquers us. None grow old so quickly as
+those who work themselves into premature age trying to keep young.
+
+Once I was standing behind a jaunty little figure perched on the
+runningboard of a car. She wore the gayest and sportiest of sport
+suits. She had the thin figure of a girl of fifteen. Her bobbed
+henna-colored hair curled under the brim of a rakish little hat.
+Presently she turned around and disclosed a face that was like a mask,
+it was so plastered over with cosmetics. “Heavens! Did you ever see
+such an old hag?” exclaimed a man near me.
+
+Now, this woman was not more than fifty years old. She was in the prime
+of life, at an age when many women are handsomer than they ever were
+in their lives. No one would have thought of her as being old at all,
+if she had been willing to appear her own honest age; if she had had
+the pleasing plumpness that belonged to her time of life; if her soft,
+gray hair had waved about her face, and if she had been appropriately
+dressed. It was her effort to appear kiddish that called attention to
+what an old goat she was.
+
+If bobbing and dyeing their hair, and dieting themselves to emaciation,
+and wearing knee-length skirts made elderly women look young and
+girlish, they would not only be justified in doing so, it would be a
+virtue to do it, for thereby they would make themselves easy on the
+eyes. But just the reverse is true. Their affectation of youth only
+calls attention to what a long distance they have traveled from youth.
+Old mutton never seems so old, and tough, and stringy as when it is
+dressed as spring lamb.
+
+And the folly of trying to act young after you are old is just as great
+as that of trying to look sixteen when you are sixty. Women have been
+told so often they must keep their spirits young, they must never think
+old thoughts, they must never speak of age, or admit to themselves they
+are getting older, that they have come to believe that, simply by
+forgetting their birthdays, they can maintain perpetual girlhood.
+
+We all know women who begin every reminiscence by saying that they were
+very young at the time it happened, and who give us to understand their
+husbands were cradle snatchers, who married them when they were mere
+infants. We know old women who are always teasing themselves about men,
+and talking about their best beaus, and pretending to have flirtations
+with boys young enough to be their grandsons, and repeating compliments
+about their eyes or their fascinations they allege men paid them,
+but that even an idiot would know that they made up themselves. How
+ridiculous the poor souls make themselves! How infinitely older they
+appear than the women who do not try to pose as vamps after they have
+ceased to look the part, and who regard men just as they do women, as
+interesting and agreeable human beings.
+
+Perhaps, after all, we make too big a bugaboo of growing old. The
+twilight has its charms no less than the dawn or high noon, and so the
+last lap of the journey of life has its compensations and its joys if
+we are willing to accept them.
+
+Anyway, the only way we can escape old age is by dying young. But if we
+welcome it as a friend, it deals kindlier with us than if we fight it
+as an enemy.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+GOSSIP, THE POLICEMAN
+
+
+A young woman writes me that she considers that she has a right to live
+her own life in her own way and do exactly as she pleases. So she has
+broken most of the Ten Commandments and snapped her fingers in the face
+of Mrs. Grundy. And now that she finds that her reputation is being
+torn to tatters, she thinks that she is being most unfairly treated.
+
+“Oh, how I hate the whole tribe of kitty-cats!” she wails. “Oh, how
+hard, and cruel, and unjust people are!” Then she asks, “Don’t you
+think that gossip is the unpardonable sin?”
+
+Not at all. Gossip is one of the most powerful influences in the world
+for good. It is the invisible, omnipresent policeman that enforces law
+and order. It is the scourge that keeps the trembling wretch in order
+and makes the weak-kneed and the wobbly walk the straight and narrow
+path.
+
+We can stifle the voice of conscience, but we can’t silence the voice
+of our neighbors. We can dope ourselves into believing that we have
+a right to make our own code of conduct, but we can’t force the
+community in which we live to take our point of view on the matter, or
+to make any exceptions in our behalf to the standards that society has
+set up for good behavior. And it is this fear of what “they’ll say”
+that makes us curb our appetites and passions and keep up at least an
+outward show of decency. For no matter how vain and egotistic we are;
+no matter how self-complacent and self-satisfied we are; no matter
+how independent we think we are, we are all cowards who grovel in the
+dust before public opinion. It is the lifted eyebrow. It is the cold,
+measured, appraising look that weighs us in the balance and finds us
+wanting. It is the turn of a shoulder away from us and the little hush
+that falls on a group as we approach that tells us that we have been
+the subject of unfavorable discussion, which we dread more than we do
+the wrath of God.
+
+It is the knowledge that she will be gossiped about if she indulges
+in any flirtations which keeps many a bored young married woman with
+romantic yearnings from indulging in little affairs with good-looking
+bachelors. She knows there might really be no harm in her having lunch
+with Mr. A. or going to the theater with Captain C., but that she could
+never explain it to the woman who lives across the street.
+
+And the next time the Current Events Club meets she knows that she will
+be the current event of burning interest discussed. Therefore she turns
+down the alluring invitations and stays at home, and minds her p’s and
+her q’s and her babies.
+
+And it is the fear of gossip that makes many an indiscreet girl watch
+her step and saves her from the stumble that would land her in the pit.
+She is easy-going and good-natured, and warm-hearted and affectionate,
+and she sees no harm in letting boys that she likes kiss her and
+fondle her, but it makes the flesh creep on her bones to think of the
+Amalgamated Scandal Mongers’ Union getting out their hammers and going
+for her if she does. She knows well enough that the neighbors on either
+side keep tab on what hour her beaux go home and what goes on as they
+sit on the front porch or stoop of an evening, and she conducts herself
+accordingly. There is no chaperon so efficient as Mrs. Grundy.
+
+If we could only do as we pleased and get away with it without any
+censorious comments from our fellow creatures, there would be many
+more philandering husbands and wives than there are, many more girls
+wandering down the primrose path, many more neglected children and
+ill-kept houses, many more wife-beating husbands and virago wives. It
+is the knowledge that, if they give way to their natural impulses, they
+will be talked about, which gives many would-be sinners the strength to
+resist the temptation to be as bad as they would like to be.
+
+The people who think it is so wicked to be talked about are only
+those who have something to hide, something that reflects on their
+character. It is our bad deeds we don’t want discussed. We are tickled
+to death to have our good ones broadcasted to the ends of the earth.
+
+No man objects to having it told about that he is a model husband, a
+good provider and a tender father. The thing he wants hushed up is that
+he half starves his family in order to spend the money on a flapper. No
+woman wants to put the soft pedal on the conversation when her friends
+are telling what a wonderful wife and mother she is; but she doesn’t
+know how women, who call themselves her friends, can be catty enough
+to whisper behind their hands that she went out joy-riding with young
+Snookums and didn’t get home until 4 in the morning, while the baby was
+nearly dying with the croup.
+
+Those who are down on gossip and feel that the world should cover up
+their shortcomings with a blanket of silence are unreasonable. Why
+should other people be more careful of your reputation than you are
+yourself? If you do not care enough for your good name to protect
+it, why demand that service of the general public? Foolish and vain
+expectation! For the gossipers keep on their good work, and the only
+way you can escape being talked about is to be so exemplary that you
+are a dull subject for conversation.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE LUCKY WORKING WOMAN
+
+
+Why do we hold to the theory that work is a blessing to men, but a
+curse to women? We know beyond all questioning that the necessity of
+earning his bread by the sweat of his brow was the consolation prize
+that Adam was handed along with his eviction papers when he was turned
+out of Eden. We know that the only happy man is the busy man. We know
+that only in constructive labor does a man find an interest that never
+palls and a game in which there is a perpetual thrill. We know that
+work is the greatest anodyne for sorrow and the best protection against
+temptation. We know that, as Stevenson says, “if a man loves the labor
+of any trade apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have
+called him, and he is of all men most enviable.”
+
+So manifold are the benefits men derive from work, so salutary are its
+effects upon them, that we have a contempt for the idle, purposeless
+man and feel that, no matter how much money he has, he has no right to
+spend his life in loafing. We are eager to get our boys to work, so
+that their restless young energy may find a legitimate outlet, instead
+of being employed in devising new forms of dissipation. The young man
+must have something to do, and if he isn’t bending his back in honest
+farming he will be breaking his neck in sowing a wild-oats crop.
+
+Our attitude, however, toward women and work is diametrically opposite.
+We do not regard work as a good thing for women. On the contrary, we
+consider it a misfortune for a woman to have to work. We have even
+coined a phrase for it and speak of the woman who must earn her own
+living as a “poor working woman.” Worse still, the woman who works
+pities herself. The mother whose daughters go down to business every
+morning bewails their fate and feels that destiny has dealt most
+unkindly by them. The woman who must do her own housework, and look
+after her own babies, and make her own clothes sheds barrels of tears
+over her lot.
+
+Men also accept this view of the situation that labor is a curse to
+women, and work themselves to death in order that their wives and
+daughters may live in parasitic ease, with servants to wait upon them
+and have nothing to do but kill time. In fact, the consensus of opinion
+seems to be that the ideal state for a woman is that in which she never
+performs any useful labor, but merely sits on a silk cushion and feeds
+upon strawberries, sugar and cream. All of this is a distorted view of
+the situation. Women need to work just as much as men do. Idleness
+has just as disastrous an effect upon the feminine character as it has
+upon the male, and among women, as among men, the only happy, contented
+ones are those who are so much engrossed in some useful labor that they
+haven’t leisure in which to consider whether they are satisfied or not.
+
+Mother “poor Marys” and “poor Sallys” her daughters who have to earn
+their living, but nowhere else will you see healthier, happier girls
+than those holding down good jobs in stores and offices. Nine times out
+of ten the girl behind the counter is brighter, more alert, and finds
+life a far more entertaining proposition than does her purposeless idle
+sister before the counter.
+
+Nor is the domestic woman who has to do her own housework entitled to
+shed any tears of self-pity on our necks. There is no more reason why
+a husky young woman shouldn’t do her share of the work of the domestic
+partnership than there is why her husband should not do his. It is no
+more of a hardship for her to have to work than it is for him, and many
+a rich old woman who sits now with empty hands that ache for occupation
+will tell you that her happiest days were the busy, crowded ones when
+she got up at five o’clock to cook her husband’s breakfast before
+he went to the factory and sat up until eleven o’clock washing and
+patching his clothes so that he could make a decent appearance next day.
+
+It is a significant fact that the women who fill sanitariums and
+enrich nerve specialists are not the overworked, hard-driven wives and
+mothers. They are the middle-aged and elderly women, who have nothing
+to do but to canvass their systems for symptoms of every disease they
+read about in the magazines. It takes leisure to develop invalidism.
+Busy people keep well because they haven’t time to be sick.
+
+Nearly every man’s ambition is to keep his wife in idleness, and he
+thinks that he is being a good husband when he can boast that she
+hasn’t a thing on earth to do but to amuse herself. It is pathetic
+that the thing that so many good husbands strive for is their undoing.
+For it is the idle women who are the peevish, fretful, discontented
+wives. It is the idle women who run off with all sorts of fool fads
+and fancies. It is the idle women who decide that their good, honest,
+hard-working husbands are not their real soul-mates, and who get into
+scandals with jazzhounds and elope with romantic-looking sheiks they
+have picked up in hotel lobbies.
+
+The idle woman is never a happy woman. Having nothing to do but to
+think about herself, she is sure to prod around in her mind until
+she finds a grievance. Having nothing to do, she is sure to get into
+mischief. Having no interesting occupation, she begins to hunt for
+thrills. And the net result is that she works harder trying to amuse
+herself than she would at scrubbing floors, and the only reward is
+that life is flat, stale and unpalatable in her mouth.
+
+Let us hope that the time will soon come when we will have enough
+intelligence to perceive that work is a woman’s salvation even as it is
+a man’s, and when we will congratulate the woman with a job instead of
+pitying her.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+AN INDOOR SPORT
+
+
+This is a sad world, mates, with too little sunshine in it, so far
+be it from me to abridge, abate or curtail any innocent pleasure. But
+it does seem to me that there are certain diversions that should be
+indulged in only in the privacy of home. One of these is the family
+spat. Apparently a large number of men and women get married for the
+sole purpose of providing themselves with a sparring partner, with whom
+they can put on the gloves at a moment’s notice with, or without, the
+slightest provocation. Life has no dull moments for them, because they
+are always saying something that draws blood, or framing a retort that
+will cut to the quick, and the excitement of a battle to the death is
+perpetually thrilling their nerves.
+
+Without doubt, it is a merry and adventurous existence for the doughty
+domestic warriors who enjoy that kind of thing! I would not be cruel
+enough to deny them the cheery pastime of going to the mat over every
+trivial difference of opinion. But I do contend that conjugal quarrels
+are an indoor sport that should be pursued only when the participants
+have sought the seclusion that the cabin grants, as they used to say
+in “Pinafore,” and when all the shades have been pulled down and the
+keyholes stuffed with cotton.
+
+Possibly the lack of an audience might take off a little of the edge of
+the bout for the battling husband and spouse; but, oh, how immeasurably
+it would add to the comfort and happiness of those of us who are the
+innocent bystanders and who are forced to look on, sick with horror,
+at these encounters! In all good truth I know of no other situation so
+miserable and so embarrassing as to be called upon to referee a fight
+between a married couple. Their quarrel is, to begin with, a matter
+with which we have no concern; one in which we do not desire to meddle;
+one in which we ardently wish to take neither side. It makes us feel as
+if we were cowards to keep silent while a man hurls deadly insults at
+his wife, and we writhe in vicarious shame while a woman vituperates
+her husband.
+
+We have the sense of having assisted in an indecent orgy when a husband
+and wife strip every rag of reserve away from their relationship and
+fling open the doors of their skeleton closets, and rattle their bones
+in public. Nor are we consoled by the knowledge that the people who
+make public exhibitions of their tempers must enjoy doing so or else
+they would not do it. Yet we all number among our friends, husbands
+and wives, otherwise estimable and charming individuals, who always
+stage their fights in the most conspicuous place they can find, and
+who seem to prefer an audience to privacy. When you meet them for an
+evening’s diversion they are having a preliminary set-to. Perhaps the
+husband has come home late from the office, or has forgotten to mail
+a letter, or possibly the wife has kept her husband waiting while she
+did her hair over the second time. During the selection of the dinner
+they get warmed up to the work and put in some punches with real steam
+behind them. They clinch, and bite, and gouge over the selection of a
+play, and they reach for each other’s vital spots and get in dirty jabs
+at the supper dance that follows the play.
+
+Doubtless the fighters are enjoying themselves, but a pleasant time is
+not being had by all. The abashed onlookers know not what to do. They
+do not know whether to rush in and make it a free-for-all fight or to
+try to mediate between the warring couple, or whether to pretend to
+have been suddenly stricken deaf, dumb and blind. And they wind up by
+feeling outraged that they should have been placed in such a mortifying
+position, and wishing heartily that husbands and wives would keep their
+quarrels for home consumption, and not inflict them on their friends.
+
+The same strictures apply to the woman who henpecks her husband. That
+also is one of the quiet home joys that should be strictly confined
+to the domestic circle. I raise no voice of protest against the woman
+who has wit and strength and determination enough to oust her husband
+out of his position as head of the house and assume it herself. It is
+a matter between the husband and wife, and if he hasn’t enough spunk
+to fight for his rights he deserves to lose them. But why cannot the
+bossy women be content with exercising their tyranny quietly and
+unobtrusively? Why do they insist upon rattling the chains by which
+they lead their husbands until they call public attention to them?
+
+Think of the women you know who always say “MY house.” “MY car.” “MY
+children.” Who always walk ahead of their husbands and point out a
+seat, and say, “John, sit there,” and who always tell John where to
+get on and where to get off! And think how all the rest of us are
+embarrassed for poor John! Believe me, dirty linen should be washed at
+home, and family quarrels staged there. That is one of the main things
+for which homes are designed.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SHOULD WOMEN TELL?
+
+
+I get a great many letters from women who write that there is a dark
+stain on their past life. In the headstrong folly of youth they took
+a step down the primrose path, then repented of their sin, and turned
+their back upon it, and laid hold upon righteousness.
+
+Sometimes nobody knows of the slip but the girl herself and the man who
+was her partner in wrong-doing. Sometimes a woman who had mired her
+skirts to the knees has washed them clean with her tears of remorse,
+and had the courage to build anew her life in some place where her
+early escapades are unknown.
+
+Then love comes to these women. Good men offer them marriage and an
+honorable place in society. And the question they ask is, shall they
+tell these men the story of their life before they marry them, or bury
+the secret in their heart, and leave the matter on the knees of the
+gods?
+
+This is a problem no human wisdom can solve, for, so far as the
+woman is concerned, it is a case in which she will be damned if she
+does, and damned if she doesn’t. Her chances of getting happiness—or
+misery—through opening up her skeleton closet and exhibiting its
+contents to the man who has asked her to be his wife are about even,
+with the odds for happiness slightly in favor of keeping the lid
+clamped down good and hard on her secret.
+
+The question of right does not enter into the matter unless you
+institute a prematrimonial confessional in which men shall bare their
+souls as well as women. There is no more real reason why a woman should
+tell a man every detail of her past than there is why he should tell
+her of every time that he has strayed off of the straight and narrow
+path.
+
+It is true that a couple who knew the worst of each other would start
+out their life together on a firm foundation of honest understanding,
+but nobody can claim that it would make for their felicity, or increase
+their affection for each other. On the contrary, they would have swept
+away every illusion. They would have destroyed the faith of each in the
+other, and they would have called into being an evil spirit, a ghost
+out of the past, that they could not banish, and that would forever
+stand between them.
+
+Men have had the wisdom to perceive this. They realize that what a
+woman doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her, but that the thing that she does
+know she worries herself to death over, and so few men are foolish
+enough to furnish a wife with a working diagram of their past lives
+with which she can torture herself, and them. They draw a discreet
+veil over episodes that are best forgotten, anyway, and deal only
+in glittering generalities in referring to their gay bachelor days.
+Moreover, women are sensible enough to let it go at that. No woman
+wants her husband to tell her things that stab her every time she
+thinks of them, and that eat like a canker into her memory.
+
+It is only when the case is reversed, and when it is the woman who has
+a blot upon her past, that she wonders if it is the right thing, the
+honorable thing, to tell the man who wants to marry her about it. Of
+course, the woman is bound in this by the double code of morals, which
+makes one standard for the woman and another for the man, and that,
+humorously enough, makes a husband feel that he has been exceedingly
+ill-used if he discovers that his wife has a past that matches his own.
+
+Therefore, because she is afraid that in future years her husband may
+find out about her past life, or else driven by her conscience, or for
+the sheer relief of sharing her burden with another, the woman nearly
+always tells everything to the man before marriage. Sometimes it drives
+him from her. Sometimes he loves her enough to marry her, in spite of
+her revelations.
+
+But, while he forgives, he never forgets. Always he is haunted by the
+memories of what she has revealed. He never trusts her, never wholly
+believes in her, and he has to be a bigger-souled man than most men
+are if he does not reproach her with her past, and use it as a whip of
+scorpions to scourge her with when he is angry with her.
+
+Of course, when either a man’s or a woman’s past life has in it some
+sinister curse that reaches out and lays a hand on the future of the
+one he or she marries, he or she is bound in honor to tell the other
+one about it. But when there is nothing of this kind, nothing but a
+youthful folly, a mistake, a blunder in the dark, bitterly repented
+of and lived down, it seems to me the part of wisdom for both men and
+women to forego post-mortems, and to wash the slate clean and make a
+fresh start.
+
+What they have done does not matter so much as what they are going to
+do. And it often happens that just because a man or woman has stumbled
+in the past they walk the more carefully among the pitfalls of life,
+and that out of the sorrows and repentance for their sins they have
+brought a tenderness, a compassion, a forbearance and an understanding
+that makes them better men and women than the vast majority of those
+who have lived blameless lives.
+
+Confession is always weakness. The brave soul keeps its own secrets,
+and takes its own punishment in silence. It takes a strong man or woman
+to keep from blabbing, but it pays never to tell anything that you do
+not wish the world to know.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+DOMESTIC BOREDOM
+
+
+The thing that oftenest makes marriage a failure is its dulness.
+The real specter on the hearth is that awful silence. It is because
+husbands and wives have nothing interesting to say to each other that
+they quarrel. It is no joke, it is a sad truth, that in any theater or
+restaurant you can spot the married couples at a first glance. They are
+the couples who are sitting up reading the program through from cover
+to cover between the acts, or are apparently memorizing the menu while
+the waiter brings their order. The alert, interesting, smiling people
+who are gayly chatting together are the unwed, or those who are talking
+to other people’s husbands and wives.
+
+Let even a bore drop into a droopy, dejected family circle that has
+been yawning itself to death and everybody brightens up and the stream
+of conversation which had apparently dried up at its source begins to
+flow again. Two may be company and three a crowd before marriage, but
+generally after marriage two is gobs of silence and three a godsend.
+
+Yet the majority of people marry for companionship. Before marriage
+they could never get enough of each other’s society, and they esteemed
+each other perfect spellbinders. How is it, then, that they get so fed
+up on each other’s company that they sit up like mutes in the solitude
+of their homes? Why is it that, apart from fault-finding and spats and
+complaints about the servants and the tradesmen and bulletins about
+the children, there is so little family conversation; practically none
+that is interesting and cheerful and inspiring? You would think that
+a husband and wife who have all interests in common could never talk
+themselves out. But they do, and they come to the place where they take
+refuge behind the evening paper or in solitaire to save themselves from
+the pretense of even having to maintain the appearance of keeping up
+social intercourse.
+
+Wives lay the blame for this state of affairs on their husbands. They
+say, heaven knows, that they would be glad enough to talk, but that
+you can’t maintain a conversation with a person who always grunts by
+way of reply, and who could give a clam on ice points on silence and
+then beat it at the game. Men retort that they have exhausted their
+conversational powers during business hours, and they desire to rest
+their vocal cords at home. Nevertheless, it is observable that if
+somebody interesting happens to call, or they go out to dinner, the
+very man who was silent at home finds plenty to say.
+
+Now there are several reasons why there is so little conversation in
+the home. The first reason is because home talk is so often unpleasant.
+Women, especially, are prone to flavor it with gloom. They like to
+recite the litany of the day’s mischances. They spoil the flavor of a
+dinner by telling how much it cost. They bring on a scene with a child
+by telling of its naughtiness. They thrash over their old grievances
+because they can’t have what richer women have.
+
+All of this gets on the husband’s nerves, and he retorts by saying a
+few pithy things about what a fool a man is to marry and burden himself
+with a family and what a poor manager his wife is, and he gives a
+few knocks to the dinner for good measure. After which conversation
+naturally languishes.
+
+Another reason that there is little conversation at home is because it
+is dangerous. Experience teaches us that we have to watch our tongues
+and delete our home talk if we want to save ourselves from endless
+trouble.
+
+A man hates to lie to his wife about what he does. He would enjoy
+telling her all about the poker game he stayed downtown for last night,
+and the funny things the boys said and did, but he does not do it
+because well he knows that the price of such an indiscreet revelation
+would be to have her nagging him about it forever and a day. A wife
+would just love to tell her husband about her adventures in buying a
+new hat, and how she fell for the twenty-five-dollar one instead of the
+fifteen-dollar one she meant to buy. But she is well aware that she
+would never hear the last of her extravagance if she did. So they both
+keep silent.
+
+There is little home conversation because nobody is interested, and
+nobody pretends to be, in what you say. In the family circle nobody
+listens. Nobody laughs at your jokes. Nobody sees the points of your
+merry cracks. Try to tell a good story, and somebody is sure to remark
+that they have heard it before, and that it is an ancient wheeze. If
+you had discovered the North Pole and were relating your hairbreadth
+adventures in reaching it by airplane, somebody would interrupt at the
+most breathless moment to say that the iceman forgot to deliver the ice
+yesterday.
+
+Wives won’t listen even when their husbands try to tell them about
+their hopes and plans and ambitions in their careers. And when a
+woman tries to talk to her husband about the things that are of vital
+interest to her he falls asleep and snores in her face.
+
+And that is why conversation is a lost art in the family circle.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY?
+
+
+A young woman once said to me:
+
+“I am, as you know, the private secretary of the head of a very big
+business concern. I get a generous salary. My hours are easy. My
+employer, who is an elderly man, is one of the finest men in the world,
+and treats me with every courtesy, kindness and consideration. I feel
+it a privilege to be in daily contact with such a brilliant mind as he
+has. I love my work. I have what they call in men a business head. To
+me there is no other romance so fascinating as the romance of commerce;
+no game so absorbing as the business game. And it thrills me to the
+finger tips to know that I have a part, even if it is a small one, in
+this great adventure that sends men and ships to the uttermost parts of
+the earth and that gambles for fortunes.
+
+“It gratifies my vanity to know that I have worked up from the bottom
+to my present fine position, and it pleases my ambition to know that I
+can climb still higher, and that every year I will be more efficient
+and more valuable to my employer. I enjoy the money I make, and the
+luxuries it brings me, as only a woman can who comes of a poor family,
+and whose girlhood has been barren of all the pretty things that girls
+crave. I find a lot of solid satisfaction in watching my bank account
+grow, knowing that, if I keep on with my job for a few years, I will
+have put by enough to safeguard my old age.
+
+“So far, so good. If I were going to remain perpetually on the sunny
+side of forty, I would ask no life better than that of the successful
+business woman. But the dread hour will strike for me, as it does for
+all other women, and I am wondering if, when it does, I will not find
+myself a lonely old woman, and wish that I had married and had children.
+
+“I am thirty now, and I have got to decide the question in the next
+year or two. Shall I give up my mahogany desk for a gas range? Shall
+I forfeit my fat pay envelope for a job where I shall have to toil
+ten times as hard for only my board and clothes? Shall I give up the
+occupation for which I spent years in preparing myself, for which I
+have talent and which is a joy for me to perform, for domestic service
+which I loathe, for which I have no aptitude and in which I am utterly
+unskilled?
+
+“When I see my sister shabby, bedraggled, overworked, with her crying
+babies and grouchy husband I feel like clinging to my good, soft, easy
+office position with both hands. Then rises that specter of the future
+in my pathway, and I wonder if in staying single I will miss the best
+that life has to give to a woman, and if I will regret it if I refuse
+to follow the traditional career of my sex.
+
+“Of course, I know that there are women who try to have their cake,
+and eat it, too; who grab matrimony with one hand, and hold on to
+their jobs with the other, but my observation is that they always
+fall between the stools. They are failures both as business women and
+as wives and mothers, for to succeed in anything you have to give
+everything that is in you to it.
+
+“No woman is of much use in an office when nine-tenths of her brain and
+all of her interest are back home in a cradle and she is worrying over
+whether a hired nurse is giving the baby its milk. Nor can any woman
+who comes back home at night, with a worn-out body and jangled nerves,
+be anybody’s ideal of a wife and mother.
+
+“So as far as I am concerned I have to decide the question which I am
+going to be, a business woman or a domestic woman, before I take the
+fatal step, and for the life of me I can’t make up my mind which to do.
+To marry or not to marry, that is the problem that I am acquiring gray
+hairs and wrinkles debating.
+
+“Of course, if a fairy prince should come along and say, ‘Come and be
+my queen, and ride beside me in my limousine and tour the world with me
+on my yacht,’ I should doff my Cinderella working suit and put on my
+glass slippers, and step out with him.
+
+“But it is only in novels that millionaires espouse poor working girls.
+The men who come a-courting me are just ordinary young chaps on small
+salaries, whose wives will have to do their own cooking, and wear
+hand-me-downs.
+
+“Nor would there be any difficulty in settling the question if I had an
+overwhelming passion for some man. Then I would cry, ‘All for love and
+my job well lost!’ and a two-by-four flat would look better to me than
+to be president of the greatest corporation in the world. But I am not
+really in love. I have merely an affection for a certain chap that I
+might possibly cultivate into a warmer emotion if I decided that it was
+better, after all, to marry.
+
+“But it is cruel, isn’t it, that a woman has to choose between marriage
+and her career? When a man marries he merely annexes a home and wife
+and children to the pleasures and interests of his work, but a woman
+has to sacrifice one or the other. And I don’t know which one to
+choose.”
+
+“And whichever way you decide, you will be apt to regret it,” I replied
+consolingly.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+WOMAN’S GREATEST GIFT
+
+
+A man told me the other day that he had not married until he was
+forty-five years old because he was determined not to marry any woman
+who did not have a sense of humor, and it took him that long to find
+one.
+
+A wise man! A very Solomon among men! May his tribe increase! It is a
+million times more important for a woman to have a well-developed funny
+bone than it is for her to have a Grecian profile, yet when men go to
+marry they pick out a girl for a wife because she has melting black
+eyes, or soulful blue eyes, without ever once observing whether the
+said eyes look on the funny side of life or take a dark, pessimistic,
+bilious view of it. Which is one of the reasons that domestic life is
+no merry jest to the average husband.
+
+A sense of humor is desirable in a man, but it is absolutely essential
+for a woman to have a sense of humor if she is to be an agreeable life
+partner, because a woman’s existence is made up of little, nagging
+things, at which she must either laugh or cry, and if she can’t laugh
+them off, they get on her nerves, and she goes to pieces.
+
+It is the neurotic, haggard women, who can’t see a joke even after it
+is diagrammed for them, who fill the insane asylums and the sanitariums
+and divorce courts. The women who wear the smile that won’t come off,
+and whose laughter is set on a hair trigger, get to be fair, fat and
+forty, and you couldn’t pry their husbands away from them with a
+crowbar. It is the lack of a sense of humor that causes women to make
+tragedies instead of comedies out of trifles.
+
+Take the servant trouble, for instance. Women worry themselves sick
+over the mistakes of a green maid, and it never occurs to them that the
+very blunders that they are shedding tears over are screamingly funny
+contretemps that they pay out money to see imitated in a sketch on the
+vaudeville stage.
+
+Of course, no one wants the soup to be seasoned with sugar instead of
+salt, nor the waste-paper basket to be put on the mantel as a parlor
+ornament as a perpetual thing, but the mistress who can get a laugh
+instead of a sick headache out of the mistakes of her Norah or Dinah,
+fresh from Ireland or the cotton fields, saves her own face and that of
+the maid whom she later trains into being a good servant.
+
+Moreover, a woman with a sense of humor can take the curse off of even
+bad cooking, for there is not one of us who would not rather sit
+down to a boiled dinner with a jolly woman, full of good stories and
+anecdotes, than to attend a banquet where the hostess is gloomy and
+peevish and whiny, and who frets with her children and spats with her
+husband.
+
+Whether a woman makes a success or failure of matrimony depends
+altogether on whether she has a sense of humor or not. If she can
+see her husband as one of the most mirth-provoking, side-splitting,
+uproarious human jokes that nature ever perpetrated she will be happy,
+and he will bless heaven on his knees for having given him the paragon
+of wives. But if she sees him as an Awful Problem, or a subject for
+reformation, neither one of them will ever know a happy hour, and the
+marriage will either end in a divorce court or a long endurance contest.
+
+The women who wreck marriages are the ones who take their husbands
+seriously, and who get tragic every time their husbands look at another
+woman, or play a little poker, or fail to come home at the appointed
+hour, and who weep when their husbands forget an anniversary, or fail
+in some little attention they consider their due. The women who keep
+their husbands enslaved from the altar to the grave are the women who
+laugh with their husband over their little faults and peculiarities.
+They make a joke of their husband’s weakness for a pretty face; they
+have a dozen funny stories to tell about how they helped their husbands
+out of scrapes, and, instead of feeling ill-used and assuming the pose
+of a domestic martyr when their husbands forget their birthdays, they
+go out and buy themselves a particularly nice present, which they pay
+for without a murmur because they know that a wife with a sense of
+humor is worth anything she costs.
+
+A sense of humor is even more necessary to a mother than it is to a
+wife. The humorless woman takes her children too tragically. They wear
+her out, and she alienates them from her by her ceaseless nagging
+because she thinks that every little foolish thing they do is full of
+direful significance. The mother with a sense of humor knows that youth
+is as subject to certain follies as it is to the mumps and the measles
+and the whooping cough, and that it must go through these experiences,
+as it did through the cycle of infantile diseases, but that they are
+not fatal if they are carefully watched.
+
+She may not approve of all the manifestations of flapperism and
+jellybeanitis, but she knows that the remedy for them is laughter and
+not tears, and so she keeps her young ones in bounds with good-natured
+ridicule. Nor does she break her heart with dismal forebodings about
+the terrible fate that is bound to overtake boys and girls who do
+not dress and act as did their grandparents. She has seen too many
+silly young people develop into fine men and women to borrow trouble
+worrying over what is going to become of the race.
+
+In its last analysis, a sense of humor is just the sense of proportion
+that enables us to see things in their true relation to life. It is the
+thing that keeps us from making mountains out of molehills, and that
+gives us the courage to smile instead of cry. Happy the woman who has
+this gift, and thrice happy the man who gets her for a wife.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+GRAFTING ON THE OLD FOLKS
+
+
+It is a curious thing, in a way it is a beautiful thing, and it’s a
+selfish thing, that children rarely ever think of their parents as
+human beings. Children think of their fathers and mothers as the source
+whence all blessings flow or they think of them as an avenging justice.
+But it seldom occurs to them that their parents are men and women, in
+addition to being parents; that they have the same preferences and long
+for the same pleasures as other people, and that they have a few rights
+that even their children should respect.
+
+Of course, a small child unquestionably takes for granted all that
+its parents give and do for it. It is merely the order of nature that
+Mother should appear at its bed with the cup of water for which it
+cries out in the night; that Mother should clean up the dirt it brings
+into the house and spend hours over the stove cooking the things it
+likes to eat; and that Father should work while it plays and go shabby
+to give it fine clothes.
+
+As they grow up, children continue to demand more and more of their
+parents. They bleed Father and Mother white for the things they want.
+They are not intentionally cruel, but they will take the last dollar
+they can wring out of the family purse without ever once thinking that
+Father and Mother might like to spend some of the money they earn
+on themselves and in gratifying their own desires. And, curiously
+enough, even after they have grown to man’s and woman’s estate, the
+great majority of people still hold to this point of view about their
+parents. In regulating their lives, they do not take their parents’
+rights into consideration. They do not say, “My father and mother have
+sacrificed enough for me; they have done enough for me. Now I will
+stand on my own feet, and be as little a burden as possible to them.”
+
+Of course, the most flagrant illustration of this is found in the
+loafer sons and daughters who let their old parents work and support
+them. We all know husky, able-bodied young men who play golf while
+Father slaves in an office, and strapping big girls who perform on the
+piano while Mother is performing on the gas range. Apparently, it never
+crosses the mind of these despicable young people that after they are
+old enough to support themselves they have no right to sponge upon
+their parents, and graft their living off them. Still less do they ever
+think that Mother and Father would like to take things easier as they
+grow older, and indulge in a few of the luxuries they have had to deny
+themselves while they were raising and educating their children.
+
+Another illustration of how little children regard the rights of their
+parents you may see in the nonchalance with which young mothers turn
+over their children to their own mothers. When Sally wants to go to a
+bridge luncheon or Maud wants to take a trip, they dump the children
+down on Mother. When Clarabell wants to go to Europe for the summer,
+she doesn’t worry at all as to what to do with the children. She leaves
+them, with a thousand instructions as to diet and clothes, and manners
+and morals, with Mother. So that in innumerable families Mother becomes
+nothing but a sort of universal nursemaid.
+
+It would shock these daughters to be told what a mean, selfish thing
+they do in not standing by and doing their own baby tending as Mother
+did hers. They, themselves, know what it is to walk the colic—what
+broken nights mean, how incessant must be the care given little
+children—how nerve-racking children’s noise is. Yet they foist this
+burden on Mother without a pang of compunction because they are so used
+to seeing her doing everything for them.
+
+It never occurs to them that she would like to fold her hands in a
+little peace and rest; furthermore, that she has earned it by bringing
+up one family, and her daughters haven’t any right to make her
+substitute on raising another one.
+
+Then there are the children who lay their matrimonial burdens on their
+parents. John gets married before he is earning enough to support a
+family. Susie marries a ne’er-do-well, in spite of all efforts to
+prevent it. Fanny discovers that the man to whom she is married is not
+her soul mate, and gets a divorce, and comes back home with two or
+three children. None of these selfish young people, bent on gratifying
+their own desires, considers Father’s and Mother’s rights in the
+matter, yet the parents, in the end, are the real sacrifices.
+
+They can’t let John and his wife and children starve, and so the money
+that Father and Mother had saved up for their old age goes in pittances
+to help him along. They can’t shut the door in Fanny’s face when she
+comes back with her divorce and her half-orphaned children, so Father
+works harder, and Mother pinches and economizes more to raise and
+educate this second family that their children have thrown upon them.
+Surely there is no other thing that children need to realize so much as
+that their parents have some rights. Perhaps if they understood this,
+and that after a man and a woman have raised a family of children they
+have a right to peace and quiet and their own money, there would be
+fewer parasitic sons and daughters.
+
+Perhaps, if they realized that parents had rights, more young people
+would consider how their marriages would react on their parents, and
+many a disgruntled wife would carry on with a marriage that wasn’t
+perfectly congenial rather than burden her old parents with her own and
+her children’s support.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+ARE YOU A GOOD FATHER?
+
+
+Are you a good father to your daughter, Mr. Man? You smile derisively
+at my question. A good father to your little girl? You’ll tell the
+world you are! Why, she is just the very core of your heart, and there
+hasn’t been a blessed thing that she has wanted since the day she was
+born that you haven’t given her. Why, you have almost broken your neck
+trying to get the moon for her when she cried for it. Pretty dresses,
+fashionable schools, good times, her own car, far more luxuries than
+you could afford her, you have lavished upon her without stint. You
+have kept her wrapped in cotton wool, and she has never known there was
+such a thing as work or responsibility or self-denial in the world. You
+may have failed in many other directions in doing your full duty, but
+you can pat yourself on the back and thank God that you have been a
+good father!
+
+Well, let me tell you that if all you have done for your daughter is
+just to pamper her and spoil her and make her weak and selfish and
+self-centered, you have not been a good father. You have been the
+worst sort of father. You have never looked upon your daughter as
+anything but a pretty doll to dress up and play with, and dolls cannot
+take care of themselves in the rough-and-tumble fight of life. Sooner
+or later they are apt to get broken.
+
+Let me tell you what I consider a good father. A good father is a man
+who doesn’t look upon his daughter as a toy or a piece of bric-a-brac,
+but as a human being who has been born with the heavy handicap of the
+feminine sex upon her. That means that she will always be less strong
+than a boy, less capable of taking care of herself, in far more danger.
+Fewer opportunities will be open to her, and many more perils beset
+her than would a boy. Therefore, she needs more protection. She needs
+to be better trained to deal with the world. So the good father sees
+to it that his girl gets the very best education that she will take.
+Not the flubdub, fluffy ruffles sort, but a solid, practical education
+that develops whatever gray matter she has got in her pretty little
+head, that teaches her to think and reason and that gives her a solid
+foundation on which to rear her house of life.
+
+Then the good father has his daughter taught some profession or trade
+whereby she can earn a living, and he has her follow this occupation
+for at least a year. He does this for many reasons. He does it because
+he knows how easily money is lost, and he wants to know that his
+daughter has in herself the skill and ability to make her own living
+if she is ever thrown on her own resources. He does it because he knows
+the knowledge that she can stand on her own feet and earn her own bread
+and butter and cake, gives a girl a poise nothing else in the world
+can give. He does it because the discipline of a business office,
+the experience in handling money and an insight into the troubles
+and problems of men are the best preparation any girl can have for
+matrimony.
+
+A good father chums with his daughter. He begins being confidential
+with her in her cradle, and this makes it natural that when she grows
+up she should discuss with him the boys who come to see her, and that
+father should be able to form her tastes and assiduously guide her in
+her choice of a husband. Girls know nothing about men. It is impossible
+that they should, but there is nothing about any young chap that father
+can’t find out, and if he knew that this youth had a hectic past, or
+that one drank, or the other one was a trifling ne’er-do-well, it would
+be the simplest thing possible to prevent many an unhappy marriage
+by making daughter see a suitor through the sophisticated eyes of a
+worldly-wise man, instead of the romantic ones of a young girl.
+
+A good father tries to protect his daughter after he is dead. So, when
+he makes his will he leaves her whatever money he has to bequeath her
+tied up good and tight in a trust company so that she cannot touch
+anything but the interest. He knows that every woman who has any
+money is the foredoomed prey of get-rich-quick sharks and all of her
+parasitic relatives. He has seen too many women sell their gilt-edge
+bonds and invest the proceeds in wildcat stock that promised to pay
+40 per cent and never paid a penny. He has seen too many women lend
+their money without security to Deacon Jones, because he prayed so
+beautifully, or to Uncle John, because they didn’t have the nerve to
+say “No” to a member of the family.
+
+Above all, a good father leaves his daughter’s money in trust for her,
+not only to save her money but to save her from friction with her
+husband. He has seen many a man graft his wife’s fortune deliberately,
+and he has seen many more good men, who were poor business men, bring
+their wives to poverty. And he knows that it takes more backbone than
+the average woman possesses to hold on to her money when the man
+she loves is continually asking her for it. So father saves her the
+necessity of any arguments on the subject. Are you doing these things
+for your daughter, Mr. Man? Are you a good father?
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE MORAL MUSCLES OF YOUR CHILDREN
+
+
+The most overdressed and overindulged children are those whose parents
+were poor in their youth. The most undisciplined and uncontrolled
+children are those whose parents were reared in strict and stern
+households. When you see a little girl playing around in a befrilled
+lace and embroidered dress and silk stockings, you do not need to be
+told that at her age her mother wore gingham and went barefooted. When
+you see a young boy splitting the road open in an imported car you
+know that when his father was a lad he trudged on foot to the factory
+with his dinner pail on his arm. When you see ill-mannered young
+people who smoke and drink and carouse and recognize no law but their
+own pleasure; who run roughshod over the rights of others; who have
+no respect for age, and who either patronize their parents or treat
+them with contempt, you know that they are the offspring of fathers
+and mothers who were given few privileges when they were young and who
+were coerced by determined and strong-handed parents into walking the
+straight and narrow path.
+
+Nothing is more common than to hear people say, “I don’t want my
+children to be denied things as I was in my childhood”; “I don’t want
+my children to have to work as I did when I was a child”; “I don’t want
+my children to be suppressed and tyrannized over as I was when I was
+young.”
+
+Indeed, so common is this feeling that sometimes it seems that the
+present generation is being brought up by the rule of contraries, and
+that the only fixed idea that many parents have is to rear their sons
+and daughters exactly opposite from the way they were reared; to give
+them everything they didn’t have and to let them do everything they
+were not permitted to do.
+
+There is something very pathetic in this. It speaks so eloquently of
+the ungratified cravings of childhood, of the weariness of little hands
+that never knew any playtime; of the thwarted desires for pleasure
+at the time of life when one is mad for amusement, and it is easy to
+understand why parents whose own childhood was stinted and dull should
+want to lap their children in luxury and give them all the fun they
+missed. But in trying to save their children the hardships they have
+gone through, they are also cutting their sons and daughters off from
+the experiences that make such men and women as they are themselves—the
+kind of men and women who rise from poverty to fortune and from
+obscurity to fame. For it is not in the lap of ease that successes
+are made. It takes struggle and self-denial and discipline to form
+character.
+
+That is why we have the proverb that it is three generations from shirt
+sleeves to shirt sleeves. The poor man by energy and industry piles
+up a fortune, but because he has had to work and save in his youth he
+teaches his children to be idlers and wasters and spenders, and they
+run through their fortune and their children must go to work again at
+the bottom of the wheel. Probably the children of the self-made man
+have naturally just as much ability as he has, but they nearly always
+amount to nothing, because their foolish father has denied them all
+the advantages he had when he was young and he has enervated them with
+indulgences.
+
+People who have been brought up in puritanic homes almost invariably
+let their children run wild. They put no restraints upon them. They
+demand nothing of them. They resent the lack of liberty they had in
+their youth, and so they give their children license. They do not seem
+to realize that the system at which they rail made good citizens,
+instead of the hoodlums which they are turning out. They do not reflect
+that they owe their health and strength to clean living; that because
+they were made to do things they formed habits of industry; that
+because they were made to do hard things just because it was a duty to
+do them they developed the grit which keeps men and women from being
+quitters; that because they were taught obedience and self-control they
+became captains of their own souls and masters of their fate, instead
+of being the playthings of their passions and emotions.
+
+They must know, if they stop to think at all, how much better fitted
+they were to meet life, how much more secure they were of happiness
+than are their children, who have never been taught to do anything
+they do not want to do, or to deny themselves the gratification of any
+appetite or desire.
+
+For life doesn’t change. The world does not alter and no matter how
+much we would like to soft-pad existence for our children and stand
+between them and every hardship and sorrow, we cannot do it. At the
+last, in one way or another, they must come to grips with fate, and
+when they do the weak and dissolute will perish. The spendthrifts will
+come to want. The self-seekers will have their hearts broken.
+
+Of course, it is a great temptation for parents to lavish upon their
+children everything that money will buy, and it is much easier to give
+strong-willed youngsters their heads and let them go their own gait
+than it is to hold them in check, but that way destruction lies for
+the child. And this is something that parents, who are denying their
+children the struggle of life that made them what they are, might well
+reflect upon.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
+
+
+Undoubtedly there is no other thing over which so many tears are shed
+and which is such a potent source of discord and misery as in-laws.
+Innumerable young women have the happiness of their youth wrecked by
+their quarrels with their mothers-in-law. Innumerable old women have
+their last days made bitter to them by the knowledge that they are
+unwelcome guests in their sons’ houses and that their daughters-in-law
+hate them. Innumerable men are made miserable by being torn between
+the two women they love, who fight over them like dogs over a bone.
+Discussing this subject the other day, a woman who is a mother-in-law
+said:
+
+“Like everything else, the mother-in-law question is a fifty-fifty
+proposition, and when they don’t get along together both are to blame.
+Certainly it isn’t an easy thing for a woman who has run her own
+house and been at the head of everything to take a back seat in her
+daughter-in-law’s home. And it isn’t easy to forget that your children
+are your children and to keep hands off in their affairs and treat
+them with the formality you would strangers.
+
+“On the other hand, most daughters-in-law meet their mothers-in-law
+with a chip on their shoulders and are always hunting for trouble. They
+seem to feel that when a man marries he should forget the mother who
+bore him and wipe out the memory of all the years of close association
+that there has been between them. They are even jealous of the
+slightest attention and consideration that their husbands show their
+mothers.
+
+“They seem to forget that if it wasn’t for these much-resented
+mothers-in-law they wouldn’t have any husbands at all, and that the
+better husbands they have the more they owe to their mothers-in-law.
+
+“For if a man is tender, and kind, and generous, and considerate to
+his wife, it is because his mother has taught him to be chivalrous to
+women. She has trained him to be a good husband just as she has trained
+him to be a good citizen, and he honors and respects his wife because
+he so greatly honors and respects his mother.
+
+“You never saw a bad son who was a good husband. You never hear of a
+man who abused and cursed his mother, and regarded her as only a slave
+to wait upon him, who didn’t treat his wife the same way. And so we
+mothers who raise up clean, straight sons, who enter into marriage with
+high ideals and a determination to cherish their wives and make them
+happy, have done the girls who get them such a service as they could
+not repay if they were down on their knees before us the balance of
+their days.
+
+“But if any daughter-in-law has ever lifted her voice in thanks to her
+mother-in-law for teaching her son to be unselfish, or to be generous
+with money, or to pay her the little attentions that women love, I have
+never heard of it.
+
+“And there is another queer thing about daughters-in-law. They seem to
+think that marriage should obliterate a man’s past and break all the
+ties of his life.
+
+“He and his mother may have been the closest of companions; he may have
+asked her advice on every subject and talked over all of his plans with
+her, but woe be unto all concerned if he tries that after he takes a
+wife.
+
+“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the wife grows green-eyed and
+considers it rank treachery to her, and for the sake of peace mother
+and son have to forego the little talks that were such a joy to them
+both or else do this stealthily and hold a stolen rendezvous.
+
+“Yet it does look as if any woman who wasn’t a moron would have sense
+enough to see that any man who could forget his mother and all he owed
+to her would be such a disloyal creature that he would forget his wife
+when some younger and fairer woman came along.
+
+“Of course, the chief charge that our daughters-in-law have against us
+is that we are always meddling in their affairs. Perhaps we do, but
+aren’t our children’s affairs our affairs too? Hasn’t the mother who
+has raised her son to manhood and who has made him strong and capable
+of earning a fine salary a right to say something when she sees his
+hard-earned money being wasted, his home neglected and his health
+ruined by bad cooking?
+
+“If a mother saw her own daughter treating her husband that way, she
+would rebuke her and show her where she was making a fatal mistake, and
+the daughter would not resent it. Why can’t a daughter-in-law take the
+same advice and profit by it, instead of flying at the throat of the
+mother-in-law and considering herself a martyr to mother-in-lawism?
+
+“Of course, there are exceptions to all rules. I know daughters-in-law
+who are real daughters to their husbands’ mothers. I even know
+daughters-in-law who have borne with angelic patience cranky women
+who could not even get along with their own daughters. And I know
+mothers-in-law whose presence is like a benediction in a house and
+others who are firebrands wherever they go. So perhaps there is no
+way to settle the question so long as we are all human and not female
+saints. But God pity the mother who is obliged to live with her
+children, no matter how kind they may be! She is always the fifth
+wheel, and feels it. Perhaps those savages who kill off all the old
+people haven’t such a bad plan of disposing of the question, after
+all.”
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+WHY OUR FAMILIES RILE US
+
+
+A woman wants to know why it is that we find it harder to get along
+with our families than we do with other people, and why our own
+blood-and-kin rile us more than anybody else on earth. Probably the
+main reason why we find it so difficult to live in peace and harmony
+with those who are really near and dear to us is because we are too
+much alike. We have inherited the same traits of character, and when
+these come in collision there is a resounding crash, and the noise of
+wrecked tempers and exploding wrath.
+
+Father, an iron-willed, tyrannical gentleman, who has ruled his little
+world like a despot, cannot get along with John, who is of the same
+fiber, and equally determined to have his own way and do as he pleases.
+Father and John may have a very sincere affection for each other and
+admire each other’s good qualities, but they can never be together an
+hour without getting into a fight over something.
+
+Mother is a born manager, one of the ladies who honestly believe,
+with the famous Frenchman, that she could have saved the Almighty
+from making some mortifying mistakes if she had been consulted at the
+creation. Mary is mother’s own daughter in her perfect belief that she
+knows exactly how to run the universe. What wonder, then, that they
+clash over every gown and hat that is bought; over every man that comes
+to see Mary; over everywhere that Mary goes?
+
+Sometimes the reason that we can’t get along with our own people
+is because we are so entirely different from them. Often and often
+children are changelings, and those of our own flesh have no tie of
+spiritual kinship with us. The father who is a hard-headed, practical
+business man has nothing in common with the son who is a quivering
+bunch of nerves and sensibilities; who is a dreamer of dreams, and who
+counts wealth in terms of beauty, instead of dollars. Mother, who was
+a beauty and a belle in her day, with scores of lovers sighing at her
+feet, has looked forward to reliving her triumphs in her daughter. And
+when daughter grows up to be a big, sturdy young person who wants to
+go into business and who loathes society, what wonder that they get on
+each other’s nerves?
+
+When you hear parents speak bitterly of what a disappointment children
+are, and how ungrateful, it merely means that their children are
+different from them. John insists on being a doctor or a lawyer instead
+of going into the hardware business father has been building up for
+him for twenty years. Mary wants to marry a poor young man, instead of
+the nice, settled, rich widower mother has picked out for her. Other
+people find John brilliant and talented. Father calls him a fool to his
+face because he won’t do father’s way. Other women are sympathetic with
+Mary’s romance, and her willingness to sacrifice riches for love. It
+infuriates mother to see her throwing an establishment and pearls and a
+limousine away, for a sentiment.
+
+Often the reason we cannot get along with our own families is because
+they are like a mirror in which we see our own faults in all their
+hideousness. Father’s lack of ambition that has kept him from making
+anything of his life; mother’s shiftlessness and wastefulness that have
+kept the family poor; brother’s brutal temper; sister’s sharp tongue
+that cuts like a two-edge sword—these irritate us, and we find them
+harder to forgive than we would such defects in other people because we
+know that we are, ourselves, prone to just these weaknesses.
+
+Besides these fundamental reasons why it is hard to get along with our
+relatives, there are a thousand minor causes of discord. One of the
+principal ones is the lack of politeness in the family circle, for most
+people feel that good manners are like good clothes, and should be worn
+only for the benefit of company. It is an amazing but true thing that
+practically the only people who ever say mean, insulting, wounding
+things to us are those of our own household.
+
+Strangers listen to us with apparent interest, and laugh at our
+jokes. Our friends compliment our new frocks and cars. If our casual
+acquaintances do not like our taste or respect our judgment, they keep
+silent about it. It is our families who stab our vanity to the quick
+by yawning in our faces, and asking us if we are going to tell that
+old story over again; who bluntly inform us that our new hat is ten
+years too young for us, and that there is nothing so ridiculous as old
+women trying to be flappers; who criticize the way we are raising our
+children, and tell us the home truths we would rather die than hear.
+
+Still another reason why it is hard to get along with our families is
+because it is generally held that the mere fact that you love people
+gives you a perfect right to nag them. We speak of family ties as
+binding. Binding is right, for in the average home no one can rise up
+or sit down, eat or fast, go or come, without having to give an account
+of why he or she did it or didn’t do it, and being advised to do it
+some other way.
+
+It is for these, and a thousand other reasons, that we find it
+difficult to get along with our families, and fly to those who do not
+feel that they have a right to boss, correct, advise or otherwise
+interfere with us in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+OUR LIVES ARE WHAT WE MAKE THEM
+
+
+You have been in factory towns where more or less benevolent
+corporations have built rows upon rows of houses, each one as like
+its neighbor as peas in a pod. But one house would have dirty,
+grimy, unwashed windows, with old newspapers or rags stuffed in a
+broken window pane. The yard would be filled with old cans and ashes
+and refuse, and the place would look like a shack, unfit for human
+habitation.
+
+The house next door would have bright and shining windows, with clean,
+freshly starched muslin curtains and a gay red geranium in a pot
+showing between them. Flowers would be blooming in the yard, and a
+vine trained over the doorway, and the place would be a home, bright,
+cheerful and attractive. Yet the two houses were exactly alike. The
+only difference was in what the people in them made of them.
+
+One cook can take a cheap cut of meat and a handful of vegetables and
+make of them a ragout, over which an epicure would smack his lips.
+Another cook will take the same meat and vegetables and make of them
+a watery stew, with neither flavor nor nutriment to it. It is the same
+material, but the difference is in the cooks.
+
+That is the way it is all through life. There are a few fortunate
+individuals who seem to be the darlings of the gods, and with whom Lady
+Luck walks hand in hand. And there are also a few miserable ones who
+appear to have been born double-crossed by fate. But the great majority
+of us get a pretty even deal. We have the same family relationships.
+We go to the same schools. We have the same chance to work, and the
+balance is up to us. We are happy or miserable, successful or failures,
+rich or poor, according to what we make out of our lives. We marry,
+millions of us. And set up homes. One out of every seven of the
+marriages ends in divorce. More than three-fourths of the homes are
+wrecked, not because there is anything especially wrong, not because
+either husband or wife is an outbreaking criminal, but because they are
+too ignorant or too selfish to make their marriage a success.
+
+All husbands and wives are cut off the same bolt of humanity. No man is
+perfect. No woman is an angel. No domestic machine runs along without a
+jar or a hitch. Every marriage calls for sacrifices, for patience, for
+forgiveness, endurance, and you get out of it just what you put into
+it—heaven or hell.
+
+You go to homes that simply irradiate peace and love and good
+cheer, where there is a happy and contented man, and a smiling and
+blissful woman: where there are fine children growing up in the right
+atmosphere. And you go to another home that is a place of torment,
+where a surly man snarls and snaps, and a disgruntled woman whines and
+complains, and unruly, uncontrolled children fight like the Kilkenny
+cats.
+
+Yet both of these families started out with the same equipment. Both
+couples were in love when they were married. Both had about the same
+amount of money. Both were called upon to make the same sacrifices.
+Both had the same chances at happiness. Yet one made a success of
+marriage, and the other failed.
+
+We talk about opportunity, and when we fail we lay the blame on luck.
+We say we never had a chance. But the truth is that we are our own
+luck, that we make our own opportunities.
+
+Did you ever think that every day in the year there are thousands of
+green country boys going into every big city, seeking their fortunes,
+and thousands of city boys leaving those same cities because they think
+that everything is overcrowded and overdone, and that they have no
+opportunity there? And many of those country boys will find the chance
+the city boy overlooked, and pick up the fortune he passed by.
+
+The world is full of failures, croaking that there is no money in
+farming or the mercantile business, and warning young men that they
+will starve if they become lawyers, or doctors, or actors, or writers,
+or artists. Yet there are rich farmers with bursting granaries.
+Everywhere millionaire business men. There are world-famous lawyers and
+doctors and matinée idols and men who write best sellers.
+
+And the successes are side by side with the failures, working in the
+same environment, under the same conditions, and the only difference
+is the difference in the men themselves. It is the difference in the
+energy, the grit, the determination, the stick-at-iveness, the heart
+and soul and brains that one man put into his work and the other
+didn’t. Whether we are happy or not depends upon ourselves, for in
+reality we all have pretty much the same raw material with which to
+work.
+
+Sickness, suffering, the death of those we love, disappointment,
+come to us all. The poorest woman alive and the millionairess bear
+their children in the same agony, and weep the same tears over little
+coffins. Money does not buy love, tenderness, nor peace of mind, and
+just as many hearts ache under silver brocade as under cotton.
+
+But we can hold our souls serene if we will. We can keep from fretting.
+We can resolutely extract the sweet instead of the bitter out of life.
+We can dwell on our blessings instead of our miseries, and we can
+acquire a philosophy that will enable us to laugh instead of weep over
+the misadventures that befall us.
+
+For our lives are what we make them. It is all up to us.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+HUSBAND LOSERS
+
+
+Three divorced women were talking together the other day and one of
+them said:
+
+“When we wives lose our husbands we always accuse some other woman of
+having stolen them from us; and we cry out that our husbands are cruel
+ingrates, who have taken the best years of our lives and then thrown
+us aside like broken toys when we were no longer young and beautiful.
+And we pose as blameless martyrs who are the pitiful victims of man’s
+perfidy.
+
+“Of course, it saves our faces to be able to lay all the blame for our
+wrecked homes on others, and it soothes our hurt vanity to be wept over
+as a poor, innocent, deserted wife. But in the still watches of the
+night, when we have it out with our own souls, there are mighty few of
+us who can shrive our consciences and know that we are blameless.
+
+“Most of us know in our heart of hearts that if our husband’s love
+died, we did our part in administering the lethal dose. We may have
+done it through ignorance, through carelessness, through blundering
+stupidity; we may have even done it with the best intentions in the
+world and with the firm conviction that we were forcing down their
+throats a remedy that would cure them of all the little ailments and
+weakness of character from which they suffered. But the point is, we
+did it. We were accessory to the crime, and we could have prevented it
+if we had so wished.
+
+“Now, as you know, my husband forsook me for his secretary. I called
+her a thief who had used her position to rob me of a husband and my
+little children of their father, and I looked upon him with bitterness
+and contempt, as a poor weakling who let an adventuress make him forget
+his honor as a man and his duty to his wife and children. I called
+Heaven to witness that I was innocent and that I had been a good, true,
+virtuous woman, who had always done her duty to her family. It took me
+a long time to see that, if my husband grew weary of me, I had made
+him tired by my incessant nagging and fault finding; that if he ceased
+to love me, it was because I was no longer lovable, and that the other
+woman had not really stolen him from me. I had simply handed him over
+to her on a silver salver.
+
+“You see, I was one of the wives who did not realize that it is easy
+enough to get a husband, but the work comes in in keeping one. I
+thought that after a woman was married she could let herself go, and
+so I never bothered to keep myself dolled up at home, or to try to
+make myself pleasant and agreeable. I went in negligee, both as to
+clothes and manners. Any old rag was good enough to wear at home. Any
+disagreeable topic was a suitable breakfast-table discussion, and I
+felt perfectly free to quarrel with my husband, and criticize him, and
+ridicule all of his little faults and idiosyncrasies.
+
+“I forgot that he went from a sloppy wife to an office where a trim,
+perfectly groomed woman, younger and better looking than I, waited
+for him. I forgot that he went from my nagging and fault finding to a
+girl who was paid to agree with him and whose job depended largely on
+her flattering him and telling him how wonderful and great he was. It
+wouldn’t have been human for him not to constitute a daily comparison
+between us, and it was inevitable that when he did, that I should lose
+out. If I had kept my doors locked and my burglar alarms in working
+order no one could have looted my home. And so I am just as responsible
+for the wreck of it as are those who broke it up.”
+
+“My husband was a gay, pleasure-loving man,” said the second divorcee.
+“He always wanted to be going somewhere. He loved to be in the thick
+of crowds. He adored dancing, and restaurants, and the bright lights.
+He loved fine clothes, and always wanted me to look like a fashion
+plate. Now, I am a serious-minded woman and was brought up to take a
+serious view of things, and I felt it my duty to cure my husband of
+his frivolity by leading him up to what I considered the higher life.
+I began by trying to wean him away from his old friends, on whom I
+turned such a cold shoulder that they soon ceased coming to the house.
+I lectured him about his extravagance and the way he threw away money,
+and finally got possession of the family purse and doled out dimes to
+him. I wouldn’t go out with him of an evening, and I rarely let him go
+without a scene. At first he submitted, but he looked bored and sulky,
+and then he broke out of jail, which was all his home had come to be to
+him, and that was the beginning of the end.
+
+“For, of course, when I wouldn’t play with him he found some other
+woman who would, and who wouldn’t wet-blanket every occasion by her
+moral strictures or spoil every meal at a restaurant by looking at the
+pay check. If I had been willing to flatter him, and jolly him, and
+dance with him, and let him spend his money on me, he would never have
+left me. But I wouldn’t do it, and my austerity got on his nerves. He
+wanted a playmate instead of a censor, and so I feel that I am just as
+much to blame as he was.”
+
+“I lost my husband through ambition,” said the third divorcee. “He
+was an artist of great talent, and I was mad for him to win fame and
+money, so I never let him rest. I prodded him on all the time. I was
+forever a goad in his side, and so I became to him a sort of incarnate
+conscience, a perpetual reminder of all the unpleasant duties of
+life. He was temperamental, a child of impulse, and I became his
+task-mistress, a slave driver to him. Finally he got to the place
+where he could stand it no more, and he eloped with a young girl as
+irresponsible as he was. She will never push him on to success as I
+would have done, but she lets him follow every whim and she will hold
+him, as I could have done if I had had intelligence enough to see that
+you can’t make a work horse out of Pegasus.”
+
+“How much happiness we might save if only our wisdom did not come too
+late,” sighed the first woman.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+MARTHA OR MARY?
+
+
+Clever Mary—who, take it from me, knows her way about—was talking about
+her friend, Martha, the other day.
+
+“Of course, Martha is the Perfect Housewife,” she said, “but she
+is a mighty poor wife. Without doubt, she is a great and glorious
+housekeeper and a cook and baker and cleaner. Never have I seen a
+rumple in her curtains. Her bedspreads are like the driven snow. And
+you could eat off her floors. Her house is so immaculate that her
+husband must feel a perfect stranger in it, and like a bull in a china
+shop.
+
+“But her days are so taken up with work that she has time for nothing
+else—not a minute to read or to play, or to be a companion to her
+husband. In fact, she is so worn out by the time night comes that she
+is too tired to do anything but go to bed.
+
+“Her husband loves to read, but if he sits up late, the light annoys
+her so much that she can’t sleep, so she says. So she nags him until
+he gives it up in disgust. She, herself, never reads anything except
+the advertisements of the department stores in the papers, and the
+thrilling accounts of vacuum cleaners and patent breakfast foods in the
+backs of the magazines. And when her husband tries to talk to her about
+the things he is interested in—books, sports, his business—he had just
+as well try to ring any other dumbbell.
+
+“Now, I do all my own housework, and I must be a fairly capable
+housewife, for my mother-in-law has put her O.K. on me, and that
+settles that. But there isn’t a spot in my house where we can’t park
+ourselves at any time. My library table is filled with books and
+magazines, and if husband drops ashes and scatters the Sunday papers
+all over the place, I let him, and gently and painlessly remove them
+after he has passed on.
+
+“I don’t really know anything about sports. I wouldn’t recognize a
+home run if I met it on the street, but when hubby wants to talk about
+baseball I assume an intelligent expression. And I am never too tired
+to play with my husband. I grab my hat the minute he suggests the
+movies. I can get ready to go anywhere in an hour. I just adjust my
+complexion—Martha considers that a real vice—and we are off.
+
+“Martha can’t understand why my husband very rarely goes away from
+home of an evening and almost never without me—while hers beats it
+to the corner drug store as soon as he has eaten his superexcellent
+dinner. And I just can’t make her see that it is because she puts her
+house before him. She worships cleanliness and order, and sacrifices
+everything to them. The first thing Martha knows, she is going to lose
+her husband, and she will go around wailing and weeping and telling how
+hard she worked and what a good housekeeper she was. She never will
+know that she literally drove him away from her with a broom handle.
+
+“I told Martha the other day that if she would spend less time
+polishing her mahogany and more time polishing her finger nails and
+rubbing up her mind, it would be better for her. But she just smiled
+that superior smile that a model housekeeper always bestows on the
+woman whom she suspects of having dust on the back pantry shelf, and
+made a dive for a basement sale of somebody’s patent cleaning fluid.”
+
+Mary is right. Cleanliness and order are two of the domestic virtues
+that may easily be converted into vices. We all know spick and span
+houses that are no more homes than a shiny tin box would be. Nobody
+would dare disarrange a sofa cushion in one of them. Nobody would have
+the courage to move a chair from its appointed place. To track a bit of
+mud on one of the shining floors would be a high crime and misdemeanor.
+To leave anything hanging around would be a sacrilege unspeakable.
+
+Husband and children flee these temples of order and cleanliness as
+they would a torture chamber. And they live in dread and fear of the
+woman who has worked herself cross and irritable attaining her ideal of
+housewifery. Most of the real homes are places not too bright and good
+for human nature’s daily use. They are places where you can take your
+ease; places run on a flexible schedule and only reasonably clean and
+orderly.
+
+Doubtless, the old lady who laid down the maxim, “Feed the brute,” as
+a rule for retaining a husband’s affections said a wise mouthful to
+women. But more is to be added, for man does not live by bread alone,
+and it is just as important to feed his soul as his stomach. Every
+woman who fails to give her husband good, nourishing food fails as a
+wife, but she fails even more if she does not give him companionship.
+For, after all, there is a good restaurant on every corner where a man
+can satisfy his physical hunger, but none but his wife can minister to
+his spiritual hunger. Foolish is the woman who doesn’t realize this and
+who spends her time keeping her house clean instead of making it a home.
+
+But that is the trouble with matrimony. A woman can’t be either a
+Martha or a Mary. To be a good wife she has got to be both.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+THE T. B. M. AT HOME
+
+
+A man wants to know if I don’t think his wife is very wrong and foolish
+to be hurt and offended because he is often irritable and cross at
+home. He says that she knows that he adores her, and that he is a model
+of all the standardized domestic virtues, but that he works all day
+under a terrific strain, and by the time night comes his nerves are
+worn to a frazzle. He thinks that his wife should appreciate this, and
+that instead of further rasping them with argumentation, she should
+apply a soothing emolument to them.
+
+I agree with the gentleman that it is always the part of prudence for
+a wife to give the soft answer that turneth away wrath, instead of
+retorting with a snappy comeback when her husband makes a nasty crack
+at her. It certainly doesn’t add to the peace and harmony of a home
+for a wife to be ready to jump into her fighting clothes every time
+her husband makes a pass at her. Nothing comes of family rows but
+bitterness, and anger, and disillusion. Nor does any love long survive
+them.
+
+I also agree with the gentleman that any woman who has cut her wisdom
+teeth on matrimony should be able to assay her husband’s temper
+and tell how much of it is due to raw nerves and how much to pure
+cussedness, and so know when to spread the salve and when to hand him a
+solar-plexus blow. Furthermore, I opine that a wife who starts anything
+with her husband at evening until after he is fed and rested, and has
+had his smoke and his paper unmolested, deserves to be put in the Home
+for the Incurably Feeble-Minded for the balance of her natural life
+or else bound over by the courts to keep the peace. For she is either
+lacking in brains or just loves a fight for the fight’s sake.
+
+It is the greatest possible pity that women haven’t more sense of humor
+than they have, for if they did they would be able to laugh at many
+things their husbands do over which they shed scalding tears. It would
+enable them to see how really funny it is for a big man to get into a
+babyish tantrum over nothing and how much easier it is to kid him out
+of it than it is to make a scene over it. Unhappily, however, few women
+have a funny bone, and fewer still can see the joke when it is on them,
+and so husbands and wives meet temper with temper and irritability with
+irritability, and the domestic war goes merrily on.
+
+The mistake that most wives make is in taking their husbands too
+seriously. They have heard so much about the mighty masculine
+intellect that they think their husbands are profound, thoughtful human
+beings who mean every word they say and whose every act is part of a
+deeply considered plan of life. Whereas the truth is that men babble
+just as meaninglessly as women do, and are the creatures of impulse.
+Also, women are under the misapprehension that they have a monopoly on
+nerves, and that hysterics are the sole prerogative of the feminine sex.
+
+These beliefs make women attach a significance to the things that men
+say and do to which they are not entitled; and it makes them “get their
+husbands wrong” and break their hearts over crimes that the poor,
+blundering men do not even know that they are committing.
+
+In consequence whereof the wife’s feelings are in a constant state of
+laceration, and she meets each hard knock with a still harder one, or
+else goes off and salts her wounds down in the brine of her tears.
+
+Now, no one will argue that a human cyclone is a pleasant companion
+to live with, nor would any sane woman pick out a man who is giving
+a life-like imitation of the Day of Wrath with whom to spend her
+evenings. But, all the same, women make themselves unnecessarily
+miserable by taking their husbands’ humors too seriously.
+
+The cruel speeches that stab the wife to the soul are not prompted by
+malice toward her. They are the reaction of nerves that have been
+frazzled to the breaking point by the worries of the day at the office.
+The frozen silence which the wife finds it so hard to endure is just
+sheer exhaustion of mind and body, and the woman who can just take her
+husband’s moods this way can not only save herself many a tearfest, but
+can make her husband eat out of her hand by feeding him and laughing at
+him and jollying him along.
+
+Certainly, the woman who is married to a nervous, overworked man might
+well do a little mental balancing of accounts and check off a lot of
+temper, and impatience, and unreason, and fault finding against the
+finery he gives her, and the success he has achieved, of which she is
+so proud and which he has literally bought with his life’s blood. She
+might well forgive his faults and deal leniently with them, since they
+are the direct result of his struggle to lap her in luxury.
+
+She is, believe me, a discerning and a tender wife who answers her
+husband’s irascible speeches with a pat on the head and a “there,
+there, it’s all right,” as she would a sick and fretful child, instead
+of going to the mat with him.
+
+So much for the wife’s side of the question. Now for the husband’s.
+
+Business furnishes no alibi for surliness, and grouchiness, and
+general disagreeableness. No man has a right to come home at night
+and dump down on his own hearthstone all the nerves, and temper, and
+irritability he has kept bottled up in him all day.
+
+Because a woman has the misfortune to be a man’s wife is no reason he
+should insult her and say to her things that he would not say to any
+other woman who had an able-bodied brother, or that he would not dream
+of saying to any woman who had $10 to spend across his counter, or who
+was his client, or his patient.
+
+If a man can control his temper and his tongue in dealing with the
+outside world, he can control it still at home. If he can be polite and
+courteous and flattering to other women, he can make the same gracious
+speeches to his wife, instead of growling like a bear when she asks
+him a simple question. And if he has any sense of honor, he will be
+the more careful of what he says to his wife than he is to the others,
+because his attitude means nothing to them, but his wife’s whole
+happiness is dependent on the way he treats her.
+
+Nor does the fact that he overworks excuse a man’s irritability at
+home. Nine wives out of ten would rather have a little more amiability
+from their husbands and less money, if they had to choose between the
+two. The beloved husbands and wives are not those who work themselves
+into a state of nervous irritability for their families. They are those
+who keep themselves calm, and good natured, and pleasant to live with.
+
+To expect other people to overlook our temper and forgive the cross
+and cruel speeches that we flash out at them without provocation is
+demanding too much of human nature.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET YOUR HUSBAND SEE YOU LOVE HIM
+
+
+A woman asks this question: “Is it wise for a wife who loves her
+husband devotedly to let him see how dear he is to her? Does the
+knowledge that her heart is his for keeps make him undervalue it? Does
+she best keep his interest in her alive by keeping him on the anxious
+seat? After all, a husband is still a man, and we know that before
+marriage the more difficult a woman is to win the more a man chases
+her; and the more a woman throws herself at a man’s head the more
+adroitly he dodges her. So the question is, Does this same state of
+affairs continue after marriage? Do men want their wives to blow hot
+and cold, as they do their sweethearts, or do they desire them to be a
+good, steady, reliable fire on the hearthstone?”
+
+A man’s attitude toward love undergoes a complete change on his wedding
+day. During his courtship, the thing that has been of more importance
+to him than anything else in the world has been the state of mind
+of his lady love. It has been a wonderful, sentimental adventure
+following all her moods and tenses, and plumbing the depths of her
+emotions. It has roused his sporting blood for her to be coy and
+difficult. Taking her away from his rivals was a game of fascinating
+intrigue, and he thrilled with the sense of being a conquering hero
+when she finally surrendered to him.
+
+But marriage is another pair of sleeves. It is a different
+story altogether. A man marries to end romance, not to have it
+to-be-continued-in-our-next serial that will run on the balance of his
+life. He wants to be done with doubts, and fears, and heart burnings,
+and speculation about the woman he loves, so that he will be free to
+give his undivided attention to his business.
+
+Therefore the tactics that won a woman a husband do not serve to hold
+him, and the wife who tries to pique her husband’s interest in her by
+her flirtations with other men is more apt to land in the divorce court
+than to strengthen her position in the domestic love nest. For men do
+not wish to be kept guessing about their wives. They want to be sure
+of them. The man who is married to a woman who plays around with other
+men and who keeps him on the ragged edge of nervous prostration with
+jealousies and suspicions does not think that he has drawn a capital
+prize in the matrimonial lottery. On the contrary, he thinks that he
+has been gold-bricked, and he is not crazy over his bargain.
+
+No woman need be afraid to let her husband know how much she loves him,
+because her love makes the strongest claim she can possibly have upon
+him. Many a man who has made an unsuitable marriage with a woman with
+whom he had no real companionship; many a man who has outgrown the
+woman he married in his youth, is kept faithful to her by the knowledge
+of her devotion to him. It takes a brute to hurt the one who worships
+you, or to leave the one whose whole life is bound up in you.
+
+Nor is there any charm of mind or person that appeals to a man so
+much as just the certainty of a wife’s love and the sure knowledge
+that if all the world turned against him, there is one who would
+still be standing shoulder to shoulder with him; some one who would
+go down to the gates of death with him, or wait outside of the prison
+gates for him; some one whom neither disease nor poverty nor disgrace
+would alienate from him. The coquettish woman who thinks to keep her
+husband’s affection for her at fever heat by keeping him uncertain of
+her has no such hold upon her man as has the wife whose husband’s heart
+doth safely trust in her, sure that whatever else fails him in life,
+her love will never fail.
+
+A wife need not be afraid to show her husband her love, because men
+are just as heart hungry as women are. They crave affection and
+appreciation just as much as women do, and they long just as much as
+women do to be petted and fussed over.
+
+No complaint is more common from women than that their husbands stop
+all love-making at the altar with a suddenness that jars the very
+marrow of their bones. They say that the men to whom they are married
+never seem to think that they long to be told that they are still loved
+and admired, and that they have made good as wives. They yearn for a
+kiss that is warm with passion, instead of a duty peck on the cheek
+that has about as much flavor to it as a cold batter cake.
+
+But, apparently, it never occurs to these wives who are starving for
+some sign of real living affection themselves that their husbands are
+also on the bread line, mutely begging for a stray crumb of love. They
+do not realize that a great big, husky, successful man could want to
+be chucked under the chin, and babied, and told that he was the most
+booful thing on earth, and that his wifeikins got down on her knees and
+thanked God every night because she was lucky enough to get him, and
+that every day, in every way, she loved him better and better.
+
+Yet there isn’t a man in the world that wouldn’t worship a wife who
+handed him that line of chatter, and who wouldn’t walk mighty straight
+and reverently before one who opened the doors of her heart and let
+him see that he was enshrined therein. No. No wife need be afraid of
+letting her husband know how much she worships him. For it is love that
+makes the world go round, and that greases the wheels of matrimony.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+QUEER THINGS ABOUT MARRIAGE
+
+
+Did you ever think how many queer things there are about marriage? To
+begin with, isn’t it queer that we permit boys and girls to get married
+at an age at which they are not permitted to make any other binding
+contract? The law appoints guardians to look after the property of
+minors, and prevent them from squandering it, or being cheated out of
+it by sharpers, but there is no legal safeguard to save foolish girls
+and boys from throwing away their life’s happiness on an ill-advised
+marriage.
+
+At a time of life when we consider a lad’s judgment too immature for
+him to make a thousand-dollar investment, we assume that he is worldly
+wise enough to pick out a life mate. At an age when we think a girl’s
+taste too unformed and too hectic to select her own clothes, we let her
+choose a husband.
+
+Isn’t the casual attitude we take toward matrimony queer?
+
+Marriage is the most important act in our lives, the thing that not
+only makes or mars us, but that affects thousands of people yet to be.
+Compared with marriage, being born is a mere episode in our careers,
+and dying a trivial incident. Yet there is no other thing that we do to
+which we give as little intelligent, serious thought.
+
+If we were going into a business partnership to invest our entire
+fortune, we would think a long time before we committed ourselves. We
+would consider the proposition from every angle. We would look into its
+weak spots and try to form an honest opinion of its chances of success.
+And we would investigate the past record of the man we were proposing
+to go into business with, and find out everything about him.
+
+We would ascertain what sort of a life he had led, how honest and
+honorable he was, how much he was to be trusted, and what sort of a
+disposition he had, whether he was pleasant to get along with or not.
+Yet the worst harm that our business partner could do us would be
+to cheat us out of our money. He couldn’t break our hearts and make
+our lives miserable. If we didn’t like him, we could dissolve the
+partnership without any trouble or disgrace.
+
+But nine times out of ten those who enter into the marriage contract,
+which is the most binding contract of all, do not take the trouble to
+make even the slightest investigation about the one with whom he or she
+is making a life partnership. Every day we read of people who discover
+that they are married to bigamists. Every day some husband stumbles
+into his wife’s skeleton closet, and finds that the woman whom he
+believed pure and innocent has a dark and sordid past. Every day some
+agonized mother looks at her deformed or idiotic babe, and sees that
+the sins of the father have been visited on her child.
+
+The man was handsome, and he danced well, and he had a dandy sport
+model car. The girl was pretty, and she had a cute trick of looking
+up through her lashes, or a baby stare, so they got married without
+bothering to find out a single thing about the kind of life each
+had led before they met. They wouldn’t have bought a house without
+having had an expert see that its title was clear and that there
+was no mortgage on it, but they will marry without finding out what
+sort of encumbrances are on the lives of their husbands and wives.
+They wouldn’t buy a horse or a dog without looking into its pedigree
+and finding out what sort of stock it comes from, and whether it is
+sound in wind and limb, but they will pass diseased blood on to their
+children with no thought of the sort of heredity with which they are
+cursing them.
+
+Isn’t it queer that men and women fail to consider the dispositions of
+those they marry? Yet that is the thing that people have to live with,
+and it is what makes marriage a success or a failure. It isn’t high
+and noble principles; it isn’t truth and honor and honesty that makes
+or mars a man’s or woman’s happiness in marriage. It is the temper of
+their husbands or wives. A man may be a model of all the virtues, and
+yet if he is stingy and grouchy and gloomy, his wife will be miserable
+with him. A woman may be as chaste as Cæsar’s wife, yet if she nags,
+her husband will rue the day he led her to the altar.
+
+All men and women know this, yet a girl will go along and marry a man
+who even before marriage gets the sulks over every little thing that
+goes wrong, with whom she has to always walk on eggs to avoid riling
+him, and who carries his small change in a purse with a snap lock. And
+a man will marry a thin, nervous, irritable girl, who is always getting
+peeved about everything, and who never can say a thing and let it rest.
+And they both wonder after marriage why marriage is a failure, and why
+they can’t get along together.
+
+Isn’t it queer that people don’t pick out the kind of husbands and
+wives that they want, and that will suit them?
+
+A man who is a student will marry a silly little girl who hasn’t two
+ideas in her head to rub together. In the days of courtship it was
+inevitable that he should take the measure of her brainlessness and
+find out that when he talked to her of books that he spoke of an
+unexplored world to her, and that when he discussed the things in which
+he was interested she yawned in his face. Nor could he help perceiving
+that her chatter was the chatter of a magpie, and the things in which
+she delighted were things that bored him stiff.
+
+His common sense shrieked to him that marriage between two people who
+had not one single idea, nor an ideal, nor a thought, nor a desire, in
+common was bound to be a failure. But the man, wise and sophisticated
+in other things, but clinging blindly to his superstitious belief in
+the potency of the marriage ceremony, refused to heed the warning.
+
+Somehow, he was confident that just getting married would change a
+silly, ignorant girl into an intellectual woman who would be a fit
+companion to him; miraculously render one who had never even read a
+sixth best-seller familiar with the world’s best literature, and make
+her prefer to discuss world topics to gossip about the people next door.
+
+We wonder why poor men marry fashion-plates; why men who love to eat,
+marry girls who loathe the kitchen; why quiet, domestic men marry
+girls who live to dance and go to cabarets. They are all poor, blind
+heathen, trusting in the marriage ceremony to make an extravagant girl
+economical, a frivolous girl serious, an undomestic girl domestic.
+
+Isn’t it queer? Not only do we superstitiously believe in the power of
+the marriage ceremony to change other people, but we actually think it
+will change ourselves.
+
+The philanderer believes that he will never cast a roaming eye at
+another woman as soon as he is married. The loafer believes that he
+will be filled full of pep and energy by the mere fact of having a
+wife to work for. The stingy, selfish man is confident that he will
+enjoy spending money on his family. The girl who has never thought of
+anything but dolling herself up and having a good time believes that
+as soon as she is married she won’t care any more for fine clothes or
+going about, and that she will be perfectly satisfied to stay at home
+and save her husband’s money and cook him good things to eat.
+
+But alas! the miracle of the marriage ceremony no more works on us than
+it does on those we marry. Long before the honeymoon has waned we make
+the discovery that somehow the mysterious something that was to change
+us didn’t take, and that we are the same old individuals, with the
+same old tastes and desires that we always had. Then to so many comes
+the cold, bitter knowledge that they are tied for life to one who is
+utterly uncongenial, to one who bores them and gets upon their nerves.
+And, queerest of all is it that no matter how unhappily people have
+been married, when death or divorce sets them free, they nearly all
+want to try matrimony over again!
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+HUSBANDS—THE LIVING CONUNDRUM
+
+
+A woman writes me that she has been married to a man for sixteen years,
+yet she has never got acquainted with him. She says he is good and
+kind, but indifferent to her. He never finds fault with her and never
+praises her. He spends his evenings at home by his own fireside, but a
+mummy would be just about as conversational. All of this has got the
+woman guessing, and she can’t figure out whether her husband still
+cares for her or not, or whether he regards his marriage as a success
+or a failure.
+
+Good gracious, sister, don’t imagine for an instant that you have
+anything unique in the way of a husband! All men are full of curious
+peculiarities, and no woman ever gets acquainted with one, no matter
+whether she has been married to him for sixteen years or sixty. For, as
+an old colored friend of mine says: “Husbands is the most undiscovered
+nation of people there is.”
+
+No woman ever understands, for instance, why it is that a man who was
+an ardent and impetuous wooer turns into a husband with about as much
+sentiment and pep to him as a cold buckwheat cake, as soon as the
+marriage ceremony is said over him. Nor can she form any idea of why
+the man who was willing to risk his life to get her takes so little
+interest in her after he has got her. She cannot doubt that he loved
+her, because he gave great and indisputable proof of that by assuming
+her support for life. Nor can she see any reason for his change of
+attitude. She still carries the same line of bait with which she caught
+him. She still has the same eyes that he likened to violets drenched
+in dew, but he doesn’t notice them. She still has the same white hands
+that he used to hold by the hour, but if she wants anybody to hold them
+now she has to hunt up some man to whom she is not married. No woman
+can ever understand why a man doesn’t put forth the same effort to make
+his home a going concern as he does to make his business or profession
+a success.
+
+If every man tried to sell himself to his wife as he does to his
+employer, or a big customer, or a valuable client, there would be no
+disgruntled, dissatisfied married women in the world. If every man
+studied his wife’s peculiarities of disposition; if he played on her
+weaknesses as deftly and handled her as tactfully as he does a merchant
+who is about to place a big order, or a rich patient, every wife in the
+land would be eating out of her husband’s hand. If every man paid his
+wife a fair wage for her services, as he does his stenographers and
+clerks, it would take the heaviest curse off matrimony for millions of
+wives.
+
+But, altho to have a contented wife and a peaceful and happy home means
+more to a man than to make a million dollars, not one man in a hundred
+ever gives any real serious thought or makes any honest effort to make
+his marriage a success. He leaves the most important thing in his life
+to chance, and he wins out or loses, according to whether fortune is
+with him or not. Women never can understand why their husbands refuse
+to handle them diplomatically, when it would be money in their pockets
+to use the velvet glove instead of the strong-arm method.
+
+Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into doing anything, and
+doing without anything. He knows that if he hands her a few cheap
+compliments about what a wonderful manager she is and how she helps
+him, she will squeeze every nickel. Every man knows that if he tells
+his wife how beautiful and lovely she looks in her last year’s dress,
+she wouldn’t trade it off for the latest Paris importation. Every man
+knows that he can kiss his wife’s eyes shut until she will be blind as
+a bat, and that he has only to give her a warm smack on the lips to
+make her dumb as an oyster.
+
+And every wife knows that her husband knows these things about her,
+because she has furnished him with a complete diagram about how to work
+her. And she never knows whether to be mad at him or disgusted with
+him, because he would rather fight with her and pay for it in having to
+eat bad meals, and having his money wasted and buy her new frocks and
+limousines and pearls, than to take the trouble to flatter her a little
+and treat her the way she is begging to be treated.
+
+Most of all, women never can understand why their husbands are so
+stingy with words, which surely are among the cheapest commodities on
+earth. Above everything else, every wife yearns for words of love, for
+words of praise from her husband. Just to have her husband pet her, to
+have him say to her that she grows dearer and dearer to him every day,
+and that he thanks God for giving her to him, pays any woman for all
+the sacrifice, all the work, all the suffering that marriage brings
+her. It makes her heart sing with joy, and the lack of it fills her
+life with tears of despair.
+
+Every man knows this. Every man knows that he can make his wife happy
+with just a few words, and yet he withholds them. Even the men who
+really love their wives and appreciate all that their wives do for them
+refuse to give the starving souls the words that would be the bread
+of life to them. No. No wife ever gets acquainted with her husband.
+Husbands always keep us guessing to the end of the chapter. Perhaps
+that is why we all want one of these living conundrums.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
+
+
+Among my acquaintances is a woman who has a pretty little flapper
+daughter. The girl is a good little girl, as playful and innocent as
+a kitten. But she bobs her hair, and paints her face, and rouges her
+lips, and likes to jazz, and joy-ride, and have a good time just as
+thousands of other girls of her age and class are doing. All this
+greatly outrages the mother, who tells her daughter that, in her day,
+decent girls didn’t paint their faces, or shimmy, and that they stayed
+at home evenings and read good books, instead of running around with
+japanned-haired boys. And then she winds up her preachment by accusing
+her daughter of doing things which she does not do, and prophesying
+that she will come to a bad end. Of course, it is mother love and
+mother anxiety that makes this woman keep continually before the girl’s
+eyes the fate of those who follow the road of pleasure. It never enters
+her head that she may be precipitating on her child the catastrophe she
+dreads, but that is precisely what she is doing.
+
+She is making the girl feel that she is sophisticated and
+worldly-wise—one of the wild, wild women. She is giving the flavor of
+forbidden fruit to what would otherwise be harmless little amusements.
+She is making the girl reckless, because she is making her believe that
+she is under suspicion and is being talked about. Worst of all, she is
+firmly implanting in the girl’s mind the idea that she is expected to
+go wrong.
+
+And if anything in the world will put the skids under a girl, it is
+for her own mother to be continually impressing upon her that she is a
+wrong ’un.
+
+When you observe the dealings of parents with their children the thing
+at which you wonder most is that fathers and mothers never seem to
+realize the power of suggestion. Yet it is one of the most potent
+forces in the world, and one that can be directed with almost uncanny
+results to the molding and shaping of the characters of the young.
+It is hardly too much to say that as the parents think, so are the
+children. It is the fixed idea the parents stamp indelibly on the
+plastic childish mind which determines the fate in life of the man or
+woman.
+
+You can, for instance, take a delicate child and literally “think” it
+into health or sickness. If the mother keeps the child forever reminded
+it can’t do what other children do because of its poor heart, it can’t
+eat this or that because of its bad digestion, and that it mustn’t
+be crossed because it is so nervous,—that child will grow up into a
+neurotic invalid. But if the mother impresses on it the thought that
+it is getting well, and is going to be strong and healthy, unless there
+is something radically organically wrong, it will overcome the weakness
+with which it was seemingly threatened.
+
+All of us have seen people actually bring upon themselves diseases they
+believed they had inherited. They had had it impressed on them from
+their infancy that they were bound to die of consumption because all
+the Smiths had tuberculosis. Or, that they were doomed to perish with
+cancer, because cancer was in the Jones family. Or, to have rheumatism
+because the Simkins were all rheumatic, and they died of what they
+believed to be inherited diseases that science has proved not to be
+inheritable.
+
+It is tragic to think how many parents have killed the children they
+loved by putting the death thought upon them, and by making them
+believe that they were doomed, and that there was no use in their
+trying to be strong and well. It is still more tragic to think of the
+millions of people who are failures in the world because their fathers
+and mothers have sapped their courage, and slain their initiative by
+implanting in their minds the conviction that they were dolts and had
+not the ability to succeed.
+
+Once establish the inferiority complex in a child’s mind, and it is
+done for. It accepts the belief that it has no ability to do things,
+and it attempts nothing. It makes no struggle to rise. It slumps
+into the humble position its parents have assigned it. This is why
+perpetual fault-finding with a child intensifies its faults. To nag
+Johnny continually about his awkwardness, makes him still more awkward.
+To be forever calling attention to Tom’s shyness, makes him shrink
+more and more out of sight. To fret at Bob’s dulness, makes him feel
+that there is no hope for a boy who isn’t quick and alert. Many men
+never have the courage to demand their just deserts and take the place
+to which they are entitled in business and society because they were
+made self-conscious in their childhood. They had it so impressed on
+their minds that they were blundering louts, and stupid fools, that
+they shrank within themselves, and never had the nerve to push their
+fortunes.
+
+And just as you can make a child a failure by holding the thought of
+its inferiority before it, you can do much to make it a success by
+holding the thought of achievement before it. We unconsciously strive
+to be what the people about us expect of us. If Jimmie knows that he
+has a reputation for beautiful manners, he will act as a gentleman. If
+Tom knows you expect him to make a mark at school or in business, he
+will try to make good. If Mary knows you do not think it possible for
+her to be anything but sweet and innocent, she is not likely to tarnish
+your ideal.
+
+The power of suggestion is so far reaching in its influence that
+fathers and mothers should be careful how they use it, and avoid
+implanting a weak thought, an evil thought, a thought of failure in
+their children’s minds as they would avoid giving them poison.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+WOMAN’S MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY
+
+
+As a sex women are highly altruistic. There is scarcely a movement in
+the world for the uplift of humanity or for ameliorating the sorrows of
+the poor and helpless that does not owe its existence to women. It is
+women who support the orphan asylums, the homes for old men and women,
+the reformatories, the houses for the blind, the places of refuge where
+the man just out of prison can go and gather himself together before
+starting out on a better life. It is women who nurse in hospitals, and
+who carry on mainly the work of the Red Cross and the fight against
+the great White Plague. Joan of Arc is the great feminine heroine.
+The women that other women envy most are not the great beauties and
+sirens of history, or the famous actors and writers, but the Florence
+Nightingales and Frances Willards who have been able to do some great
+service to their fellow creatures. And deep down in her secret heart,
+if every woman was granted her one great wish, it would be to be able
+to help her day and generation to make others happier, and to perform
+some miracle that would make life easier for all who come after her.
+
+Well, little as she realizes it, that power is possessed by every woman
+who has children. In her hands lies the remedy for the greatest sorrow
+that tears at the hearts of men and women. She can wipe away half of
+the tears of the world. She has the magic that can change innumerable
+lives from misery to joy. For the greatest trouble in the world is
+domestic trouble. The bitterest disappointment is a marriage that is
+a failure. There is no place of torment so hard to endure as a home
+of bickering and strife. No enemy can stab you to the heart as does a
+cold, selfish, unkind husband or wife.
+
+It lies within the power of mothers to put an end to all this misery,
+to stop divorce and the breaking up of homes, and the orphaning of
+helpless little children. It is in their power to provide every man and
+woman with a good husband and wife, to make every home a prosperous and
+peaceful one, and to save other mothers from the agony of seeing their
+children mistreated by the men and women to whom they are married.
+There is no more appalling thought than that every woman could raise
+her children up to be good husbands and wives, and that she does not do
+it. On the contrary, nine times out of ten she brings up her sons and
+daughters to be exactly the kind of husbands and wives from whom she
+prays God on her knees to deliver her own precious darlings.
+
+Most likely the woman is herself the victim of another woman’s cruelty.
+Her own marriage has been wretched because her husband’s mother never
+taught him to treat women with any courtesy, or consideration, or
+chivalry. He was never brought up to consider a woman’s feelings, or
+even to extend to her common justice. As a result, his wife has had to
+walk on eggs to keep from rousing a demoniacal temper. She has had to
+wait on him hand and foot. She has had to wheedle every penny out of
+him, and never since her wedding day has her husband made one move to
+entertain or amuse her, or done anything to make her happy.
+
+It would seem that a woman who had been through the arid desert of such
+a marriage would save some other poor girl from such a fate by raising
+up her son to be a good husband. You would think that she would teach
+him what a terrible crime it is to take a woman’s life into his hands
+and break it; that she would teach him to be gentle and tender to his
+wife; that she would impress upon him that a woman earns her share of
+the family income, and that it should be given to her outright instead
+of being doled out as alms.
+
+You would think that she would ground him, from his infancy up, in the
+knowledge of all the little things that make a marriage a failure or
+a success to a woman—the little attentions, the little treats, the
+word of praise, the compliment on a new dress or hat, the little things
+that make a woman’s heart sing with joy, and that makes marriage worth
+while to her. The great majority of women, however, never even so much
+as think of training their sons to be good husbands. Nor do they train
+their daughters to be good wives. Very few mothers would be willing to
+see their sons marry the kind of girls their daughters are.
+
+Mother has raised her daughters up to be selfish and spoiled and lazy
+and extravagant, and she is ready to foist them without mercy on any
+poor young fellows who are taken with their pretty faces. But Heaven
+defend her own boys from marrying girls who have never considered any
+other human being in the world but themselves, and whose only law is
+their own pleasure! You even hear mothers boast that they have never
+taught their daughters how to cook, or sew, or keep house, yet the
+very foundation of domestic happiness and the prosperity of the family
+depend upon the wife being a thrifty manager and making a comfortable
+home.
+
+Nor do women instil into their daughters’ minds the truth about
+marriage—that it is an obligation that they take upon themselves, and
+that they have no right to throw it up and quit because it is full of
+hardships and self-sacrifice instead of being the joy-ride they thought
+it would be. Neither do mothers pass on to their daughters their own
+hardly won knowledge of how to get along with a husband, how to bear
+with him and forbear, how to jolly him and handle him with tact and
+diplomacy, yet that precious bit of information would save many a
+marriage. Believe me that the most important question that any mother
+can ask herself is this: “Am I raising up my son and daughter to bless
+or curse the woman and man who marry them?”
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+HOW TO BE A GOOD HUSBAND
+
+
+A young man said to me the other day: “I am going to be married, and
+I earnestly and honestly desire to make my wife happy, but beyond a
+vague and rudimentary impression that I must not beat or starve her, I
+haven’t an idea of how to go about the good-husband job. What should a
+man do to keep a woman blessing her lucky stars that she married him,
+instead of wondering what on earth the fool-killer was doing that she
+survived her wedding day?”
+
+“Well, son,” I replied, “your theoretical ground work for being a good
+husband is a sound foundation on which to build, tho refraining from
+beating your wife is not the matter of course thing that you seem to
+think it is. There will be plenty of times when you will want to do so,
+and bitterly regret that no perfect gentleman can lay his hands upon
+a woman save in the way of kindness, no matter how much she needs a
+thrashing or he yearns to give her one.
+
+“While as for giving a wife sustenance and raiment, believe me, that
+to be a good provider is one of the brightest jewels in the crown of
+a good husband. No matter what other charms and virtues a man may
+have, he is a poor makeshift of a husband if he cannot give his wife a
+comfortable living. And, on the other hand, no man is a total failure
+as a husband if he laps his wife in luxuries. Jewels, and motorcars,
+and fine houses, and fine clothes are a consolation prize that takes
+the curse off many a woman’s disappointment in marriage.
+
+“Having, then, accorded your wife considerate treatment and given her a
+good home, the next step in being a good husband is to play fair with
+her on the money question. Get off on the right foot there and you
+will save yourself endless bickerings and prevent her from feeling a
+bitterness toward you that will grow and grow until it will kill out
+all of her affection for you. The first disillusion that many a bride
+gets is when she finds out that the prince of her dreams is a tightwad,
+who haggles with her over the market money and who is so stingy that
+he never gives her a penny of her own. There isn’t a woman in the
+world who is enough of a worm of the dust not to resent having to ask
+her husband for the money she knows she earns as a housewife. So go
+fifty-fifty with your wife on the money proposition. Give her as big an
+allowance as you can afford and be decent enough not to ask her what
+she does with it.
+
+“The next item in being a good husband is to be affectionate to your
+wife. Don’t expect her to take it for granted that you still love her
+because you haven’t applied for a divorce from her. You handed her a
+fine and convincing line of love talk while you were courting her, and
+there is no excuse for your cutting it off and becoming as dumb as an
+oyster just as soon as you’ve got her. No normal woman can live without
+love and be happy. It is just as necessary to her well-being as food
+and drink, and if she is deprived of it she suffers all of the agonies
+of soul starvation, which are worse than those of the body. When you
+marry a woman you isolate her from the love-making of other men, and so
+you are in honor bound to provide her with an ample supply of soft talk
+yourself.
+
+“Therefore, make it a rule of your life to give your wife at least one
+kiss every day that has in it some thrill of love and passion, and
+that isn’t flavored with ham and eggs like the perfunctory peck on the
+cheek or the back of the ear which is all most men hand their wives in
+the osculation line. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t neglect to pay your
+wife compliments. When she has on a new dress tell her how pretty she
+looks and how becoming it is, instead of grunting or demanding to know
+how much it costs. If you have eyes enough to see other women’s pretty
+clothes and intelligence enough to say the right things about them, why
+not about your wife’s, when it will please her to death and make her
+think what a wonderful man she has married?
+
+“The next point in being a good husband consists in doing something
+actively to make your wife happy and showing a human interest in her.
+Many men think they have done their whole duty as husbands when they
+furnish their wives with food and shelter and plenty of money. I have
+heard men excuse themselves for never remembering an anniversary or
+giving their wives a little present by saying that they didn’t know
+what Mary or Sally wanted, and that they had charge accounts at the
+best jewelers and department stores and could buy themselves whatever
+they wanted.
+
+“That kind of thing doesn’t make a woman happy. There isn’t a wife in
+the world who wouldn’t get more thrill out of a dollar string of blue
+beads that her husband bought because they matched her eyes than she
+would out of a pearl necklace that she bought herself on her wedding
+anniversary because her husband had forgotten they were ever married.
+It is the personal touch that counts with women. The sentiment. The
+knowledge that her husband is concerned about her, that he notices when
+she is tired, that he appreciates all that she does, that he tries to
+make her happy and wants to give her every pleasure that he can.
+
+“If you want to be a good husband, son, remember to do the little
+things, and the big things will do themselves. Be affectionate, be
+kind, be appreciative, jolly her instead of finding fault with her. Be
+liberal in the use of flattery and take her to some place of amusement
+at least once a week, and she will thank God on her knees for having
+given you to her for a husband.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+GIVING CHILDREN ADVANTAGES
+
+
+Among my acquaintances is a woman who is always bemoaning the fact that
+she cannot give her children “advantages.” She sheds barrels of tears
+over their not having the “advantages” that the children of the rich
+have. She beats upon her breast and laments that she cannot send her
+boys to college, and give them high-powered motorcars, and when she
+thinks of not being able to dress her daughters like fashion plates
+and send them off to summer and winter resorts, she melts down into a
+perfect pulp of self-pity. After listening to this wail for a number of
+years, I grew exasperated, and said to her:
+
+“What are the advantages that you cannot give your children? Let us
+sit down and consider them dispassionately, and see if your children
+really are so unfortunate, and so handicapped in life as you think
+they are. Let us begin with your not being able to send your boys off
+to college. I grant you that we would all like to give our children
+every possible opportunity to acquire a good education. But not all
+knowledge comes put up in school-book packages. Furthermore, the
+degree a man takes who graduates from the University of Hard Knocks
+has a lot of practical, available information, and a working knowledge
+of life that is worth a bushel of M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s, and that it will
+take the college graduate ten or fifteen years to acquire. Many of the
+best-informed, best-read men that I know never saw the inside of a
+college. In these days of cheap books, and magazines, and newspapers,
+if a man wants an education he will get it.
+
+“Nor is the lack of a college education any bar to success. The men
+who are running things in America to-day spent their formative years,
+from 18 to 24, in learning about mines, and railroads, and stores, and
+banking, instead of being grounded in Greek and Latin. And they are
+hiring college graduates to work for them. Moreover, while you can lead
+a boy to the Pierian spring, you cannot make him drink from it, and you
+know well enough that the great majority of boys who are sent off to
+college idle away their time, and come back with nothing but a college
+yell, the latest thing in Klassy Kut Kollege Klothes, and a maddening
+air of superiority. So comfort yourself with the knowledge that if your
+son has it in him to take an education he will get it. If he yearns for
+culture he will acquire it, but if he is just a boy who has good hard
+horse sense, and is not intellectual, the sooner he gets to work after
+his high-school days the better for him. Of course, mother-like, you
+want your children to have everything that multimillionaires have, but
+in your heart you must know that money is a curse to a boy instead of
+a blessing. To begin with, wealth paralyzes ambition. We are all poor,
+weak creatures who take the line of least resistance, and when we don’t
+have to do things we become slackers. We have to have necessity to spur
+us on to achievement.
+
+“Call over the roll of the rich men of to-day, of the men who sit
+in high places, from the President down, of the men who are famous
+inventors, and writers, and artists. They were almost all poor boys.
+There is scarcely the name of a millionaire’s son in the whole list.
+And riches lead a boy into temptation from which the poor boy is safe.
+The boy who has to work for his daily bread has his mind and his
+hands occupied. He has something interesting and exciting always to
+do. The idle rich boy must make his own diversions, and find some way
+of killing time, and he does it only too often by the booze and the
+gambling route, and in the company of wild women. For adventuresses
+and grafters fasten themselves like leeches on the man with a fat
+pocketbook. There is nothing like lacking the price as a first aid to
+virtue.
+
+“As for not being able to give your girls advantages, do you really
+think it is any advantage to a girl to be brought up to be nothing but
+a fashion plate, to have no duties and responsibilities, to have no
+object in life except amusing herself and to be taught merely to be
+a waster and a spender? Do you think that the woman who has a dozen
+homes in this country and Europe, between which she vibrates with no
+more local attachments than a transient guest has in a hotel, gets the
+pleasure out of them that the woman does out of her little bungalow,
+whose every plank has been paid for by some sacrifice and where every
+chair and plate is the result of weeks of saving and planning? Do you
+think the girl who buys herself a European title is as happy with the
+_roué_ husband she has purchased as the girl who marries some clean,
+honest young chap she loves and works up with him to prosperity? Do you
+think that the woman who bears children and then turns them over to
+nurses and governesses gets the benediction out of motherhood that the
+woman does who cradles her children on her breast and rears them up at
+her knee?
+
+“You lament that you cannot give your daughters the chance to make fine
+marriages. Why, the working girl has ten times as good chance to make a
+good marriage as the society girl has, because she is thrown with more
+men. She works side by side with the go-getters and the coming men,
+and she has the pick of them all. So,” I said to my lachrymose friend,
+“stop whining because you aren’t rich and can’t give your children
+‘advantages.’ You are giving them the necessity of standing on their
+own feet and fighting their own battles, of developing all that is best
+in them, and that is the greatest advantage that you could possibly
+give them.”
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+SELL YOURSELF TO YOUR CHILDREN
+
+
+Did you ever contemplate trying to “sell” your children, as the
+advertising experts say, the things you wish them to be and do? Did you
+ever try selling them yourself? Of course, the old idea is that the
+proper way to rear children is by forcing on them a system of do’s and
+don’ts. We tell our children that they must do this, and they mustn’t
+do that. We try to coerce them along the straight and narrow road
+because that is the proper path for them to travel, but we never take
+the trouble to artfully entice them into it and make them think that
+they have chosen it of their own free wills.
+
+We want our children to love us, to admire us, to consider us their
+best friends; but we expect them to do this because we believe it the
+duty of children to honor their parents. Not ten fathers and mothers
+in a thousand ever deliberately try to make themselves attractive to
+their children or win their confidence. Perhaps this is why there are
+so many boys and girls hurtling down the broad highway to destruction;
+why parental influence amounts to so little, and why the average child
+feels that it has less in common with its own father and mother than it
+has with any other man and woman it knows.
+
+We have just begun to realize that propaganda is one of the greatest
+and most insidious forces on earth. We have seen it lift men up to the
+skies and make gods of them, then turn and pull them down, and trample
+them into the dust. We have seen it exalt a nation into sainthood
+and turn it into a howling mob, crying for blood. And if it can thus
+sway and move grown-up people, what a weapon it is to use upon the
+plastic mind of a child! This being the case, why should we not “sell”
+our children the ideals we wish them to have? Why should we not feed
+them on the right propaganda from their cradle up? Why should we not
+advertise the good things of life until we make them so alluring that
+the child will want them?
+
+Why should we not sell righteousness to our children? It is one thing
+to preach and nag at them about drink, and gambling, and associating
+with bad men and women until you bore them to tears and make them
+wonder what is the fascination of the evil that they are so warned
+against. And it is another thing to make clean living the symbol of
+health, and strength, and length of days; the respect of one’s fellow
+men and, above all, the thing that sets one right with one’s own soul.
+
+Why not sell our children education? We scourge them to school, which
+most of them regard as a place of penance, and where, dull and bored,
+they sit in stolid indifference, while the dull and bored teachers
+go through the perfunctory routine of hearing them recite lessons in
+which they do not pretend to take the slightest interest. But suppose
+we could really sell these children the idea of education? Suppose
+we could get them as interested in history as they are in stories of
+adventure? Suppose we could make them see that spelling and arithmetic
+are not tasks; that they are the tools with which they will work when
+they get their first jobs as stenographers and bookkeepers, and that
+the better they spell and the quicker they are at figures the bigger
+their pay envelopes will be! Suppose we could make them see that
+knowledge is power, and that whether they stay at the foot of the
+ladder or climb to the top is going to depend on how well their brains
+are trained! Why, if we could make children see the advantages of an
+education we would not have to force them to go to school. They would
+be eager and anxious to go.
+
+Suppose we sold our children good manners. We are always correcting
+Johnny at the table about the way he eats, and he is so used to our
+don’ts about walking in front of people and keeping his hat on that
+he has long since ceased to listen when we speak. But suppose, from
+his earliest infancy, Johnny had heard boors ridiculed, and knife
+swallowers, and cup cuddlers, and audible soup-eaters held up to scorn
+as figures of fun. Do you not know that Johnny would as soon think of
+committing murder as one of these offenses? And suppose Johnny has had
+it impressed on him by precept and example that good manners are a
+letter of credit that is honored the world over; that they will take
+you farther than anything else on earth. Don’t you know that Johnny
+would be incapable of loutishness, because good manners had simply been
+bred into him?
+
+Why should we not sell our children industry and thrift? Propaganda
+again. You can make work the most thrilling of all games. You can make
+a child feel that his job is of great importance. You can form in
+childhood an unbreakable habit of industry. You can teach the child how
+to deny itself little things in order to save the money for big things.
+You can make it feel the independence of having its own little bank
+account. You can set a goal before it and light the fires of ambition
+in its soul.
+
+Finally, why not sell yourself to your children? Why not make as much
+effort to ingratiate yourself with your children as you would with
+a stranger? Why not try to impress your children with your ability,
+your wisdom, your up-to-dateness, as you would any man or woman with
+whom you are trying to do business? If parents could only convince
+their children that they are not back-numbers and incarnate killjoys
+it would do more than any other one thing to improve the family
+relationship. Believe me, it pays to advertise—especially with your
+children.
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+TAKING HUSBANDS “AS IS”
+
+
+I wish that I could make every young girl who gets married a present
+of a handsomely framed motto to hang on the wall above the mirror of
+her dressing table, where she would be compelled to see it every time
+she put on or took off her complexion, or repaired the Cupid’s bow
+of her lips. On this motto in gorgeously illumined letters would be
+these sapient words of Grover Cleveland: “It is a condition and not a
+theory that confronts you.” I can think of no other advice in the world
+that would be such a lamp to guide the feet of any young woman who is
+starting to blunder down the rough road of matrimony, as this cold,
+hard, unimaginative assertion of a simple fact. It brushes away with
+one gesture of common sense all the dreams and romances and fairy tales
+of courtship, and leaves a woman facing the reality of matrimony, which
+is never as she thought it would be. It just is as it is.
+
+If women would only abandon their theories about what matrimony
+should be, and how husbands should act, and deal with them as they
+are, it would save floods of tears, innumerable broken hearts,
+hundreds of cases of nervous prostration, and put the divorce courts
+out of business. Furthermore, that women are mostly right in their
+contentions, and have logic and justice on their side, doesn’t alter
+this aspect of the situation at all. For instance, woman’s perpetual
+grievance against her husband is his indifference. She wails out that
+he inveigled her into matrimony under false pretenses because from the
+ardor with which he wooed her, he led her to believe and expect that
+he would be an eternal lover and would spend a large part of his time
+telling her how beautiful and wonderful she was, and how he adored
+her. Instead of making good on this antenuptial propaganda, however,
+he stopped all of his love-making at the altar with a suddenness that
+jarred her wisdom teeth loose, and in place of being a ladylove, she
+finds herself merely a household convenience.
+
+Millions of women make themselves miserable because their husbands
+never make love to them, never pay them a compliment, never give them
+any sign of appreciation, never take them to any place of amusement,
+never give any indication that they still care for them and want them
+to be happy. These suffering sisters could save themselves nearly
+all of their woe if they would just throw their rosy dreams of how a
+husband should treat a wife into the discard, and accept the truth
+that very few men are sentimentalists. Most of them feel like fools
+when they are love-making, and so they get the ordeal over with as
+quickly as possible. They consider that when a man marries a woman,
+and undertakes her board bill and shopping ticket, that he has given a
+proof of devotion strong enough to draw money on at the bank, and there
+is no use in saying anything more about it. Also they feel that the
+fact that they selected the women they did for wives showed that they
+admired them above all other women, so why harp on that string? And, of
+course, they want their wives to be happy. What else do they toil for
+except to doll their wives up, and give them cars and houses and trips
+to Palm Beach?
+
+So the wife may be very happy and contented who has philosophy enough
+to take her husband as he is, good, kind and generous, even if he is a
+dumb lover, apparently more interested in his business than he is in
+her. She realizes that he says it with checks instead of with flowery
+phrases, and that if she is starved emotionally she is sure of her
+daily roast beef and potatoes. Then there is the matter of adjustment
+between a man and a woman. Every bride dreams an impossible dream of
+a husband who is chilled steel to all the balance of the world, but
+putty in her hands. Experience blows this fair dream to the ends of the
+earth, and she finds that she can no more alter her husband’s habits
+and prejudices than she can the laws of the Medes and the Persians. He
+has his ways, and she can either give in to them or fight over them.
+He has his set opinions, and she can sidestep them or fight with him
+about them.
+
+She can either use tact and diplomacy in handling him, or else be in a
+perpetual quarrel with him, and she protests that this isn’t fair or
+just. She says that it is as much his place to give in to her as it is
+hers to give in to him. That it is just as much his business to deal
+subtly with her, as it is her business to deal subtly with him. Of
+course, the woman is right, but being right doesn’t help her a bit in
+getting along with her husband. It is a condition and not a theory that
+confronts her. If any harmonious relations exist between her and her
+husband, she has to furnish the harmony. If there is any adapting, it
+is the wife who must do the adapting.
+
+Women likewise complain that it is unjust that they should have to do
+practically all of the work of making a happy home. They say that it
+is just as much a man’s business to be a little ray of sunshine in
+the home as it is a woman’s; that it is just as much up to a husband
+to wear the smile that won’t come off as it is the wife’s. They say
+that there is no more reason why they should read up on subjects that
+interest their husbands, so as to be able to hand out a good line of
+conversation, than why their husbands shouldn’t read up on fashion
+journals so as to be able to discuss intelligently with them the length
+of skirts and the latest hair bob. True. But again it is the condition
+and not the theory of matrimony that confronts them, and unless the
+wife makes the happy home it isn’t made. It is when women forget what
+matrimony should be, and deal with it as it is, that they make a
+success of it.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+BEING A GOOD WIFE
+
+
+“I want to be a good wife, the kind of a wife like that lady in the
+Bible whose price was above rubies,” said a little bride to me the
+other day. “What shall I do to be a real helpmeet to my husband?”
+
+“Well, my dear,” I replied, “there are three general counts on which
+every wife must make good in order to help her husband, and then
+the job becomes the work of an expert, and varies according to the
+temperament of the man. To begin with, every woman who is an asset
+instead of a total loss to her husband, must make him a comfortable
+home and feed him properly. When a man marries, he practically turns
+over his stomach and his nerves and his brains to his wife’s care,
+and she can keep him at the peak of efficiency by giving him a quiet,
+restful place to come to at night, and a good dinner to eat, or she can
+sabotage the whole works by throwing in quarrels and heavy biscuit and
+tough meat.
+
+“There is practically no limit to the amount of work a man can do
+whose wife takes care of him, and who has a happy home life. The men
+who break down with nervous prostration are the men who, after the
+struggle and anxiety and worries of a business day, go home to strife
+and wrangles and recriminations and nagging and to food that would
+kill an ostrich. No nerves and no digestion will stand it. A breakfast
+of flabby cakes and muddy coffee, that make him take a dyspeptic and
+despairing view of things, and see the world through blue spectacles,
+has made many a man turn down a good proposition that would have
+carried him on to fame and fortune. A spat with his wife that left his
+nerves on edge, and his soul filled with bitterness, has made many a
+man quarrel with his partner and insult his best client or customer.
+
+“So, my dear, if you want to help your husband succeed, you must begin
+by making him a home wherein his tired body and frazzled nerves may
+refresh themselves, so that he may go forth with new strength to battle
+with the world. You must make him happy, for there is nothing that
+happy people may not achieve. The next item is to keep on cutting bait.
+Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that because you have captured
+your man he will stay captive. It is a job that has to be done over
+again every morning.
+
+“You know the arts and wiles with which you lured him into matrimony.
+You recall the pretty dresses you wore, the glad, sweet smile with
+which you met him. The pleasure you showed you took in his society. A
+man doesn’t put on blinders when he gets married. He still has an eye
+out for a pretty woman in a gay frock, and he likes to feel that his
+wife still cares enough for him to want to make herself attractive to
+him and that his coming home is the big event of the day to her.
+
+“Item three in being a good wife is to be a loving wife. Women are
+always talking about being heart-hungry and seem to think that it is an
+exclusively feminine complaint, but there are just as many men starving
+for affection as there are women. Don’t expect your husband to take
+it for granted that you still love him because you haven’t applied
+for a divorce. Tell him so. Give him a kiss now and then that isn’t
+just a peck on the cheek. But love with discretion. Don’t smother your
+husband with affection. Don’t surfeit him on it. Keep your love as a
+sweetener for matrimony. Don’t make it the whole diet. Remember that
+the most-loved husband in the world said: ‘Feed me with apples, stay me
+with flagons, for I am SICK of love.’
+
+“The fourth item in being a good wife is not to expect the impossible
+of your husband. Don’t demand that he be a demigod. Accept him as a
+poor, faulty human being, even as you are. Don’t have hysterics every
+time he topples off of the pedestal on which you have placed him. Help
+him up, dust him off and give him a seat beside you. Humor him in his
+funny little ways. Sidestep his little prejudices. Don’t argue with
+him when your opinions clash. Laugh at his blunders and sympathize with
+him when he makes mistakes, and he will make you his confidant and tell
+you the truth, which is the finest tribute that any man ever pays his
+wife.
+
+“Item five in being a good wife is to be appreciative. When the average
+man gets married he sells himself into bondage to his family. The
+remainder of his life he spends toiling to keep his wife and children
+soft and safe. And whether all this work and sacrifice is worth the
+price and is a glorious reward depends altogether on his wife’s
+attitude. If she takes it as nothing but her due, it is slavery. But if
+she lets him see every day in every way that she thinks that he is the
+finest and noblest man that ever lived, and that no be-medaled warrior
+has anything on him in heroism, it makes it all worth while and causes
+him to feel that being a husband and father is the finest career on
+earth.
+
+“Item six in being a good wife is to keep yourself good-natured. Tho
+you have all other virtues, yet are a high-tempered virago or a nagger,
+you will be a failure as a wife and your husband will curse the day he
+married you.
+
+“Item seven is to be a good sport. To take the bad with the good of
+matrimony without whining. Not to welch on your part of the work and
+sacrifices. To be willing to go where your husband’s fortunes call
+him. To fight the battle with him shoulder to shoulder and never to
+give up the ship.
+
+“The next way to help your husband is by keeping yourself cheerful and
+optimistic. Nothing breaks down a man’s morale so quickly as having a
+wife who is whining and complaining, who reproaches him with not making
+as much money as other men do, and who lets him see that she does not
+believe in him. Now we can only do the things we think we can do, and
+when we kill a man’s faith in himself we have slain his ability to
+succeed. Ninety-nine husbands out of a hundred live up to their wives’
+expectations of them. If their wives are always knocking them and
+discouraging them and wet-blanketing their every plan and prophesying
+failure, they fail. But if their wives are cheerful and optimistic; if
+they encourage them; if they believe in them, and make them believe in
+themselves, they succeed. They simply have to make good because their
+wives expect it. Most wives write their husbands’ price tags. Price
+yours high, and your husband will deliver the goods.
+
+“The next point in being a good wife is for the wife deliberately
+to make herself her husband’s best friend. That means that you must
+interest yourself in whatever interests him. First and foremost, you
+must take an interest in his business. Practically all men like to talk
+shop, but they can’t do it to women who yawn in their faces and who
+never take the trouble to learn the technique of the business out of
+which they get their living. A woman can help her husband not only by
+taking an interest in his business, but by making friends for him. Many
+a man is advertised into success by his charming wife, and many a man
+is bankrupted by his disagreeable and ill-mannered spouse. A woman can
+help her husband by using a little common sense in her attitude toward
+his business, and by being willing to make the sacrifices necessary to
+his success.
+
+“The woman who always speaks of her husband’s office as ‘that old
+office,’ and who resents his interest in his business and the time he
+devotes to it; the woman who will not let her husband leave a poor job
+with no future to it, to take a better one in which he could make his
+fortune, because it would take her away from mother and the girls and
+Main Street; the doctors’ and dentists’ wives who are jealous of their
+husbands’ patients, and the lawyer’s wife who blabs, are all first aids
+to their husbands’ failure. Only a man of superhuman talent can succeed
+against the handicap of such a wife.
+
+“Then come the two specific ways in which a wife can help her husband,
+and which depend on the individual man. Some men have talent, but lack
+backbone. They are brilliant but weak. They get easily discouraged and
+need to be bucked up and flattered and admired continually. They are
+prone to give up, and they need a wife who will hold them to their
+purpose when they falter and waver. A wife can help this type of man
+best by being a little hard and very ambitious, by bracing him up with
+her own strength and literally pushing him on to success. The clinging
+vine, helpless sort of women bring out the best that is in other men.
+If their wives could stand on their own feet, their husbands would let
+them do it, but because their wives can do nothing but hang around
+their necks, they feel that they must fight to the death for them.
+
+“This is the reason that for the wife to be thrifty and saving is not
+always the best way to help a man. Because many a man has had to hustle
+to meet the demands of an extravagant wife he has made the effort that
+turned him into a millionaire.
+
+“But mostly, my dear, if you want to help your husband, just love him
+enough. Perhaps that is the best way of all.”
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+INVALIDISM A GRAFT
+
+
+Do you ever think that it is dishonest to be sick when you might be
+well? It is just plain stealing. And it is the most despicable form
+of petty larceny, because it is robbing those who love you, and trust
+you and who are defenseless against you. They cannot lock up their
+sympathies, their peace of mind, their personal service, their money,
+safely away from your pilfering. Of course, there are many people who
+are really ill. Through no fault of their own, they are smitten by some
+terrible disease, and they deserve all that we can give of pity and
+help as they go stumbling down the agonized way to the grave.
+
+These words are not for them, but for that multitude of men and women
+with whom sickness is merely a graft, a camouflage for selfishness, and
+a blanket excuse with which they cover up all their sins of omission
+and commission, and that furnishes them a perfect alibi for doing
+everything they want to do, and leaving undone those things which they
+do not wish to do.
+
+Ninety per cent of all the sickness in the world is voluntary, or at
+least comes through contributory negligence. People are sick because
+they are not willing to make the sacrifices to keep well.
+
+And curiously enough they justify themselves by claiming that their
+own health is a personal matter. “If I make myself sick, I am the one
+who has to suffer,” they say. If this were true, far be it from the
+rest of us to interfere with their pleasures. But it isn’t true. No
+man or woman is sick to himself or herself alone. We have to listen to
+their groans. We have to minister to them. We have to do their work.
+We have to pay their doctor’s bills. We have to put up with their
+irritability and unreason because sickness is supposed to give people
+_carte blanche_ to do and say all the things that well people do not
+dare to do. When ill health is an act of God, as shipping manifests
+say, and therefore beyond our control, it is one thing. When it is the
+result of weak self-indulgence it is another thing. Our sympathies and
+our assistance go out to the victim of tuberculosis or cancer, but we
+have nothing but contempt for the glutton who keeps himself sick from
+overeating.
+
+In every business house where women are employed there is such a large
+percentage of them absent from work on account of sickness, especially
+during the winter, that the question is often raised whether the
+delicate feminine constitution can stand the strain of commercial life.
+Stuff and nonsense! It isn’t the work that is hurting the girls. It is
+the way they dress and live.
+
+They feel that they have a perfect right to risk bad colds and
+pneumonia by coming to work on rainy, sloppy, sleety days in
+paper-soled satin pumps and chiffon stockings, and with not enough
+clothes on to keep an icicle warm. They consider it their own affair
+if they prefer to spend their money on an imported hat instead of on
+nourishing food. They think if they come to the office with a nervous
+headache that makes them blind and stupid with pain, and was brought on
+by too many nights of successive jazzing, it is a matter between them
+and the aspirin bottle alone. But it isn’t. They are not giving their
+employers a square deal. They are not giving them the services they
+pay for. They are upsetting the routine of the office, and laying the
+burden of their work on the shoulders of other people.
+
+Look at the invalid wives you know! Dozens of them who have brought
+nervous prostration on themselves by overwork, or too many clubs and
+causes, or too much society. Don’t we all know women who go on orgies
+of housecleaning, or dressmaking, though they know perfectly well that
+every such debauch is going to end up in a spell of sickness which
+will call for doctors and trained nurses? Don’t we know women who wear
+themselves to tatters over church fairs and club campaigns? Don’t we
+know women who play bridge every day until they are so nervous that
+they become unbearable at home and their husbands have to send them off
+to sanatoriums to get a little peace and rest themselves? We do.
+
+We marvel that these women never stop to consider how they are
+defrauding their families. They never consider what a wickedly
+dishonest thing it is to deprive a husband and children of a healthy,
+strong wife and mother, and give them a neurotic, irritable, cross,
+nerve-wrecked creature who makes the home about as cheerful as a
+grave-yard, and in which they have always to walk softly and speak in
+whispers for fear of disturbing the lady who has just gone to bed with
+a neuralgia headache.
+
+Then there is the large army of women who enjoy poor health, who are
+professional invalids for the simple reason that they are too lazy and
+indolent to make the effort to be well. They are quitters who literally
+take life lying down. They cultivate small ailments. They acquire the
+sanatorium habit, and they expect to be pitied and babied instead of
+being ostracized as dishonest grafters who snatch the very bread out of
+the mouths of their families to pay their unnecessary doctor’s bills.
+We all know dozens of these women who suffer from imaginary complaints,
+and we have seen many of them cured by their husband’s death, when they
+had to quit being sick, and go to work and support themselves.
+
+That is why I say that it is dishonest to be sick when you might be
+well.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV
+
+SELFISHNESS MADE TO ORDER
+
+
+“My daughter is so selfish toward me,” wailed a mother to me the other
+day, “she never considers my comfort or happiness in any way whatever.
+Since the day she was born I have never had a thought except for her.
+I have given her the best of everything. I have worn old clothes in
+order that she might have fine new ones. I have done without the things
+I wanted that she might indulge her every desire. I have gone to the
+places that she wished to go to, instead of the places where I wished
+to go. I have cooked and sewed and waited upon her like a slave, but
+instead of appreciating all that I have done for her she takes it as
+a matter of course. She thinks any old cast-off is good enough for
+mother and never dreams of doing anything she doesn’t want to do for my
+pleasure. And that is my reward for all the sacrifices I have made for
+her!”
+
+“Say rather that, as the result of all the sacrifices that you have
+made for your daughter,” I replied, “your girl is just exactly what
+you have made her. You have put in twenty-two years of conscientious
+work in erecting a monument of selfishness, and you have no right to
+complain. You wouldn’t build a house of mud and garbage cans and expect
+it to be a white marble palace. How, then, can you expect to build up a
+child’s character with all the meanest characteristics of human nature
+and expect it to be fine and noble? Impossible. And that is the sort of
+miracle that you parents expect from your children when you demand that
+they shall be something totally different from the thing into which you
+have made them.
+
+“When your daughter was born, she was as plastic as clay in your hands.
+It was your privilege to mold her into any shape you pleased. You
+could have taught her to be unselfish, to be considerate, to think of
+other people, to love and honor and respect you. Instead of that, from
+her first conscious moment, you taught her to despise you, to think
+you of no account and not worth considering. You taught her to think
+only of herself, of her own pleasures and desires, and to get what she
+wanted at any cost to others. Now you whine because your teaching has
+borne fruit. You are unjust and unreasonable. What we sow, we reap
+inevitably. If you make yourself a doormat before your children, they
+will walk over you and kick you about, because they naturally think
+that you know where you belong in the household and have taken your
+proper place.
+
+“They would just as naturally have looked up to you if you had placed
+yourself on a pedestal above them and demanded to be worshiped.
+Children don’t reason about their parents. They just accept them as
+they are and hold them cheap, or dear, according to the way the mother
+and father value themselves. I have no tears to shed over the sorrows
+of mothers who have selfish and ungrateful daughters, because every
+time it is the mother’s own fault. She is to blame, not the girl.
+
+“If she had spent part of the clothes money on getting herself some
+pretty frocks, instead of lavishing it all on daughter, daughter would
+be proud of mother instead of being ashamed of her. If she had made
+daughter help with the housework and the sewing, instead of slaving
+over the cookstove and the sewing machine so that daughter might go
+free, daughter would think about saving mother and doing things for
+her. If she had asserted her rights to her own personal tastes and
+pleasures, instead of letting daughter’s tastes and pleasures rule the
+household, daughter would show her some consideration and remember
+mother’s likes and dislikes, and cater to them. There are mothers who
+are queens in their families, just as there are mothers who are nothing
+but the maid-of-all-work in their homes, and it rests with every mother
+to decide which she will be. It is the queen mothers who are loved and
+appreciated, and who have dutiful, unselfish children. The drudge
+mother gets only the wages of the drudge from her children.
+
+“In reality, the mother who rears her children up to be monsters of
+selfishness has no right to expect appreciation and gratitude from
+them because she has done them as ill a turn as one human being can do
+another. She has warped their characters. She has developed in them
+traits that mar their happiness and are a handicap to success. She has
+made them egotists, and they are never satisfied and continually at
+variance with those about them. In particular is selfishness a blight
+upon a woman’s life, for the selfish woman finds it almost impossible
+to make the sacrifices that wifehood and motherhood demand of her. One
+of the main reasons why divorce is so prevalent is because when so many
+selfish girls find that they can’t treat their husbands as they did
+their mothers, they throw up their hands and quit.
+
+“And so,” I said to the mother of the selfish daughter, “you are unfair
+to your daughter. Don’t blame her for being what you made her. What
+else could you expect?”
+
+
+
+
+XLV
+
+SELF-CONTROL
+
+
+If I were to go to a mother who was cradling her babe on her breast,
+and tell her that I knew a magic formula by which she could insure
+power, and prosperity, and happiness to her child, she would impoverish
+herself to purchase this knowledge from me, and fall on her knees and
+bless me for having given it to her.
+
+Yet I know just such a bit of white magic. In her secret soul every
+mother herself knows it, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred she is
+either too weak or too lazy to use it.
+
+This charm that would have changed all life for innumerable people;
+that would have kept men out of prisons, and women out of brothels;
+that would have turned paupers into rich men; made the unsuccessful
+successful and stopped the wheels of the divorce court—consists simply
+in teaching children self-control.
+
+Almost every misfortune under which humanity suffers goes straight back
+to that. There is hardly a derelict in the world who cannot say: “I
+would not be what I am if my mother had taught me to control myself.”
+
+For it is lack of self-control that is at the bottom of most of our
+sins of omission and commission.
+
+Look at the murderer going to the death chair. Not once in a thousand
+times is he a cold-blooded murderer; but he was a high-tempered child
+whose mother never taught him to control himself. There came a day when
+something irritated him more than usual and, aflame with anger, he took
+a fellow creature’s life. It is the supreme manifestation of the same
+spirit that made him kick the chair against which he stumbled as a
+child and beat with impotent little fists all who thwarted him.
+
+Look at the drunkard wallowing in the gutter. He is there because his
+mother never taught him to control his appetites. He is the logical
+outgrowth of the greedy little boy who was permitted to gorge himself
+on cake and candy until it made him ill.
+
+Look at the poor, shabby, out-at-elbows man who has drifted from job to
+job all his life, and has never been able to make a decent support for
+himself and his family. He is his mother’s handiwork. She put the curse
+of incompetence on him when she let him give up every undertaking the
+moment he struck the hard sledding in it.
+
+He changed from one school to another because the lessons were too
+difficult, or the teacher was too strict. When he started to work, he
+left one place because the hours were too long, another because his
+boss was too exacting. He tried a dozen different occupations that he
+left because he found they had unpleasant features and involved doing
+uncongenial tasks. He is a down-and-outer because his mother never
+taught him the self-control that makes a man set his teeth and go
+through with the business to which he has put his hand.
+
+Look at the girls who go astray. Not one of “the sorrowful sisterhood”
+as the Japanese pitifully call them, but who is what she is because her
+mother did not teach her self-control. Did the girl sin because she was
+so weak and so in love with some vicious libertine that she listened
+to her heart instead of her head? Her mother could have saved her from
+a fate worse than death if she had taught her to control her emotions,
+instead of being ruled by them.
+
+Did the girl sell her soul for fine clothes, and good times? Again
+the mother’s fault for not teaching the girl self-control, and to do
+without the things that she could not honestly get.
+
+Look at the poor old people who are dependent on their children, or
+the grudging charity of relatives and friends. In how many cases is
+their unhappy fate simply the result of their lack of self-control!
+They have had their chance of fortune. As long as the man was able to
+work he made plenty of money, and they lived luxuriously, but they
+spent everything as they went along. They laid up nothing for their
+rainy day, and when it came, it found them paupers and parasites. The
+difference between dependence and independence, between comfort and
+misery in your old age depends upon how much self-control you have had
+in your youth.
+
+Look at the ever increasing number of divorces. Look at the forlorn
+half-orphan children, and broken up homes. Look at the unhappy married
+couples you know. What is the real cause of all this domestic trouble?
+Merely that mothers do not teach their children self-control. They
+raise up spoiled, selfish daughters who never consider a thing in life
+but their own pleasure.
+
+They raised up spoiled, selfish sons who have never considered another
+human being but themselves. These two, with undisciplined wills,
+unrestrained tempers, undirected impulses, marry each other, and they
+fight like cats and dogs. Observation shows that either a husband or
+a wife who controls himself or herself can save almost any marriage,
+and it takes no prophet to foretell that mothers could insure their
+children’s domestic happiness by teaching them iron bound self-control.
+
+You can teach a baby three weeks old self-control by refusing to give
+it the thing it howls for. Say to the toddler that falls and bumps its
+nose, “Mother’s brave boy doesn’t cry,” and it will bite back the sobs.
+It will yell the roof off if you pity it. A child of three will be
+obedient, cheerful, respectful of the rights of others, or he will be
+a little demon, according to the way his mother has brought him up.
+
+If she has taught him self-control, she has given him the magic that
+works all the miracles of life, and if she hasn’t, she has done him the
+greatest wrong that any human being can possibly do to another human
+being.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI
+
+OLD FATHERS AND NEW DAUGHTERS
+
+
+“O dear Miss Dix,” wails a little flapper, “won’t you please help
+me? Won’t you please try to make my father understand that I must do
+as people do now, instead of doing the way that he did when he was
+young? I’ve got the best daddy in the world, and I love him with all
+my heart; but he is ruining my life trying to make me the sort of girl
+that he says mother was. And I’m not mother. I am myself, and I don’t
+live thirty years ago. I live now, and I have to be a model girl of
+now or else a back-number at whom nobody will look and whom nobody
+wants. Father says he is an old-fashioned father, and he is trying
+to make me an old-fashioned girl. I never have any up-to-the-minute
+clothes because mother didn’t wear short skirts and no corsets and bob
+her hair. I can’t go joy-riding with a crowd because they didn’t have
+automobiles when father was young. I have to be home at 11 o’clock when
+I go out in the evening because he says that he never stayed out late
+when he was young.
+
+“I can’t dance because father didn’t jazz and he doesn’t think the
+modern dances respectable. He won’t let me read any of the six best
+sellers because he doesn’t approve of modern literature, and he makes
+me read old-fashioned books that I almost yawn my head off over. And
+he just simply loathes all the boys who come to see me. Calls them
+sapheads, and he wonders why I want to waste my time talking nonsense
+with little jellybeans such as they are. He says it is just appalling
+to see how youth has deteriorated since his day, and that when he was
+young the boys and girls were all serious-minded young people, who
+cared only for rational amusements, and that instead of chasing around
+to cabarets they spent the evening at home in intelligent conversation.
+
+“I suppose we young ones are a poor lot compared to what our parents
+were; but such as we are, we are. In Rome you have to do as the Romans
+do or else you get left. I want to play with the other girls and boys,
+but I can’t unless I play the way they do. My father is always talking
+about home being woman’s proper sphere, and wifehood and motherhood
+being a woman’s noblest career. But how am I to get married if I am
+never permitted to have any dates with boys? You might just as well
+lock a girl up in a stone cell and throw away the key as not to let her
+do what the other girls are doing. There are too many pretty girls,
+with lots of fun and pep in them, that the boys can run around with,
+for them to take the trouble to hunt up one that is laid up on the
+shelf and labeled ‘old-fashioned.’ And when I tell my father this he
+gets angry and I cry, and I don’t know what to do because I don’t want
+to disobey him and I don’t want to waste my youth sticking around at
+home and having no pleasure.”
+
+“Alas, my dear,” I said, “your father is trying to foist his ideals
+on you, just as his father tried to foist his ideals on him. Each
+generation tries to do it and each makes dark prophecies about what
+the present generation is coming to. Your grandfather thought bustles
+just as dreadful as your father thinks rolled stockings are. Your
+grandfather disapproved of side-bar buggies just as much as your father
+does of automobiles. Your grandfather considered the waltz just as
+indecent as your father does shimmying. Your grandfather thought your
+father should only read Shakespeare and Richardson, and considered
+Dickens frivolous, just as your father thinks you ought to read Dickens
+instead of ‘The Sheik.’ And your grandfather told your father how
+superior the young men of his day were, and how they spent their time
+in improving their minds and always went to bed with the chickens, and
+how they doted on intellectual conversation, just as his father told
+him and great-great-great-great-grandfather told his son.
+
+“And it is all stuff and nonsense. Not a word of it has ever been true.
+Each succeeding generation of young people have been pleasure-loving
+and laughter-loving and foolish, and have danced and played and
+skylarked. And all the difference is that their games have taken on
+different phases in different ages. It is a pity that fathers and
+mothers cannot remember this. If they did and would look on with
+sympathy and understanding, they could keep close enough to their
+children to know what they are doing and to stretch out a hand and hold
+them steady when they start to go wild, and to snatch them back when
+they get too near to the edge of the pit. For youth will be served.
+Youth must have its fling. High spirits must find a vent. Suppress
+these with the heavy hand of authority and something blows up.
+
+“Lock a girl in her room, and she will climb out of the window. Forbid
+her to see boys at home, and she will meet them on the street. Refuse
+to let her go to nice dances, and she will slip away to low dance
+halls. The wildest and most reckless girls are invariably those with
+the strictest parents. The young people of to-day live in the world of
+to-day and must do as they do to-day. Parents must recognize that and
+deal with them on that platform if they wish to do their duty by their
+children.”
+
+
+
+
+XLVII
+
+LOSING A WIFE’S LOVE
+
+
+One of the most curious superstitions in the world is the childlike
+belief that men have in the indestructibility of women’s love.
+They visualize the feminine heart as a sort of perpetual-motion
+machine that, once they press the button and set it to work, goes on
+automatically pumping up affection for them as long as they live,
+and they think that nothing they do or say ever interferes with its
+functioning. In a word, they believe that if a man wins a woman’s love
+it is his for keeps. He can’t lose it or mislay it. The poor thing
+has no choice but to go on adoring him to the end, because she is
+built that way. It is a comfortable and consoling theory, and men take
+liberties with it, but the trouble is that it isn’t true. In reality,
+women are just as fickle as men are, and just as few women as men
+are capable of a deep and abiding love. Women’s fancies are just as
+unstable as men’s. They are just as much lured by a handsome face and
+fall as easily for a smooth line of soft talk. And there are just as
+many wives who get tired of their husbands as there are husbands who
+are weary of their wives.
+
+The only difference between the sexes in the matter is that women face
+the situation, while men shut their eyes to it and refuse to recognize
+that it exists. Every woman knows that because a man was in love with
+her when he married her is no indication that he is going to remain in
+love with her to the end of the chapter. She knows that if she keeps
+her husband’s affection she has to be up and doing, and on the job.
+That is why there are millions of women undergoing all the agonies of
+slow starvation trying to maintain a girlish figure; why millions are
+boiled alive and thumped and scalped in beauty parlors, and why the
+nation spends more a year for face paint than it does for house paint,
+and why, wherever we go, we see fat, middle-aged, bread-and-butter
+wives attempting to look like flappers and acquire the technique of the
+vamp in order to keep their husbands nailed to their own firesides.
+
+Apparently, however, it never occurs to a man that there is the
+slightest necessity to make any effort to keep his wife fascinated and
+to prevent her eyes from roaming around in search of a sheik. He may
+be bay-windowed and bald, but if he reduces it is only on his doctor’s
+orders, and not because he wants to look boyish to his wife. And he
+never buys a toupee until after he becomes a widower and begins to take
+notice again. The idea that his wife might cease to love him actually
+never crosses the average man’s mind. He is convinced that she couldn’t
+do it. It is some peculiarity of the feminine constitution that makes
+a woman go on loving what has become unlovable. Now, with a man it is
+different, of course. He realizes that he couldn’t stay very long in
+love with a woman who was slouchy, and sloppy, and untidy looking, who
+came to breakfast in a dirty kimono and run down at the heel slippers.
+Nor would he take much interest in kissing a cheek smeared with cold
+cream.
+
+But he doesn’t see why his wife shouldn’t still regard him as a
+romantic figure when he goes around in a soiled shirt and a rumpled
+collar, with grease spots on his coat and trousers that bag at the
+knees, and offers to her lips a countenance with a two days’ stubble of
+beard on it.
+
+A man knows well enough that, as far as he is concerned, the only way
+to keep the love fires burning is to keep piling the fuel on it and
+pouring over it the oil of flattery and praise. But he thinks that
+you don’t have to put any more fuel on the fire of a woman’s heart,
+because it is a flame that miraculously replenishes itself. So after he
+marries he never bothers to show her any attention, or to pay her any
+compliments, or to tell her that he loves her, or give any indication
+that he regards her as anything but a piece of useful household
+furniture. If any woman ever treated him that way his affection
+would mighty soon starve to death, but he never has the slightest
+apprehension that his wife’s love will perish on the same meager
+rations.
+
+There are men who abuse their wives, who swear at them, and curse them,
+and speak to them as if they were dogs. There are men whose wives live
+in trembling fear of their tempers. There are men who are stingy and
+who do not give to their wives, who spend their lives slaving for them,
+the poorest wage of an ill-paid servant. Yet these men go on believing
+that their wives still love them because they loved them in the days of
+courtship, when they were handsome, gallant, and neat, and attractive,
+and loving, and flattering, and generous, and considerate swains.
+
+Such men befool themselves by thinking that they cannot kill a woman’s
+love. Never was there a greater mistake. A woman’s love is as delicate
+and as fragile a thing as a flower that you can crush with a finger.
+And it takes never-ending skill, and care, and cherishing to keep it
+alive. You can kill it with disgust. You can kill it with unkindness.
+You can kill it with injustice. You can kill it with neglect, and it
+would surprise many a man who still believes that his wife loves him in
+spite of the way he has treated her, in spite of his indifference to
+her, to know that her love for him has been dead so long that she has
+almost forgotten that she ever cared for him at all.
+
+So I warn you, Mr. Man, not to put any faith in the theory that you
+can’t kill a woman’s love. Women are like men; they only love the
+lovable. And if you wish to retain your wife’s affections, you have got
+to continue after marriage the same tactics you used in winning her.
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII
+
+THE LURE OF THE MARRIED MAN
+
+
+A man wants to know why married men have such a fascination for girls,
+and wherein a benedict’s wooing differs from that of a bachelor. The
+first part of this double-barreled question was answered by Eve in the
+Garden of Eden, and every girl takes after her greatest grandmother.
+Married men are forbidden fruit, and that alone whets the appetite of
+the foolish little Evelyns for them, and makes them seem the prize
+pippins of the whole matrimonial orchard. The thing that a woman cannot
+have, that she has no right to have, and especially the thing that some
+other woman possesses, is always the thing that she wants most. If
+you have ever watched women fight over a commonplace and unattractive
+article on a bargain table, where each was determined to have it just
+because the others desired it, you have the psychological explanation
+of why a girl falls for a married man that she wouldn’t look at if he
+were single.
+
+Also, women are the adventurous sex. They love to play with danger as a
+child plays with fire, and a large part of the lure of the married man
+consists in the fact that a girl knows that when she has an affair with
+one, she is risking every shred of her reputation, and gambling with
+her happiness, and that any minute she may be cited as a corespondent,
+and dragged into the slime of the divorce courts.
+
+Also, the average girl is simply slopping over with romance, and
+somehow she gets more kick out of being wooed under the rose than she
+does in an above board, honest-to-God courtship. There is something
+about the secrecy of a love intrigue with a married man, about the
+surreptitious letters, about the stolen rendezvous, that thrills her to
+the core of her being. It makes her feel so desperately wicked, like
+one of the grand passion heroines of her favorite novels, who cried
+“All for love, and the world well lost” as she chucked her bonnet over
+the windmill.
+
+It is because the married man is the only man in the world who is out
+of her reach, and whom she has no right to try to grab; it is because
+some other woman has set her seal of approval on him by marrying him;
+it is because an illicit love episode is a streak of lurid romance in
+her drab days, that the little Totties and Flossies are able to see
+the hero of their girlish dreams in the fat, bald-headed, middle-aged
+men for whom they work, and the Mauds and Gwendolyns imagine that they
+have found their affinities in some ordinary commonplace married man,
+who would bore them to tears if his wedding ring had not given him a
+fictitious value in their eyes.
+
+Add to this, vanity and cruelty. In the man hunt, women look on the
+married man as big game, and when they bring one down they feel as if
+they had captured an elephant instead of having shot a tame rabbit.
+There are girls who boast of their conquests among married men, and
+who have so little heart that they delight in watching the agonies of
+jealousy that they inflict on the poor defenseless wife. Many young
+women are likewise gold-diggers, and these virtually confine their
+attentions to married men, as wealthy bachelors are few and well-to-do
+middle-aged married men are plentiful and easy.
+
+Why the married man who starts out as a Lothario is an easy winner
+of feminine hearts is perfectly obvious. To begin with, he has the
+same advantage that the widower has over the single man. He is a
+professional, so to speak, instead of an amateur lover. He has the
+education in women that only marriage can give a man, for he has had a
+wife and, like the wise man of Kipling’s poem, he “learned about women
+from her.” He has found out that all women are so hungry for love that
+they will swallow any soft talk without examining its quality. He has
+found out that you can jolly a woman into anything. He has found out
+that women melt down into a mush that you can do with as you will,
+under a little understanding and sympathy. He has found out that if you
+remember an anniversary, and a woman’s taste in two or three things,
+she will believe it an absolute proof of undying devotion.
+
+The married man knows that there is one sure short cut to virtually
+every woman’s heart. It is pity. And so he begins his love-making by
+telling the girl that his wife does not understand him, that she is
+not his real soul-mate, that they have nothing in common, and that his
+home is bleak, and barren, and unhappy. Generally he accuses his wife
+of being a human iceberg, while he is a perfect geyser of love and
+tenderness. And then he moans: “Oh, why did we not meet in time?” And
+the poor little idiot of a girl undertakes the consolation rôle.
+
+Of course, all of this effective love play is more or less impossible
+to the bachelor. He lacks the technique of the married man. He cannot
+appeal to a woman’s sympathies, or pose before her in the rôle of a
+martyr. He can only make love in the commonplace old way, and it cramps
+his style. But the real reason that the married man is a devil among
+women is just the same old reason that made Eve listen to the serpent.
+
+
+
+
+XLIX
+
+FORGET IT
+
+
+Every day some girl writes me that she is young, quite as pretty as the
+other girls about her, that she dresses as well, and makes as good an
+appearance as they do, and strives to please, but that no man ever pays
+her the slightest attention, or asks her to step out with him of an
+evening. Then this girl goes on to say that she is a business girl, but
+she doesn’t make a very good salary, and she is discouraged, and blue,
+and wants to know what to do.
+
+My advice to a girl in this situation—and there are millions of her—is
+to forget men. Give up the struggle to attract them. Quit trying to
+catch one. Renounce romance. Throw away all thoughts of marriage. Just
+accept the fact that nature did not put you in the vamp class, and play
+your game of life from that angle.
+
+This counsel will be a bitter pill for the girl to swallow, but she
+will find it good medicine that will work a speedy and permanent cure,
+if she will try it on herself. Why certain women are magnets that draw
+every man they meet to them, and why nothing in trousers except upon
+compulsion ever goes near other women just as good looking, just as
+charming in every way, is one of the mysteries nobody has ever solved.
+Nor has anyone ever been able to suggest a remedy for this state of
+affairs.
+
+The fast steamship, the lightning express, the aeroplane, have
+annihilated distance, but human ingenuity has failed to invent any
+device to make a boy go to see the girl next door if he doesn’t want
+to go. Science has torn its secrets from the earth, but it cannot find
+out what quality it is in woman that attracts men. It has invented
+chemicals that work magic in the physical world, but it has never
+discovered a reliable love philter.
+
+So that’s that. And it is a wise girl who has the courage to look
+herself in the face, and see whether she has the “come hither” look in
+her eye, and if she hasn’t, to recognize the fact, and devote herself
+to a more promising occupation than chasing men, who, in the end,
+always make their getaway, unless they desire to be caught.
+
+Therefore, I would urge the girl who does not make a spontaneous hit
+with men, to quit wasting her time and her energies in the vain attempt
+to decoy them into noticing her, and to put all that lost motion and
+force into her work, where she will get better results.
+
+Believe me, if the girl who does not attract men, tried as hard to
+sell herself to her job as she does to sell herself socially, she would
+not have to complain long of holding a small position. She would be a
+highly paid secretary, or buyer, or department manager.
+
+If the girl who does not attract men, studied her employer’s moods and
+tenses as earnestly as she does those of some little jellybean, and
+if she was as anxious to please her employer as she is to please the
+jazz hounds and cakeaters she meets, she would find herself one of the
+valued employees who are always spoken of reverentially as “our Miss
+So-and so.”
+
+If the girl who never has a date would put in one hundredth part of
+the intensive study on her work that she gives to the technique of the
+popular girl, and to trying to find out something about the psychology
+of customers or the history of the goods she handles, or the details of
+the business she is employed in, she would have employers fighting over
+her.
+
+In a word, if the girl who is not popular with men would concentrate
+her thoughts, her interests, and her ambitions, on getting ahead in the
+occupation she has chosen, instead of wasting her time and energies in
+a fruitless attempt to charm men, she would be a success instead of a
+failure; she would be happy instead of miserable.
+
+As it is now she falls between the stools. She is a poor makeshift in
+her job, who gets nowhere, because her one desire, her one ambition,
+her one aim in life is to attract men and catch a husband, and she is
+miserable, and discouraged, and bitter, and disgruntled, because she
+is balked in that attempt. And she is a siren without allure who never
+arrives at the altar, so she fails both as a business woman, and in her
+effort to catch a husband.
+
+This is a great pity, because while love and marriage are highly
+desirable blessings to come into a woman’s life, they are not the whole
+of life. The world is full of such a lot of things besides sentiment.
+There is independence, the freedom to come and go as one pleases. There
+is the exhilarating sport of climbing up the ladder of success, which
+has a million thrills for every round. There is the solid satisfaction
+of achievement. There is the good job that keeps one on one’s tiptoes
+so that one never has a dull moment. There is the happiness that comes
+of being employed in constructive work. There is one’s own home, with
+one’s own pots, and pans, and doilies, if one wants them.
+
+Take it from me, girls, the woman who espouses a career does not get
+the worst husband there is. She has a life companion from whom she
+never has to wheedle the pennies. She never has to listen to any back
+talk or criticisms. She is never afraid of this companion getting tired
+and running off after flappers. It is only the lucky women, who make
+exceptional marriages, who are as well off as the business girls who do
+not marry.
+
+Furthermore, there is this comfort to be given the girl who quits
+trying to attract men, and gets busy with her job. Men are contrary
+creatures. Pursue them, and they flee from you. Lay traps, and
+they walk wide of them. But let them alone, indicate that you are
+indifferent to them; that you are concerned with your own affairs in
+which they have no part; let them realize that you can get on quite
+well without them, and it piques their interest. They come flocking
+around of their own accord to see what manner of woman you are.
+
+Also the girl who makes something of herself, and who rises high in her
+profession is thrown with the men at the top, the men of brains, and
+they are often attracted to her while the silly little boys with whom
+she used to play about were not.
+
+So I say again to the girls who are not attractive to men, stop wasting
+your time in the useless attempt to vamp men. Put your heart and your
+soul into your job. Work is the consolation prize God gives us when we
+miss getting the thing we wanted most.
+
+
+
+
+L
+
+LOST LOVE
+
+
+Many women ask me how they can regain the love of some man which they
+have lost. Sometimes, a girl tells me, weeping, of a once ardent lover
+who has become cold and neglectful, who no longer comes to see her, and
+she wants to know how to bring him back, and make him once more crazy
+about her.
+
+Oftenest, however, it is a wife who seeks desperately for some magic
+whereby she can light again the love fires in the heart of a husband
+who has ceased to care for her, who is tired of her, and who does not
+even take the trouble to hide from her the fact that he regards her as
+a burden, of which he would rid himself if he could.
+
+It is the tragedy of these women that they are doomed to love men
+after the men no longer love them. Not even neglect, and insult, and
+faithlessness, kill their affection for those on whom they have set
+their foolish, doglike hearts. So they cling with desperate hands to
+the men who are trying to break away from them, hoping against hope,
+praying some miracle will happen that will give them back their lost
+love.
+
+But their prayers are never answered. The miracle never happens. No
+sorcerer can teach a woman how to weave a spell a second time about
+a man. The love potions that the credulous buy from fortune tellers,
+never work, and though a woman conjure never so deftly, she cannot
+bring back the heart that has slipped out of her keeping.
+
+For of all dead things, nothing is so dead as dead love. No power can
+breathe into it again the breath of life, and make it a vital thing
+once more.
+
+We do not know why we love. We do not know why some particular man or
+woman makes a peculiar appeal that makes us prefer him or her to all
+the other men and women in the world. We do not know why the touch
+of certain hands thrill us; why the quirk of a smile, or the look in
+an eye, draws us; why we have a sense of comradeship with certain
+individuals; why some man or woman fascinates us; or why we desire
+one man or woman more than another, who may be better looking, more
+intelligent, more worthy in every way.
+
+Nor do we any more know why we cease to love than we know why we love.
+We do not know why the touch of the hand that has thrilled us ceases
+to thrill; nor why the charm that was once so potent vanishes into
+thin air, nor why the fascination flees, and the one who once held us
+enthralled becomes a bore who wearies us to tears. It just happens,
+and we are as helpless before one situation as before the other.
+
+There are not many men who are cruel enough to find sport in breaking
+a woman’s heart, and who deliberately win a girl’s love, and play with
+it, and fling it away. There are not many husbands who would not remain
+their wives’ eternal lovers, if it was in their power to control their
+affections. That was their romantic dream when they married. That way
+their happiness lay, and they would have kept their romance had it been
+a matter of their own volition.
+
+Unfortunately, the disillusion came. The glory and the circling wings
+departed. Somehow their wives lost their allure for them, and strive
+as they might, they could not see them again with the eyes of a lover,
+or bring back their charm. Many a man would be just as glad to fall in
+love again with his wife as she would be to have him fall in love with
+her once more, but he cannot do it. You cannot fan dead ashes into a
+flame.
+
+Perhaps if wives realized how impossible it is to resurrect a dead
+love, they would guard the living love more carefully, and run fewer
+risks of killing it. They would not take the chance of disillusioning
+their husbands by going about sloppy and slovenly at home, and thus
+presenting a fatal contrast to the trimly dressed women in their
+offices, and the beautified ladies they meet in society. They would
+reflect that no man would have much appetite for domestic kisses when
+flavored with cold cream, and that if a wife wishes to be regarded as
+a ladylove, she must look the part instead of resembling a sack of
+potatoes.
+
+And they would see to it that love is not assassinated on their
+hearthstones by ceaseless, senseless quarrels, by whining, and
+complaining, and nagging, and petty tyrannies. Nor would they permit
+love to die of that commonest and most deadly ailment, boredom. For if
+a woman can interest her husband enough before marriage to make him
+pick her out from all the rest of the world for his life partner, she
+can interest him enough to hold him until the end of the chapter if she
+is willing to take the trouble and perform the labor necessary to do so.
+
+If, though, a woman, through carelessness or ignorance, has lost the
+love of the man she loves, there is absolutely no way in which she can
+win it back. Through duty or a sense of honor she may hold his body,
+but his soul has gone from her forever, and she is wise if she accepts
+the inevitable.
+
+If she is a girl, she should let the sweetheart who is tired of her go,
+instead of trying to hold him. Some other man she may make love her,
+but not the old one for whom she has lost her charm.
+
+If she is a married woman whose husband has ceased to love her, let
+her agonize no more over the impossible task of reviving his passion
+for her. Let her fill her life with other interests and thank God that
+there are so many other pleasant things in the world besides love.
+
+For of this she may rest assured. There is no reviving of dead love.
+When once we have lost our taste for a person everything is over. It is
+finished, as the French say.
+
+
+
+
+LI
+
+THE SHOW WEDDING
+
+
+The Turks have passed a law prohibiting elaborate and costly
+marriage ceremonials, and forbidding the giving of expensive wedding
+presents. What a pity that we cannot have such an edict issued in
+this country! For there is no other one thing that would do more to
+allay heartburnings and jealousies, prevent nervous prostration and
+bankruptcy, and promote peace and thrift than to officially “can” the
+show wedding.
+
+In all fairness, we must admit that the display wedding is a feminine
+vice. No man, probably, ever really yearned to make a public exhibition
+of himself as he was being led as a lamb to the slaughter. But by the
+time she is ten years old the average girl has begun planning her
+wedding and deciding whether she will have a big church affair, with
+ushers and flower girls and ring-bearers and maids and matrons of honor
+and bridesmaids and a white satin dress and a real lace veil, and
+all the other flubdubs, or whether she will be married at home under
+a floral canopy, with an admiring audience fenced off from her by
+white ribbons. And to realize this ten-minute splurge she is ready to
+ruthlessly ruin her family and half kill herself. If she doesn’t get
+it, she goes through life feeling that she has missed her big moment.
+It is from this silly, dopey daydream that women should be rescued by
+law, since few of them have the common sense and good taste to put it
+aside themselves.
+
+To begin with, it would do away with the disgraceful, barefaced holdups
+that precede weddings. These are camouflaged under the appropriate
+name of “showers,” for they cause every friend of an engaged girl to
+shed salt and bitter tears at the realization of how much they will be
+mulcted for in silk-stocking showers, and handkerchief showers, and
+towel showers, and kitchen showers, and all the other showers that
+go to make up a bridal deluge. It would also prevent that sinking
+feeling at the pit of the stomach with which we are attacked at sight
+of a large, thick white envelope in the mail. We know that it means a
+“stand-and-deliver” present, which somehow always comes just at a time
+when the rent is overdue, or a doctor bill has to be paid, or we had
+saved up a little money by pinching economies to buy a new hat or suit.
+
+It isn’t that we are stingy or mean, or that we begrudge a gift to a
+friend. It is only that we would like to give when we can do so freely,
+and enjoy the giving, instead of having to give at a time when it is
+actually dishonest to bestow a present. Why, I have known people who
+had to put off needed dental work or taking a sick child to the country
+when three or four wedding presents fell together. The wedding gift
+was a debt of honor. “They sent us a set of salad forks.” “She gave us
+a clock when we were married,” and it had to be returned in kind. The
+abolition of the show wedding would prolong the days of many a poor,
+old, hard-worked father, whose daughter’s trousseau is the straw that
+breaks the camel’s back.
+
+It is not because she needs them, or has any use for them, that
+Sally Ann, who is a poor girl marrying a poor young man, has to have
+piles of orchid chiffon undergarments, hand-embroidered and belaced
+and beribboned. It is because they are to be displayed to her catty
+friends, who will finger them, and appraise them, and criticize them,
+and then go home wondering how her father is ever going to pay for
+them. If her lingerie were not Exhibit A at the wedding Sally Ann would
+go along and provide herself with a reasonable amount of underwear that
+would stand wear and washing, and not run papa into debt.
+
+But Sally Ann has to have her show wedding. She has to trail up the
+church aisle in her white satin and her tulle veil, and all the rest
+of it. And by the time father has paid for the church and the flowers,
+and the bridesmaid’s presents, and the reception, and the automobiles,
+he has had to borrow money at the bank and has saddled himself with a
+debt that bends his back a little more, and puts new lines in his face,
+and adds to his burden in work and worry, which was already more than
+he could bear. And it has all been for a few minutes’ flaunting of
+herself in the face of an audience of people who smiled and nudged each
+other, and said: “Did you ever see her look so homely? Brides always
+look their worst.” “Wonder what he ever saw in her to make him pick her
+out.” “Is that the bridegroom? Looks like a scared rabbit.” “How on
+earth do you suppose her father will ever pay for this? Everybody knows
+he can’t afford it,” and so on, and so on. Just what everybody says at
+a wedding.
+
+Above all, the abolition of the show wedding and the saving of the
+foolish expenditure it involved would enable many a young couple to set
+up housekeeping out of debt; and, best of all, they would begin life
+simply and honestly, and with the admiration and gratitude of all who
+know them. Getting married is the crucial act in a man’s and woman’s
+life. It is the most awful and solemn thing they ever do. And why they
+want to have a thousand curious eyes peering at them when they take the
+step that is going to plunge them into hell or lift them into heaven
+passes comprehension. It would not be more incongruous to send out
+invitations to people to come and watch you die than it is to come and
+see you married.
+
+Wise that young couple who simply slip around to the parson and make
+their vows at the altar, with no one but God to look on.
+
+
+
+
+LII
+
+WHEN YOUR CHILDREN ARE GLAD YOU DIE
+
+
+Parents seem to run to extremes. Of the common, or garden, variety
+of fathers and mothers there appears to be two types. One is the
+overindulgent, which lavishes too much money, too many fine clothes,
+too many motorcars on its offspring, and that brings up its children to
+be idle and worthless wasters and spenders. The other type of parent is
+the Spartan one that is as hard as nails, unsympathetic, close-fisted;
+that denies its children every indulgence, and that holds to the theory
+that the harder it makes life for the young the better it is for them.
+Both schools of thought are wrong.
+
+Undoubtedly, parents make a very great mistake when they sacrifice
+everything to their children and make doormats of themselves for their
+children to walk on. They weaken their sons and daughters by pampering
+them too much and by standing between them and the struggle that alone
+makes muscle of body and soul, and they do their children a cruel
+injustice by cultivating in them extravagant tastes and habits that
+perhaps they cannot later on give them the money to gratify. Certainly
+it is an unedifying spectacle to behold, as we often do, a mother in
+patched, made-over clothes, while her daughters fare forth in the
+latest imported Parisian models, or a seedy father riding on the street
+car while son burns up the road in a speedy sports car and is decked
+out like Solomon in all his glory.
+
+Also we can but deplore the folly of parents who skimp, and slave, and
+deny themselves every comfort in order that their daughters can make
+a splurge in society, and that their sons may loaf through college
+courses, where they acquire nothing but a college yell and a contempt
+for their hump-shouldered old dads. We could weep when we see tired
+old women who are converted into unpaid nursemaids by their married
+daughters who are always coming in and dumping their babies down on
+mother when they want to go off on a trip or play bridge. And what
+tears we have left we could shed over the men whose sons are always
+getting into trouble and coming back to father for help when they know
+that they are robbing him of the pittance he has saved up for his old
+age.
+
+But between doing everything for your children and doing nothing at all
+for them is a long step, and the parents who do not help their children
+to get a start in life fail just as much in doing their duty to them as
+do the foolishly fond parents who kill their children’s initiative by
+swaddling them in cotton wool. Of course, necessity is a grim teacher.
+If you chuck a child into the water where it must sink or swim, it is
+pretty apt to strike out and keep afloat somehow. And it is true that
+a great many successful men and women are the children of parents who
+were so poor that they could do nothing for them, and that they fought
+their way to an education and battled their way to success against all
+sorts of hardships. But there is a great difference between the parents
+who cannot help their children and those who will not help their
+children, between the fathers and mothers who would give their heart’s
+blood to their children and those who will not give them a few dollars.
+And while the children may feel all love and reverence for the poor
+parents who were powerless to assist them, they can but feel bitter
+resentment toward the parents who stand callously by, watching their
+struggles without holding out a helping hand.
+
+A large number of parents have an idea that it does young people good
+to be deprived of pleasures, to be reared to no indulgences, to know
+hardships. And so even when they have plenty of money they deny their
+children pretty clothes and the advantages of education and travel, and
+when they get married they let them scuffle for themselves. They do not
+give the girl a dowry nor set the boy up in business.
+
+It seems to me that this is a cruel and an inhuman thing to do, and
+that it serves no purpose but to kill in the child’s breast every
+particle of affection it had for its father and mother. For it dooms
+the children to years of struggle and self-sacrifice, pinching
+economies and anxieties that it might so easily have escaped. And God
+knows that life is not so easy for any of us that we can afford to have
+any of the pleasure taken out of it.
+
+It also often shuts the door of opportunity for the child or puts off
+success for many weary years. The few thousands of dollars that father
+might have invested in the firm which would have raised Tom from being
+a clerk to a partner might have carried him on to fortune. If father
+would have financed the extra course of study in his profession for
+John, he would have achieved success and begun big money making years
+before he did. If father had given Mary an allowance big enough to
+hire servants, she would not have worked herself to death cooking, and
+washing, and baby tending. But father wouldn’t do it. He held on to
+every penny and let his children fight it out the best way they could.
+The daughter of such a man once said to me:
+
+“My father is dead and I have inherited a large fortune, but it has
+come to me too late to do me any real good. When I was a girl I never
+had any pretty clothes. I never had a nice home to invite my friends
+to. I never had any indulgences. I never could even go with the people
+I was entitled to go with because I did not live in the style they did.
+I married a poor man and my father never helped us. I wore my youth out
+in housework that I was not strong enough to do. If he had given me
+$10,000 when I needed it, it would have done me more good than all that
+I have inherited does me now.”
+
+The moral of all of which is, do not sacrifice yourself to your
+children; do not impoverish yourself for them, but help than all you
+can while they are young and while they need it, if you do not wish
+them to be glad when you are dead and your will is read.
+
+
+
+
+LIII
+
+WHAT PRICE PLEASURE?
+
+
+Do you ever ask yourself if you are not paying too high a price for
+many of the things in which you indulge yourself? So far as material
+things go, most of us are keen enough about seeing that we get our
+money’s worth. We do not pay a thousand dollars for a string of glass
+beads. We do not buy a battered flivver at Rolls Royce figures, nor
+will we stand being charged banquet prices for a corned beef and
+cabbage dinner.
+
+When it comes to spiritual values, however, we lose all sense of
+proportion. We become spendthrifts, who throw our priceless treasures
+away, and we literally sell our birthrights for a mess of pottage. One
+thinks of this particularly just now when one watches so many young
+persons making such bad and losing bargains with fate. There are the
+boys scarcely out of their teens who think it is such a sporting thing,
+so dashing, and that it shows that they are such men of the world to
+carry flasks on their hips and drink the vile poison that bootleggers
+sell. For the sake of the kick they get out of this and for a few
+minutes’ exhilaration, they are risking not only death itself, but what
+is far, far worse, blindness and imbecility and every sort of nervous
+ailment.
+
+Look at the pasty-faced, blear-eyed youths with shaking hands that you
+see all about you, their minds dulled, their energies paralyzed, their
+ambitions killed by drink; who are done with life before they have ever
+begun to live. What a price they have paid for booze! Can any boy look
+at a drunken sot, dirty, poor, despised, and think that the pleasure
+that he has got out of drink has paid for what it cost him?
+
+And the girls. The girls who are mad for gaiety, crazy for the
+admiration of men; the girls who go on drinking parties, who indulge
+in petting parties, who joy-ride until all hours of the night, who let
+men kiss and fondle them because that is the price that men demand
+for taking them out. How cheaply they sell themselves! Many a girl
+pays with shame and disgrace that follow her to the longest day she
+lives for a single wild party. They buy their fun high, these girls
+who exchange for it their self-respect, their modesty, their maidenly
+innocence and their good names.
+
+The family quarrel. That is a domestic luxury for which we have to
+pay so dearly that it is never worth the cost. Undoubtedly, when one
+is feeling cross, and irritable, and disgruntled, there is a certain
+luxury in letting go all of one’s self-control, and turning one’s
+temper loose, and stabbing right and left with cruel words that wound
+like dagger thrusts. Also it salves one’s own conscience to lay the
+blame for everything that goes wrong on some one else. Therefore, many
+husbands and wives go on a daily orgy of nerves and temper. They vent
+their spleen against life on each other. They say to each other all the
+mean and hateful things that they are too politic to say to strangers.
+
+But the price they pay! It bankrupts them. For they kill each other’s
+love. They slay each other’s respect. They inevitably come to hate each
+other and to cherish secret grudges, born of insult and injustice.
+There is no peace nor tenderness in their homes and their marriages
+either end in divorce or become long drawn out misery. What a price to
+pay for the lack of a little self-control!
+
+Extravagance. The price of indulging yourself in your youth in the
+things that you cannot afford is poverty and dependence in your old
+age. The woman who cannot resist pretty clothes. The woman who is
+bitten by the society bug and who tries to keep up with people better
+off than she is. The man who belongs to lodges, when he can’t pay the
+rent collector. The man who buys an automobile and a radio on the
+instalment plan. They will pay, as sure as fate, for gratifying the
+desire of the moment by long years of bitter dependence. Twenty or
+thirty years from now they will be down and out, and they will either
+be in almshouses or the hangers on of relatives, who resent having to
+take care of Poor Uncle John or Cousin Susan. Or they will be burdens
+on their children, who are having all they can do to take care of their
+own families.
+
+The highest priced cars in the world are not the gold-plated,
+satin-lined jewel boxes made for millionaires. They are the cheap
+little cars bought by the people who cannot afford them and who have to
+go into debt for them.
+
+And there is the price the lazy pay for shiftlessness. And the price
+the mother pays who lets her children roam the streets while she plays
+bridge or goes to clubs. And the price the sarcastic pay who alienate
+a friend for the sake of making a witty speech. There are a thousand
+other little gratifications of a mood or inclination, the desire of a
+moment, that we pay for with tears, with loneliness, with failure, with
+our very heart’s blood. What a pity we don’t count the cost of things
+before we indulge ourselves in them!
+
+
+
+
+LIV
+
+THE IDEAL MOTHER
+
+
+A woman asks: “What qualities should the ideal mother possess?”
+
+To begin with, a mother should have love, and tenderness, and sympathy,
+and be willing to sacrifice herself for her children. These are the
+stock virtues of motherhood, and virtually all mothers possess them.
+But they alone do not make a woman a good mother. Often they do as
+much harm as good, for you can ruin a child by blind devotion. You
+can enfeeble it by too much tenderness. You can make it a selfish
+egotist and an overbearing brute by making yourself a doormat for it
+to walk over. So to love, tenderness, sympathy and unselfishness the
+ideal mother must add other qualities, and the most important of these
+is the ability to see her job as a whole and to realize that she is
+responsible for the finished goods that she turns out.
+
+Not many mothers have this vision; or, rather, they shut their eyes
+and refuse to see that the molding of their children’s characters,
+the settling of their destinies, is in their own hands. They let a
+high-tempered child grow up undisciplined and without teaching it any
+self-control. They let a slothful, lazy one grow up without forming
+habits of industry. They never teach a self-indulgent, greedy child to
+curb its appetite. They spoil and pamper their children, and then they
+say that they “hope” their children will turn out all right!
+
+The ideal mother knows that you form children’s characters in the
+cradle, and so she does not trust to luck with her youngsters. She
+begins when they are babies to teach them self-control, and thrift,
+and industry, and all the principles of right living. The ideal mother
+must have a backbone. Unfortunately, most mothers permit their hearts
+to crowd out their spinal column until they have no more backbone than
+a fishing worm. This is why you hear women say despairingly that they
+can’t do a thing with their 10-year-old child.
+
+It takes nerve, and grit, and determination, and courage to fight
+self-willed youngsters, and mother is too soft to do it. So she gives
+in rather than listen to her baby’s howls of rage or go through the
+struggle of conquering a disobedient child. And the inevitable result
+is that her children have a contempt for her as a weakling, and ride
+roughshod over her, and become the outbreaking young hoodlums who fill
+our jails and brothels.
+
+The ideal mother is a human being. She doesn’t pose before her children
+as a plaster saint or an oracle on a pedestal. One of the reasons why
+children do not confide in their parents is because the average father
+and mother pretend that they were such models of all the virtues when
+they were young that their children feel they have nothing in common
+with them and that they wouldn’t understand how a boy or girl feels who
+wants to do all sorts of foolish things.
+
+How can a girl tell her mother that a boy kissed her, if mother
+represents herself as Miss Prunes and Prisms, and says that when _she_
+was young girls never skylarked, and never went on joy-rides or to
+cabarets, or held hands in the movies, but spent a pleasant evening
+sitting up in the parlor in the presence of their elders discussing
+improving topics?
+
+It is the human mothers who can sympathize with their children’s desire
+for good times and help them to them; who will stretch a point to get
+a girl a new frock or a boy the fraternity pin he craves, who get well
+enough acquainted with their children to really help them and guard
+them.
+
+The ideal mother has a sense of proportion. She doesn’t see her
+ducklings as swans. Her love doesn’t blind her to her children’s faults
+and blemishes. Rather it sharpens her vision, so that she gets a line
+on them as they really are. Thereby she is enabled to help them make
+the most of such gifts as they have. She sees that Tom is brilliant
+but unstable and lacking in purpose, and she holds him to whatever he
+undertakes to do until she forms the habit of steadfastness in him.
+She sees that John is dull but a plodder, and she trains him for some
+occupation in which quickness of mind is not demanded and in which
+the prizes go to faithfulness and hard work. She sees that Mary is
+intelligent but homely, and lacking the charms that allure men, so
+she gives her some occupation by which she can make a good living for
+herself and which will fill her life with interest. And this sense of
+proportion keeps her from making her children ridiculous by bragging
+about them, and boring every one with whom she comes in contact with
+endless stories of what wonderful and marvelous creatures they are,
+and how, wherever they go, they are the cynosure of all eyes and the
+admiration of all beholders.
+
+Finally, the ideal mother should have a sense of humor that will enable
+her to laugh instead of cry over many of her children’s peccadilloes
+and keep her from taking them too seriously. For the thing that ails
+young people is chiefly youth, and they will get over that if you
+will give them a little time. Because they are idle, irresponsible,
+pleasure-loving, dance-mad, girl and boy crazy is no reason for
+prophesying dismal things about them and wringing your hands in
+despair. It is a passing phase of life at which we elders may well
+grin, remembering the time when we also were young and foolish. An old
+woman who had raised up a remarkable family of sons and daughters once
+gave me this as her recipe for bringing up children: “Kiss them when
+they are good. Spank them when they’re bad and teach them to obey you.”
+That is the whole of the law and the prophets.
+
+
+
+
+LV
+
+HOW TO CATCH A WIFE
+
+
+“You are always telling girls how to catch husbands,” says a young man.
+“Why don’t you give us chaps a few tips about how to get wives?”
+
+Well, son, perhaps I unconsciously favor women because I belong to
+their lodge. Also, it is more difficult for a woman to catch a husband
+than it is for a man to get a wife, not only because women are more
+inclined to matrimony than men are, but because a woman’s pursuit of
+a man has to be stealthy and secret and under cover, with all of her
+tracks carefully hidden and her purposes veiled, whereas a man can go
+after a woman openly and aboveboard, with everybody looking on and
+applauding the chase. Therefore, the woman is more in need of any stray
+hints that may improve her technique than the man is. Still, far be it
+from me to withhold from my brothers any information I may have about
+the short cuts to the feminine heart. So to the really earnest seeker
+after knowledge on this subject I would say:
+
+First. Study your girl. Catalogue her. Find out to what type she
+belongs and adapt your tactics to the situation, for all women no more
+rise to the same line of courtship than all fish bite at the same bait.
+There are some feminine hearts that can only be taken by assault and
+battery and others that surrender to patient siege. There are women
+whose love is for sale to the highest bidder and others who bestow it
+in pity. There are women who like a business proposition and women who
+fall only for the romantic wooing. So there you are, and your success
+will depend upon your ability to psychoanalyze the particular woman and
+upon the skill with which you suggest to her that you are the great
+unsatisfied need of her soul.
+
+If the girl is of the clear-eyed, upstanding, competent business
+type, your best method of winning her is by the good, old, well-tried
+Platonic friendship method. She isn’t anxious to exchange a mahogany
+desk for a kitchen range nor to give up a good pay envelope and an easy
+job to toil for some man for nothing. Likewise, she has worked with men
+too long for her to see any rosy halo around the masculine brow, so
+she is pretty apt to shy off at any suggestion of marriage and balk at
+the thought of the altar. But life lacks savor to every woman without
+masculine society, and so this particular type of woman is especially
+allured by the idea of a beautiful and satisfying friendship with some
+man. And when a chap has got his toe that far into the door to a
+woman’s heart it is his own fault if he does not open it all the way.
+
+Only there is this word of warning: Never pop the question to the
+business girl in the morning of a sunshiny day when she has on a new
+frock and a good hat and everything is going swimmingly at the office
+and she feels fit and fine and ready to buck the world. Instead, choose
+a rainy evening, when she is sitting alone at home, dejected and
+forlorn, when she is tired and the boss has been grumpy. Then the thing
+she wants most on earth is just a nice, strong masculine shoulder to
+cry on.
+
+If the girl you want is a flapper, your best ally is your bankbook. All
+you need to look good to her is to be a good spender and a fast worker.
+Hold not your hand and count not the cost of jewelry and trinketry and
+candy and flowers and cabarets and eats and joy-rides, and remember
+that the man with the longest purse wins. Some day she will jazz with
+you to the preacher, and you will live scrappily ever afterward.
+
+If the girl upon whom your affections are set is a demure little
+Puritan, make her your Mother Confessor. Confide to her all your sins,
+real and imaginary. Invent a dark past for her benefit. Make her
+believe that but for her Sacred Influence you would become an abandoned
+character and that she alone can lead you up to the higher life. All
+women have the reformation complex, and the better they are and the
+less they know of the world the harder they fall for the belief that a
+grown man’s character is like a piece of dough that they can mold into
+any shape they please. Once let a girl get the idea into her head that
+she is responsible for your soul, and she is yours for the taking.
+
+If the girl you want is one that you made mud pies with in childhood
+and went to school with, and who refuses to see you in a sentimental
+light, don’t be discouraged by her telling you that she will be a
+sister to you. Just keep right on strutting your Rachel-and-Jacob
+stuff. Mighty few women can resist that. Make yourself a habit with the
+girl. Make yourself necessary to her happiness and comfort by always
+paying her the little attentions that women like. Fetch and carry for
+her. Be the one person in the world she can always depend upon to make
+life pleasant and agreeable for her.
+
+Then suddenly drop her cold. Begin paying furious attentions to some
+woman she always accuses of being made up and older than she looks and
+an artful hussy, and it is a hundred-to-one bet that she will call you
+back and let you see that her feelings toward you were not at all what
+she had supposed they were. For when she thinks you are about to marry
+another woman she will wake up to the fact that life will be cinders,
+ashes and dust without you.
+
+If the girl you desire is one of the morbid sort who hangs between “I
+will” and “I won’t,” who is always vivisecting her heart and taking
+her emotional temperature, what you need to use is caveman methods.
+She is just dying to have you drag her to the altar by the hair of her
+head, and if you are half a man you will do it. Don’t ever ask that
+kind of a woman to marry you. Tell her you are going to marry her and
+that you have the license and the ring in your pocket and are on the
+way to the chapel with her, and you will give her a thrill that will
+last a lifetime.
+
+These are only a few of the many ways to win a wife. It is dead easy,
+and any man can do it who has gumption enough to work out a cross-word
+puzzle.
+
+
+
+
+LVI
+
+DANGEROUS GIRLS
+
+
+Chief among the women from whom a young man should pray his guardian
+angel to deliver him is the Hinting Girl. She is a gentle grafter who
+holds up every man she meets with a pair of innocent-looking blue eyes
+that bid him stand and deliver just as effectually and efficiently as
+if he were looking down the barrels of a couple of blue-nosed revolvers
+in the hands of a highway robber. You will find these cheerful
+workers, son, where you least expect them. The very highest society is
+filled with girls of undisputed position and unquestioned morals, who
+ruthlessly plunder every man they meet, and you will never encounter an
+individual more to be feared than these bandits of the parlor.
+
+Did you ever wonder why one girl receives so many more presents than
+another, and why every man who passes lays some offering on her shrine?
+Take it from me, this is the result of science and not mere chance.
+Observe, closely, and you will see, when you call, that she steers the
+conversation artfully around to the latest play, and before you know it
+you have offered to take her to it.
+
+Also, she has let you know that violets are her favorite flower, and
+the date of her birthday. Before Christmas she artlessly confides
+in you where there is the jeweled vanity, or the hand-painted fan,
+that she has set her heart upon, and she couldn’t shout it at you any
+plainer if she bawled it to you through a megaphone that she expects
+you to come across, and will think you a piker if you don’t.
+
+Beware the Hinting Girl, son. She is the woman who is accessory before
+the crime of half of the embezzlements of trusted clerks who go wrong,
+and who, if she got her deserts, would stand in the prisoners’ dock
+by the side of the poor, weak, trembling boy who has stolen to buy
+her jewels or to give her a good time. And she makes the sort of wife
+whose husband rises up and sits down to a never-ending chant of “Gimme!
+Gimme! Gimme!”
+
+Then there’s the Girl With a Past. Very often she has been more sinned
+against than sinning. Probably her morals are just as good as your
+own, son; but, even so, such marriages rarely turn out happily. For we
+have to face the naked fact that, while a man may love a woman well
+enough to forget and forgive her indiscretions, society, which is not
+in love with her, remembers them all. And it reminds her husband that
+it recalls them. The man who marries a Woman With a Past is pretty
+much in the same fix as the man who hires a reformed embezzler to be
+his cashier. He hopes he will run straight, but he keeps an eye on
+the cash box—a situation which doesn’t make for domestic felicity. Of
+course, there are women who reform and gather in their wild oats crops
+and ever after raise nothing but garden truck around their doorstep,
+but even while their husbands are devouring their domestic cabbages
+and onions there rarely comes a family spat in which they do not throw
+in their wives’ teeth the kind of farmers they have been. The truth
+is that it takes a big man and woman to defy the conventions. That is
+what makes it safest for those of us who are little people to play the
+game according to the rules laid down by Hoyle. And one of these rules
+is that women must keep their skirts clean. By and large it is a good
+rule, son, for it means the purity of race, the integrity of society
+and a lot of other things that keep this old world going.
+
+Then there’s the Weeping Girl. Whenever you meet with a gentle,
+sweet, soft, babyish-looking little girl, with a chin that trembles
+and big eyes that overflow with tears at the slightest provocation,
+and who can cry without her nose getting red, fly, son, fly. She will
+fasten herself upon you, and when you try to make a getaway she will
+cling to you and weep. And no man can behold unmoved a woman crying
+for him, because he is such a good thing. You will stop to wipe her
+eyes; and all will be over with you except the long, long years of
+rainy matrimony when you will have to deal with a wife who cannot be
+reasoned with or cajoled or coerced into doing anything she doesn’t
+want to do, because you will be so afraid of starting another freshet
+of tears.
+
+Then there’s the Domestic Girl, who baits her hook with angels’ food.
+You might go farther and do worse than marry the Domestic Girl, for
+while romance is transient one’s appetite remains, and after one’s
+illusions are gone it is a comfortable thing to have a good dinner to
+fall back upon. Still, one must confess, the Domestic Girl is apt to
+have only a bread-and-butter conversation, of which a man might tire
+in time; so, unless your stomach is developed in excess of your heart,
+walk warily when the Domestic Girl begins to inveigle you into little
+meals for two that she cooks for you under a pink-shaded lamp.
+
+Lastly, there is the girl who is just near you—the girl you work with,
+or who lives in the same boarding house with you, or who comes to visit
+your sister. Men who have escaped the dangers of all other women are
+the victims of propinquity which unites them to ladies they couldn’t
+otherwise have seen through a telescope. Somehow our very nearness to
+the people with whom we are thrown every day keeps us from getting a
+perspective on their faults and disabilities, and habit deceives us
+into thinking that they are more necessary to us than they are. And so
+we drift into the mismated marriages that keep the divorce courts busy
+and the world salted down with the brine of our tears.
+
+Therefore, if you perceive that Mamie, whom you thought vulgar at
+first, no longer gets on your nerves; if you observe that Sadie, who
+bored you when you first met her, is beginning to interest you with her
+chatter about what “he said” and “I said,” and you discover that you
+have quit being shocked by Carrie’s gum-chewing and Mabel’s grammar,
+then, son, pack your trunk and leave while the leaving is good.
+Otherwise, the Girl Next to You will get you sure.
+
+But why amplify the list? Some day a girl will tag you, and you will
+know you are “it,” and a million warnings could not save you from your
+fate.
+
+
+
+
+LVII
+
+WHEN A GIRL LOVES A MAN
+
+
+A youth asks me how he can tell whether a girl loves him or not. Well,
+son, you can’t always tell. There are times when all signs fail, and
+there is no man so clever, so discerning, so sophisticated that a
+woman cannot fool him if she set her mind to doing so. For the many
+generations in which women were entirely subservient to men, and in
+which they had to get everything they had out of men, and in which
+all their pleasures and perquisites depended on their wheedling and
+cajoling men, have made them gifted liars and adept at befooling men.
+
+However, the modern girl, being able to make her own living, and stand
+upon her own feet, and therefore being to a large degree independent of
+men, has less need to simulate emotions which she does not feel, and
+so she has lost the fine technique of her mother and her grandmother
+and her great-great-great grandmother. Flirting has become a lost
+art, and the methods of the gold-digger are so crude and raw that any
+man who is taken in by one deserves all he gets. The average girl is
+almost brutally frank about the state of her feelings. She hasn’t even
+subtlety enough about her to keep a man guessing.
+
+But there is, of course, a sort of no-man’s land that lies between
+liking and loving in which the girl wanders, herself as uncertain and
+bewildered as you are. And, I take it, it is across this dangerous
+terrain that you wish to be guided. Sally is dear and sweet to you.
+She apparently enjoys your society, and you never have any trouble in
+making dates with her. She is the best little pal ever. But what you
+want to know is whether she cares for you just as she does for half a
+dozen other chaps, or whether you are the ONLY ONE.
+
+First, Is she willing to sit at home of an evening with you or not?
+If she comes down with her hat on to receive you, or if she always
+wants to step out somewhere, you have not touched her heart. She
+regards you merely as a purveyor of good times, a theater ticket and
+a dancing partner, and any other youth who had the price would do as
+well. But things have got serious with her when she proposes to spend
+the evening at home under a pink-shaded lamp. That shows that she has
+begun to live a romance with more thrills to it than anything she can
+see depicted on the stage, and that she thinks that Valentino is a poor
+dub at love-making compared to you. Also it indicates that she desires
+to isolate you, to cut you out from the herd and put her brand upon
+you. Cupid is essentially a monopolist. Especially the Lady Cupid. The
+first thing that a woman does when she falls in love with a man is to
+try to shut him away from all other women. So long as a girl wants to
+go in crowds there is nothing doing with her in the love line. If she
+really cares for you, she will maneuver to get you off to herself.
+
+Next. Observe how a girl treats your pocketbook. If she gets everything
+out of you that she can; if, when you go out, she has to have a taxi
+to convey her three blocks, although she can walk ten miles around a
+department store without turning a hair; if she always suggests orchids
+when flowers are mentioned, and invariably picks out the most expensive
+places to dance and the highest-priced dishes on the menu, you may be
+certain that she has no serious intentions concerning you. You are
+merely the good thing that a merciful Providence has brought forward
+for her sustenance. But when a girl begins to talk economy to a boy;
+when she suggests going to the movies instead of to the theatre; when
+she orders a ham sandwich instead of a chicken breast and mushrooms
+under glass, it is an unmistakable sign that she is regarding his
+bankroll as her own and is commencing to save up for furniture for her
+future home.
+
+Next—and this is an acid test—talk to the girl about yourself and
+observe her reaction to it. Monologue along to her by the hour about
+what you are doing, about what you have done in the past and what you
+expect to do in the future. Tell her all about what you said to the
+boss and what the boss said to you. Explain to her all the details of
+the grocery business. Regale her with reminiscences of your childhood,
+when you were a fat little boy with green freckles on your hands.
+
+If she yawns in your face or if she listens with the expression of a
+martyr being nailed to the cross; if she gets up and walks around the
+room or turns on the radio or interrupts you to ask what you think
+of the President’s foreign policy, you may as well abandon hope. Her
+affection is merely gold plated, not the real thing. But if she laps up
+your talk about yourself and asks for more; if she begs you to repeat
+that darling story of how naughty you were to your nurse, and if she
+sits, goggle-eyed with excitement, on the edge of her chair while you
+relate how you sold a bill of goods to a hard customer, rest assured
+that her heart is yours for keeps. For there are only two women in the
+world, a man’s mother and the woman who is his wife or hopes to be his
+wife, who want to hear him talk about himself.
+
+Take note also of a girl’s attitude toward you. As long as she regards
+you as an intelligent, husky, able-bodied man, capable of taking care
+of yourself and with sense enough to come in out of the rain, her
+regard for you is merely platonic. But when a girl suddenly becomes
+anxious about the state of your health, when she worries over your
+getting your feet wet and is afraid you are not getting enough
+vitamines in your diet, when she warns you not to forget to put on your
+overcoat if it is cold and to look out for automobiles when you cross
+the street, then it is safe to begin pricing engagement rings.
+
+Of course, there are other signs of love, such as a girl developing an
+acute attack of domesticity and passing up the display of French frocks
+in a window for that of aluminum pots and pans, and especially when she
+begins dragging a man to church with her, which are not to be ignored.
+But when a maiden begins to mother a chap and indicates that her idea
+of spending a perfectly hilarious evening is just to be alone with him,
+listening to him talk about himself, she is his for the taking.
+
+
+
+
+LVIII
+
+MARRIAGE LESSONS
+
+
+What has marriage taught you?
+
+“The chief thing that marriage has taught me,” said a man who has
+had forty years of experience in matrimony, “is that women are human
+beings. When a man acquires that piece of information it always gives
+him a bit of a jolt, for most men never really think of women as
+human beings at all. They think, according to their kind, of women
+as angels, above all earthly passions, with no nerves or tempers, or
+selfish cravings for pleasure and who find their joy in life in loving
+the unlovable and forgiving the unforgivable and being a sweet, gooey,
+sticky mass of gentleness and patience and unselfishness. Or they think
+of women as being baby dolls to be dressed up and played with and put
+on the shelf when they are tired of them. Or they think of women as
+pieces of household machinery—sort of automatic, self-starting cooks
+and carpet sweepers and washers and menders, who run on their own power
+and who don’t even have to be oiled up with a few lubricating words of
+praise now and then.
+
+“And so husbands treat their wives according to their conception of
+what women are, and that is why marriage is so often a failure and why
+there are so many divorces. Women don’t want to be regarded either
+as saints or toys or domestic conveniences. They want to be treated
+as human beings and have their husbands give them the same sort of a
+square deal a man gives his business partner.
+
+“About nine-tenths of the spats that married people have are over
+money. It gets on the husband’s nerves to have the woman eternally
+dunning him for money. It seems to him that before he gets his hat
+off in the evening she begins asking for a few dollars for this and
+for that. Then the bills come in, and they are always bigger than he
+expected, and he rows about it, and she thinks that he is stingy.
+
+“The trouble is that the man isn’t treating his wife like a rational
+human being. He is expecting her to be a miracle worker and run a house
+on air. He is humiliating her and making her feel that he is a tyrant
+by making her come like a beggar to him for every penny because he
+has got an idea that women don’t mind panhandling. Furthermore, he is
+expecting her to gauge her expenditures wisely, when she hasn’t the
+faintest idea of what her resources are.
+
+“I have found out that it saves friction over money to make my wife
+as liberal an allowance as I can. I have found out that if you will
+explain to a woman just exactly how the financial situation stands
+in the family and why you can’t afford the thing she wants she will
+not only do without it gladly but cut down her expenses in other ways
+and help you to save. It is believing that their husbands are holding
+out on them and not splitting fifty-fifty with them that makes women
+reckless spenders.
+
+“And I have found that a man is a fool who lies to his wife. In the
+end she always catches up with him, and then she imagines things ten
+times worse than they were. If a man telephones his wife that he is
+going to stay downtown and meet a customer from Oshkosh and she learns
+that he really played poker with the boys she pictures a scene of wild
+debauchery and leaps to the conclusion that he is leading the double
+life and he never hears the last of it. But if he tells her just what
+he is going to do she is so flattered at being trusted and thought
+broadminded enough not to begrudge her husband an evening’s pleasure
+that she goes to bed and goes to sleep instead of waiting up for him
+with a curtain lecture sizzling in her mind.
+
+“Marriage has taught me that women think more of words than they do of
+deeds and that a woman would rather have her husband tell her that he
+loves her than to have him work his fingers to the bone for her and
+never make her a soft speech. As long as a husband tells his wife how
+beautiful she is and how he would like to deck her out in diamonds
+and sables she is perfectly content to do without them and wear
+hand-me-downs. It is only when she thinks that he doesn’t care whether
+she has fine clothes or not that she gets peevish over not having the
+finery that other women have.
+
+“Marriage has taught me that in the family circle the hammer is a
+boomerang that returns and annihilates the hammerer. If you knock your
+wife’s cooking she says, ‘What’s the use of trying to please you?’ and
+makes no effort to improve; but if you praise her dinners she breaks
+her neck trying to make them better and better. If you criticize the
+size of the bills she revenges herself by buying something that really
+cost money; but if you tell her what a help she is to you and what a
+marvelous manager, she becomes a nickel-nurser.
+
+“If you find fault with her hat or her dress, you have to buy her a new
+one; but if you tell her how becoming her last year’s costume is and
+how it brings out her lines, she will wear it into shreds. Marriage
+has taught me that if you let your wife know that you admire her and
+appreciate her, that you are grateful to her for all that she does for
+you and that you try to do all in your power to make her happy, she
+will repay you a thousandfold and there is nothing she won’t do for you
+and no fault she won’t overlook in you.”
+
+
+
+
+LIX
+
+THE SUPERIOR BUSINESS WOMAN
+
+
+The other day a man killed his beautiful young wife because she was a
+better “business man” than he was and made more money. The woman loved
+her husband and was good to him. She was ambitious for him. She got
+him a job with the people for whom she worked and tried to push him
+along and help him in every way. But it simply was not in him to be the
+go-getter that she was. She was a success and he was a failure. And in
+the frenzy of morbid jealousy that this engendered in him, he slew her.
+
+Thus vividly do we have brought to our attention one of the new
+difficulties that the advent of women into the business world has
+injected into the already complicated matrimonial proposition. It
+makes the question of how the modern wife can best be a helpmeet to
+her husband one that takes a Solomon in petticoats to answer. In olden
+times the matter was perfectly simple. The woman who wanted to help
+her husband along had only to be a good and thrifty manager, to pare
+the potatoes thin enough and squeeze the nickels. She did her part in
+building up the family fortunes by saving. But, in many cases to-day,
+the old woman’s granddaughter is a crackerjack business woman who
+sees that she can help her husband more by earning than by scrimping,
+and that she can make more money in one year in business than she
+could save in ten years by doing her own housework and wearing shabby
+clothes. So, as long as she is working for their common good, the woman
+cannot understand why her husband shouldn’t be just as willing for her
+to help him by working in an office as in a kitchen, or why the wife
+who does brain labor isn’t as good a wife as the one who does manual
+labor.
+
+But the great majority of women who continue to follow any gainful
+pursuit after marriage find out that, while there is a new woman who
+looks at everything in life from a new angle, there is no new man.
+Women have changed in their relationship to man, but men stand pat just
+where Adam did when it comes to dealing with women.
+
+If you will notice, it is only women who prate about equality between
+the sexes. Men take no stock in any such heresy. When a man tells a
+woman that she is an angel and that he looks up to her and worships
+her, it is one of the lover’s perjuries at which Jove laughs. In
+reality he doesn’t mean a word of it. The very basic thing on which a
+man’s love for a woman is built is his sense of superiority to her.
+He wants to feel stronger than she is, wiser than she is, to be more
+successful than she is. She must look up to him, revere him, ask his
+opinion, be guided by his advice.
+
+That is why the clinging-vine type of woman is so appealing to men,
+and it is why intelligent, big-brained men so often marry morons and
+are happy and contented with them. Their silly little wives do not
+understand one word in five they say and are no companions to them, but
+they satisfy the masculine demand to dominate the woman. When the case
+is reversed, as it often is, and when the wife is the more intelligent,
+the stronger character—when the gray mare is the better horse and
+pulls most of the load—the marriage is invariably unhappy, and the
+husband almost invariably either openly or secretly hates his wife.
+His love for her is never strong enough to survive the hurt to his
+vanity. His sense of inferiority to her keeps his nerves raw, and if
+he is dependent upon her it turns his very soul to wormwood and gall.
+I have never known a woman who supported her husband who received any
+gratitude for it. He would eat her bread, but he did it as a snapping
+dog that bites the hand that feeds it.
+
+There is nothing that fills a woman’s cup of happiness so full and
+overflowing as for her husband to achieve a notable success and be
+great and famous. She glories in being Mrs. Explorer or Mrs. Engineer
+or Mrs. Banker or Mrs. Author, and loves to shine in the reflected
+glory. But the deadliest insult you can offer any man is to speak
+of him as his wife’s husband and call him Mr. Mary Smith, although
+Mary may have written the book of the year or have performed some
+achievement that has made the world sit up and take notice of her.
+
+Perhaps all of this is natural. Perhaps this cosmic urge that the male
+has to dominate the female is something instinctive for which he is not
+responsible.
+
+But it makes the woman’s course a hard one to steer, for, curiously
+enough, the weak man is often attracted to the strong woman, and there
+is something maternal in the strong woman that wants to mother the weak
+man and makes her feel that he only needs her to take care of him and
+boost him and show him the way to success.
+
+So the girl who is making a big salary marries the man who is making a
+small one, and she tries to supply for him the business sense he lacks
+and to galvanize him into a hustle of which he is incapable, and they
+live scrappily ever afterward. Yet there is nothing we can do about
+it as long as nature goes blundering along putting the brains and
+talents of merchants and bankers and trust presidents into a lot of
+women’s heads and making plenty of men who would have been wonderful
+housekeepers and done perfectly lovely embroidery work if only they
+hadn’t got the wrong sex.
+
+
+
+
+LX
+
+NEW IDEALS FOR OLD
+
+
+The strangest thing in this age of strange things is the new
+relationship that is growing up between the sexes. So many of the
+ideals that have ruled us for centuries have been scrapped and swept
+into the discard that the boy and girl babies of to-day are virtually
+born into a new world where few of the conventions that ruled their
+parents survive. Take the matter of financial independence, for
+instance. Since the caveman days it has been held that the proper
+attitude of woman was one of dependence on her lord and master. The
+woman bore the children and kept the house, and the husband provided
+the wherewithal to support the family. When a woman had property her
+husband took possession of it on the day they were married. Virtually
+every lucrative occupation was barred to women. When a man and a woman
+went to any place of amusement the man would have been highly insulted
+if she had offered to pay any part of the cost of the entertainment.
+Man was the purse bearer, and his lordly gesture indicated that he had
+the checking account of Mr. Rockefeller and that woman was a dear
+little sweetie who was not to bother her poor little foolish head over
+the cost of anything.
+
+To-day the majority of women earn their living before they are married.
+Financial independence has become so necessary to their happiness that
+one of the potent sources of domestic discord is the inability of the
+woman who has had her own pay envelope to do without it and reconcile
+herself to taking whatever her husband gives her as recompense for her
+hard work as a poor man’s wife. Also husbands are coming more and more
+to begrudge spending money on their wives and are demanding oftener
+and oftener that the wage-earning girls they marry shall keep on with
+their jobs. Likewise, it is a common thing for the young women who go
+out with young men to places of amusement to pay their own way and go
+fifty-fifty on all expenses.
+
+This may be fair enough. Certainly, when men and women work side by
+side and the woman gets the same salary as the man there is no more
+reason why he should feed her and buy her theater tickets than why she
+should buy his. Perhaps it is only logical that when woman fought for
+and won financial independence she should have to pay the price of her
+victory. But what I am trying to show is that man’s attitude toward
+woman as regards money has changed. She has shown that she can make her
+own living and he lets her do it. Even fathers have now no such sense
+of responsibility about providing for their daughters as they used to
+have. Men no longer adopt the gallant “I’ll-pay-your-way” pose. They
+treat women about money as they would treat another man. Of course, the
+occupation of wifehood and motherhood is a strenuous one and is all
+that any woman can be expected to do properly, but it is becoming more
+and more evident that men are less willing to support their families
+and that in the future women are going to have to continue to be
+wage-earners even after they are married.
+
+Another curious shift of masculine thought is about feminine modesty.
+In the past, no matter what a man’s own life might have been, he
+demanded unsullied innocence in the woman he married. His ideal was the
+shrinking violet, the bud with the dew upon it. In these days there are
+few peaches with the down still left upon them. They have nearly all
+been manhandled. Girls display their bodies with an abandon that would
+have made the most hardened woman blush fifty years ago. Debutantes
+tell stories that would paralyze their grandmothers if they could hear
+them. Young women think no more of kissing every Tom, Dick and Harry
+who comes along and in indulging in petting parties and “necking,” than
+their mothers would have thought of shaking hands and holding a casual
+conversation. Girls excuse themselves for indulging in these dangerous
+and degrading practises by saying that unless they do they receive no
+attention from men. They speak the truth. Men may still theoretically
+admire what they call “the old-fashioned girl,” but they leave her to
+spend her evenings with her parents. Few men in these days can hope
+to marry a girl who has not been kissed and pawed over, and so it is
+obvious that men are changing their opinions about the desirability of
+modesty in women and establishing a single standard of conduct for both
+sexes. That is just, but it does not make for morality or the uplift of
+humanity.
+
+Men and women both approach marriage in a different spirit. In the back
+of most young people’s heads as they march to the altar is the thought
+that if they don’t like it they won’t stick to it. It is an experiment,
+and they will try anything once, and if it doesn’t come up to what
+the novelists and poets have press-agented it to be they can always
+fly to the divorce court. That is one reason why marriage is so often
+a failure. Neither husband nor wife makes an honest effort to make a
+success of it. Of course, there are exceptions to all rules. There are
+husbands who gladly support their families; there are girls who have
+kept themselves unsullied and their lips virginal; there are men and
+women who still hold marriage a sacrament. But for the great majority
+of men and women there are new ideals and a new attitude toward each
+other. And whether these are better or worse than the old only time can
+tell.
+
+
+
+
+LXI
+
+WHY DIVORCE IS COMMON
+
+
+When we hear about a couple getting a divorce on the grounds of
+incompatibility of temper we instinctively feel that it is too trivial
+a reason for breaking up a home and we condemn them as poor sports
+who did not have enough grit to carry on and make the best of their
+bargain. If it had been something big, now—drunkenness, the drug habit,
+infidelity—if the husband had been a brute who beat his wife, or the
+wife a virago, we could have sympathized with them. But just to get a
+divorce because they didn’t think alike on politics and religion and
+hadn’t the same taste in pie. Pooh! Quitters. A yellow streak. We’ve no
+pity for them.
+
+Yet when you come to think of it, is there really anything else in
+the whole wide world that comes so near to justifying divorce as
+incompatibility of temper? Is there any other such good reason for a
+man and woman parting and going their separate ways as the fact that
+they have not one thought or desire or interest in common? And is there
+any other torture comparable with having to live in intimate daily
+contact with a person who continually rubs your fur the wrong way, who
+gets on your nerves, who rasps your sensibilities and keeps you in a
+perpetual bad humor? It is a lot easier to forgive an occasional big
+fault than it is to put up with never-ending petty irritations. The big
+sinners at least take a day off from their vices now and then, but the
+little sinners who sin against our habits and ideals and conventions
+are always on the job. So when you think of this and consider the
+difficulties there are in the way of every man and woman who get
+married adjusting themselves to each other, you are not surprised that
+divorce is so common. You only wonder that it isn’t universal.
+
+Here are two persons of different sexes, doomed by nature to look at
+everything from different standpoints and to react differently to every
+situation. Back of them is a different heredity, often a different
+race. In their veins flow alien currents of blood. They have been
+brought up with different standards, in different schools of thought.
+Different habits have been bred in them. They worship different gods
+and at different altars and eat different dishes.
+
+What marvel that such a couple come to grief on the rocks of
+incompatibility of temper! The miracle of it is that any of them have
+the wit and wisdom to steer around it. But the terrible and pathetic
+thing about it is that in hundreds of these cases in which husbands and
+wives live a cat-and-dog life and make each other perfectly miserable,
+or else break their marriage vows, nobody is really to blame. Each is
+perfectly right from his or her standpoint, only they can’t agree. They
+can’t adjust themselves to each other. The woman who has been brought
+up in a happy-go-lucky household, where the only use any one saw for a
+dollar was to spend it as quickly as possible, where meals were movable
+feasts that were as likely to happen at one hour as another, is a thorn
+in the side of a husband who has been trained from his youth up to make
+a fetich of thrift, order and promptness.
+
+On the other hand, the woman whose mother has brought her up to make
+a sacred rite of cleanliness and who scrubs the back of every kitchen
+shelf and regards a chair out of place or ashes on the rug as a high
+crime and misdemeanor, is fretted into nervous prostration by a husband
+who never can be taught to wipe his feet on the doormat or kept from
+mussing up the best sofa cushion.
+
+There are women who die of broken hearts, frozen to death by the
+coldness of their husbands. They have come from warm-hearted,
+demonstrative families. They have been accustomed to having a fuss made
+over them and to seeing their father’s loverlike attentions to their
+mother, and they think that their husbands do not love them, because
+they never tell them so. They cannot understand the dumb, repressed
+temperament that is utterly incapable of showing what it feels. Then
+there is the gay, pleasure-loving man who likes to dance and dine in
+restaurants and jazz; the good fellow whom everybody likes and who
+has holes in his pockets that no wife’s economy can ever sew up. What
+superhuman wisdom and patience it takes in a woman to keep from nagging
+him if she has been brought up in an austere family that frowned on all
+frivolous amusements and whose watchword was duty instead of good times!
+
+Then there is the eternal conflict over little trivial personal habits
+and ways, over things as small as cooking. Irvin Cobb said once that
+the Civil War was fought not over secession or slavery but over hot
+bread and cold bread. Certainly many thirty or forty-year family wars
+are waged over what strength the breakfast coffee shall be and the
+use of onions in the soup. And certainly it is no trivial matter for
+one accustomed to a sophisticated, highly cultured cuisine to have
+to insult your palate with plain, ignorant, boiled food because the
+partner of your bosom has had his or her early education in eating
+neglected. Probably no woman who has been reared in the belief that
+one’s good clothes should be kept for company and that any sort of
+old messy duds were good enough for home consumption can realize the
+disgust she inspires in her husband’s breast when she comes down to
+breakfast in a boudoir cap and a soiled kimono and no complexion if he
+is of the fastidious sort to whom slovenliness is a mortal sin.
+
+These little things—the niceties of life that one has been taught to
+observe and the other hasn’t, the order and thrift one has been bred
+to and the other hasn’t, the difference in point of view, in taste, in
+habit—make the inevitable friction between husbands and wives which is
+at the bottom of almost every divorce. And when you think how hard it
+is to give up our old opinions and ways of doing things, the wonder
+is that so many persons are able to do it and that so many couples do
+adjust themselves to each other and get along in reasonable peace and
+harmony.
+
+
+
+
+LXII
+
+THE CHILDREN PAY
+
+
+No disinterested outsider ever observes the spats in which so many
+husbands and wives continually engage without realizing that they
+quarrel because they enjoy doing so. It is an indoor sport out of which
+they get a morbid thrill. Domestic life has become dull and monotonous
+to them. They have nothing new and interesting to say to each other,
+and so one or the other starts something by making a remark that he
+or she knows is the fighting word that will inevitably precipitate a
+scrimmage. And then they go to it, hammer and tongs. It is their way
+of putting pep into a pepless day, for they know the danger they are
+running, and the very fact that they are risking their whole life’s
+happiness crisps their nerves, as going over the top did the soldiers
+in the war. Besides which they get a strange and savage joy out of
+stabbing with cruel words and in wounding and being wounded by the ones
+they love and who love them.
+
+It is because married couples love a fight for the fight’s sake that so
+many homes are nothing but a battlefield on which a perpetual warfare
+goes on. Otherwise the dove of peace would roost on the roof of many
+a household to which the black flag is now nailed. For it is folly to
+say that the average husband and wife who are forever engaged in an
+acrimonious debate over every trifle that comes up could not get along
+with each other if they desired to do so. They get along with other
+persons. They make allowance for the prejudices and faults of others.
+They permit other persons to differ from them on matters of opinion and
+taste. They sidestep other persons’ peculiarities. They control their
+tempers and their tongues when they are dealing with others. They are
+tactful and diplomatic in handling other persons. No doctor would ever
+have another patient, no merchant another customer, no man could hold
+his job if he was as irritable, as grouchy, as high tempered abroad as
+many a man is at home, and if he said the insulting things to other
+persons that he says to his wife. No woman would ever be invited to
+another bridge party or elected president of the sewing society if she
+were as much of a spitfire in public as many a woman is in private, and
+if she said the nasty things to others that she says to her husband.
+
+Now, the rules for keeping the peace are the same everywhere, and both
+men and women are familiar with them. Every man knows that there isn’t
+a woman living that he can’t make eat out of his hand by showing her a
+few attentions, a little tenderness and consideration and paying her
+a few compliments. Every woman knows that there isn’t a man that she
+can’t jolly along the way she wants him to go and who does not respond
+to judiciously applied salve. So when husbands and wives, who know
+perfectly well how to work each other without friction, deliberately
+and with malice aforethought rub each other the wrong way, it is
+obviously because they enjoy their daily dozen fracases and find fun
+in seeing the fur fly. If that were the end of it, we might well shrug
+our shoulders and, while wondering at their taste, leave them to
+take their pleasure as they saw fit in the cruel pastime of baiting
+each other. But, unfortunately, the family spat is not the innocent
+diversion that husbands and wives appear to think it is, nor does it
+end when the husband puts on his hat and bangs the door behind him and
+goes downtown, and the wife wipes away a tear or two and goes about her
+daily tasks.
+
+The children are the real victims in these family fights. It is they
+who stumble from the domestic battleground with shattered nerves,
+with torn and bleeding spirits and souls, with maimed and deformed
+characters. All of us have known children who have taken to the streets
+almost as soon as they could walk to escape homes that were full of
+bickering and discord. We have seen how little control the fathers
+and mothers who could not control their own tempers had over their
+children, and we have not wondered when truant officers tell us that
+nine-tenths of the wayward girls and hoodlum boys are the children of
+divorced parents, or else, of parents who did not get along together.
+Now comes a great psychiatrist who asserts that he has never known
+an instance of nervous breakdown in the children of happily married
+parents who were brought up in a peaceful home.
+
+Read that over again. Memorize it, you fathers and mothers who begin
+the day by having a row at the breakfast table because the coffee isn’t
+just as you like it or the toast is burnt or you neglected to send up
+the coal yesterday and forgot to leave the money for the milkman. You
+think it is of no consequence because your wife knows you don’t mean
+half of what you say and she is fighting back more from force of habit
+than anything else. But neither one of you gives a thought to the
+children who are listening to it all, to the children who are learning
+to regard you with contempt, who are having all their illusions
+shattered; whom you are teaching to be bitter and misanthropic, with
+no faith in anything beautiful or fine. You do not realize that you
+may not only be giving them a warp in character that will bar them
+from success in life, but that you may be actually dooming them to a
+breakdown that will make them wrecks in body and mind.
+
+Isn’t that a pretty high price to pay for the pleasure of quarreling?
+And isn’t it a cruelly unfair thing to force your children to settle
+your score? For the sake of the children you brought into the world
+and for whom you are responsible, isn’t it worth while to deny yourself
+the pleasure of finding fault with your husband or wife and saying all
+the mean, acrimonious things you can think of? No use in saying that
+you can’t get along together. You can, if you want to. You get along
+with other persons.
+
+
+
+
+LXIII
+
+THE LEARNED PROFESSION OF HOME-MAKING
+
+
+No complaint is more general—possibly no belief is more prevalent among
+women—than that a woman of intelligence wastes her energies and her
+abilities in being merely a housekeeper. Following the domestic arts is
+a despised calling, held in such contempt by the majority of women that
+they never take the trouble to achieve success in it; and yet there is
+no other occupation under the sun that requires so many and such varied
+talents as does the learned profession of home-making. Did you ever
+think what a woman must be in order to create and carry on a happy and
+prosperous home?
+
+She must be a financier. There can be no peace and pleasure in a
+home where the wolf is always howling under the window and the bill
+collector hammering on the door. There are, of course, a few men in
+every community who are such gifted money-makers that they can annex
+more coin than any woman can spend, but for the great mass of ordinary,
+industrious, hard-working humanity the wife settles the financial
+status of the family. It is her ability to handle money, her knowledge
+of where to spend and where to economize, her knack of making a dollar
+buy a hundred and five cents’ worth and get a blue trading stamp thrown
+in to boot, that is at the foundation of every prosperous home. We
+don’t hear anything about it, because the woman doesn’t know herself
+how awfully clever she is, but the majority of women in this country
+are doing marvels of financiering in the way they make both ends meet
+in their housekeeping allowance, and keep up appearances, that entitle
+them to qualify in the Rockefeller class.
+
+She must be a general.
+
+She must know how to command. She must know how to set all the
+multitudinous wheels of household machinery in motion and be able
+to keep them moving without friction. She must be able to enforce
+obedience, inspire enthusiasm, plan campaigns, forestall her enemy, be
+fertile in expedient and subtle in strategy. Any woman who maintains a
+comfortable and well-ordered home, the kind of a house that we like to
+visit, and who raises a nice family and marries her daughters off well
+could give the commander-in-chief of the army points on generalship.
+
+She must be a diplomat. The husband question, the children question and
+the servant question are not to be handled without gloves. There is no
+hour of the day that she is not called upon to deal with some problem
+that requires the finesse of a Talleyrand. She must be able, if the
+white-winged dove of peace is to brood over the home nest, to deal
+with her husband’s prejudices and circumvent them so delicately that
+he will never know that he is being induced to do the thing that he
+swore he would never, never do. She must assert her authority over the
+growing boy with such cunning that he does not perceive that her fine
+Italian hand is on the check rein holding him tight and steady. She
+must be able, without the girls dreaming that she does it, to insinuate
+a doubt, drop a word of ridicule, imply an impossibility that will keep
+her daughters out of entangling alliances and steer them toward the
+reciprocally profitable permanent treaties they should make.
+
+Above all, she must be able to see most when she is apparently stone
+blind; hear everything when she seems to be as deaf as the adder of the
+Scriptures; to be most on guard when she looks to be sleeping at her
+post, and to be most chaperoning her daughters when the onlooker and
+the girls themselves would swear that she was most giving them their
+liberty.
+
+She must know how to tread very softly if she keeps off the corns of
+her servants, for whether a woman is agreeable or disagreeable in the
+home her children are bound to stay there with her, but it is the
+blessed privilege of Mary Ann and Bridget and eke of Hulda and Dinah
+that they can pack their trunks and go. Only the very quintessence
+of diplomacy renders a mistress _persona grata_ to the kitchen, and
+the woman who preserves friendly relations with that must understand
+the Alpha and Omega of how to make a jolly cover the discipline of a
+martinet. Any woman who, when she is fifty years old, has a husband who
+thinks her a Solomon in petticoats, grown children who quote mother’s
+opinion, and a cook who has been with her five years is fitted to be
+Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of
+St. James’s, and nothing but the stupidity of a nation that believes
+that breeches and brains are synonymous terms keeps her out of the job.
+
+She must be an artist.
+
+It is the woman’s province to create the beauty of the home. This is
+true whether it is the palace of the millionaire or the three-room flat
+of the day laborer. Every room that she arranges is a picture, just as
+much as if she painted a Dutch interior on canvas.
+
+She must be a poet.
+
+A home is not merely a place of shelter and food—it is a thing no less
+of the spirit and soul—and a woman must put into it the passion of her
+heart and the joy of creating just as truly as a poet must put them
+into his song. To make a home that is beautiful, that breathes the
+spirit of home, that is a haven of peace and rest to those who live in
+it and that is a glimpse of Paradise to the stranger who is bidden
+within its gates is a profession the most exacting in which any woman
+can engage and the one that calls for the greatest number of talents.
+Also it is the most profitable, for within it are made the men and
+women who go forth to bless the world. And the wonder of wonders is
+that so many just plain ordinary women are doing it, and the greatest
+marvel of all is that they do not realize what a glorious thing they
+are doing!
+
+
+
+
+LXIV
+
+A FATHER’S INFLUENCE
+
+
+There is no subject under the sun of which men take such a distorted
+view as they do of a mother’s influence. Romancers have glorified it,
+poets have idealized it, musicians have sung it until men have honestly
+come to think that mothers have a practical monopoly of their children
+and the sole duty and privilege of shaping their lives. Even fathers
+seem to think that fathers count for nothing and that all they are good
+for is paying the bills. In the family circle they take a back seat
+and let mother run the show. It is Mother’s Day that is celebrated
+with pomp and flowers and beating the cymbals. Nobody notices Father’s
+Day—perhaps because the first of the month is always Father’s Day and
+it comes around so often.
+
+No one would belittle mother’s influence. For good or evil it is all
+powerful. But it is all powerful because father is so often too stupid
+or too lazy or too careless or too much absorbed in his business to
+do his duty to his children by helping to mold their characters. He
+dodges his responsibility. He passes the buck to mother and salves his
+conscience with a platitude about a mother’s sacred influence, which
+in his innermost self he recognizes for the hokum it is. For mother’s
+influence does not always work for righteousness. Motherhood works no
+miracles. Bearing a baby does not put brains and wisdom in a hen-minded
+woman’s head. It does not give a shallow woman depth. It does not make
+a narrow, prejudiced woman broad and tolerant. It does not make a fool
+woman wise.
+
+Yet all around us we see men who would not trust their wives’ judgment
+about anything else on earth, turning over to them their children’s
+immortal souls. They know their wives to be silly and ignorant—without
+vision, without the ability to see or understand anything beyond their
+own little circle—yet they let these morons shape their children’s
+lives. They let them form their children’s ideals and set their
+standards. They let them decide on the schools their children shall
+attend, the churches they shall join, the people with whom they
+associate.
+
+Yet the very men who trust their children to weak and incompetent and
+unintelligent wives to rear would not dream of permitting a weak,
+incompetent, unintelligent partner to run their business. They are too
+well aware of the value of their personal advice and supervision and
+of the need of their strong and expert hands on the wheel. Men blindly
+subscribe to the faith that a mother’s influence is bound to be good,
+especially upon her daughters, yet a moment’s thought would show them
+how fallacious such a belief is.
+
+A woman can only give out what she has. She can only try to make her
+daughters what she is. And unless a man wants his daughters to be just
+the sort of woman their mother is, he cannot safely leave them in her
+hands.
+
+It is true that there are not many women who deliberately bring up
+their girls to be immoral and start their feet on the downward path.
+But there are thousands upon thousands of mothers whose influence
+upon their daughters is vicious, because they inculcate in them their
+own low ideals of honor and honesty. They teach them by precept and
+example to evade every duty of wifehood and motherhood, and from their
+very infancy up they instil into them a greed and selfishness that
+wrecks the happiness of all who come in contact with them. Such are
+the mothers who teach their daughters how to lie and cheat, how to buy
+on credit the finery they cannot afford, how to kill a man with their
+extravagance. Such mothers are those whose favorite maxim is that what
+a husband doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him. Such a mother is the one
+who, not long ago, I heard say to her young daughter who was getting
+married: “Don’t tie yourself down with babies. Go about and amuse
+yourself and have a good time, and if your husband doesn’t like it he
+can lump it.”
+
+When a man has that kind of a wife—and no man can be so afflicted
+without knowing it—he does a criminal thing when he leaves his girls to
+their mother’s influence. It is his bounden duty to use his influence
+to correct hers as far as possible. Little as men seem to realize it,
+children nearly always listen with far more respect to what their
+fathers say than they do to what their mothers say. For the child knows
+intuitively that the father has had a broader experience of life than
+the mother has. It knows that the father goes out into the world and
+does battle with it every day and that he knows from experience the
+things about which mother vaguely theorizes. It knows that father knows
+the rules and how to play the game.
+
+Hence when a man really makes any attempt to develop his children’s
+characters he finds them as clay in his hands, ready to respond to his
+slightest touch. It is only when father merely uses his influence as a
+veto power that it is negligible. That a boy needs his father’s hand
+in directing and controlling him at the critical time of his life and
+a father’s wisdom to steer him along the right course is universally
+recognized, but I often think that a girl needs it even more. For a
+girl needs to be taught the things that life teaches a man. She needs
+to be taught to be straightforward and honest and to live up to her
+contracts, that she must give as well as take in life and that she must
+have the courage and the grit to carry on when things are hard instead
+of turning quitter and to make the best of a bad bargain. Many a
+divorce would have been avoided and many a home that is now broken up,
+kept intact if a father’s influence over his little girl had made her a
+good sport, instead of mother’s influence developing a yellow streak in
+her.
+
+A mother’s influence is a great thing, but it needs to be backed up by
+father’s. That is why God gave every child two parents instead of one.
+
+
+
+
+LXV
+
+THE RICHES OF POOR CHILDREN
+
+
+The bitterest cry of poor people is that they have nothing to give
+their children. The fathers and mothers who cannot buy imported finery
+for their girls or sports-model cars for their boys and send them off
+to expensive colleges and fill their pockets with money feel that they
+have come empty-handed to their children and have nothing to give them.
+Yet the poorest man and woman who bend above a cradle have it in their
+power to bestow upon their babe treasures so great that their worth
+cannot be computed in dollars and cents, and that will bring the child
+more pleasure and happiness in life than they could purchase with all
+the wealth of the Rothschilds. For there is no price tag on the most
+precious things in the world. They are equally free to prince and
+pauper, and more often the beggar gets them than the millionaire does.
+
+For example, there is love—a close, intimate, personal association—and
+tenderness and understanding. Poor parents can more easily give to
+their children than the wealthy can. And the child that has them is
+rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and the child that has them not
+is poverty-stricken, although it has all else besides. The mother who
+rocks her baby to sleep on her breast, whose tender arms are always
+outstretched to gather her youngsters to her heart, who is never too
+tired or too busy to listen to childish confidences, who surrounds
+her little ones with a brooding atmosphere of affection,—gives to her
+children far more than does the rich mother who gives her children
+nurses and governesses and pony carts and fine clothes and costly
+playthings but who does not give them herself; who bestows on them
+everything but the things that a child wants most and needs most—mother
+love and tenderness, the real mother touch.
+
+Not long ago a very rich young man figured in a disgraceful scandal,
+and the one excuse offered in his defense was that his mother was dead
+and his father had never given him anything except money. He had never
+had any affection bestowed upon him. He had had no parental guidance.
+When a little lad he had been put in a school and kept there without
+even being visited by any one who loved him, without even going home
+for vacations. He had been just a pitiful little millionaire waif for
+whom nobody cared. The lot of such a child is infinitely worse than
+that of the one whose parents are in such humble circumstances that
+they can give it perhaps only the plainest of food and clothes, but who
+do give it a real home that is full of close, warm family life. The
+fathers and mothers to whom children are grateful and whose memories
+they revere are not those who bequeath them great fortunes, but those
+who leave them the memory of a love and understanding that never failed
+and of a childhood that was made sweet by their parents’ cherishing.
+
+No matter how poor you are, you can give your children love and
+companionship and the privilege of growing up in a peaceful and
+cheerful home, and that is something that few rich parents can give
+their children.
+
+Another gift that you can make your children is that of teaching them
+how to read. When you do that you really don’t need to do much more
+for them, because you have put a magic coin in their hands that will
+buy them entrance into all the doors of delight and open to them all
+of the portals of romance. No one who loves to read can ever be bored
+or lonely. He or she has only to open a book, and, presto, he or she
+has for company all of the wit and wisdom of the ages. Gay adventures,
+beautiful ladies and gallant gentlemen beckon, and one has only to
+follow them into realms of enchantment. All of interest, all that
+informs, that thrills, that amuses, is the property of the reader.
+But, reading does not always come by nature, as Dogberry thought it
+did. Often it has to be acquired by art, but any child can be taught
+to like to read; it can be given the reading habit, and no other gift
+can possibly be bestowed upon it that is half so valuable or that will
+bring it in such happiness or that will be such an ark of refuge to it
+in times of trouble.
+
+Another gift that the poorest parents can make to their children is to
+teach them how to see. Most persons go through the world as blind as
+bats. They never see anything that isn’t directly under their noses,
+and thereby they miss half of the fun and pleasure in living. There
+are men and women to whom a sunset is just a phenomenon of nature that
+happens every day; to whom a crowd is just a jam of people; who get
+nothing out of travel but inconvenience and missing the particular kind
+of breakfast food they prefer, and who loathe rain because they get
+their feet wet and hate snow because it is messy. And there are other
+men and women who see the glory of God in every flaming sunset; who
+thrill to the finger tips at the drama they see enacted in every crowd;
+to whom travel opens up a new world; to whom every rain is a symphony
+and every snowstorm a poem.
+
+Which of these get the most out of life—those who see or those who are
+blind; those who can get pleasure out of little things or those who are
+too dull and dumb to amuse themselves; those who are sensitive to every
+beauty in nature, who appreciate music and art and literature, who get
+the last flavor out of good cooking, or those who find everything flat
+and stale and uninteresting because they have never been taught to see
+the under side of things?
+
+Finally, the poorest parents can teach their children that brave
+attitude toward life without which all the balance is cinders, ashes,
+and dust. For disappointments and trouble come to us all, and it is
+only those who have been taught how to make the best of their bad
+bargains, how to laugh at misfortune and mock at fate, who achieve any
+real happiness in life. So cheer up, you parents who complain that you
+have nothing to give your children. You can give them love. You can
+teach them to read and to see things. You can give them a brave heart.
+These gifts are worth more than money. And nobody can take them away
+from those who have them.
+
+
+
+
+LXVI
+
+A MAN’S RIGHT TO HIS HOME
+
+
+It is a matter of continual wonder to me that women do not realize
+how unjustly they treat their husbands about their homes. Of course,
+a woman’s home is her castle and all that, and it is right and proper
+that she should be the ruler of it. Moreover, inasmuch as the average
+man is in his home only a very few of his waking hours, while his wife
+spends practically all of her time in it, it is more important that it
+should come up to her ideal and fire her fancy than his. She should
+have the right of choice in selecting the neighborhood she desires to
+live in, because she has to know the people next door and look across
+the street all day, and he doesn’t. Nor should any mere husband presume
+to dictate about the number, size, and arrangements of the closets
+in a house that is going to be his wife’s workshop. Nor should a man
+interfere with his wife’s taste in decoration, no matter how much it
+runs to putting ruffled petticoats on the furniture and installing
+forests of floor lamps, for having a home dolled up as she wants it,
+fills a woman with a great and exceeding peace and joy, and no good
+husband should withhold this pleasure from his wife.
+
+But all that does not give the wife the right to monopolize the home
+and use it for her sole behoof and benefit, as so many women think it
+does. The man who pays the freight, the man who buys the house and who
+supports it, should have a few poor, simple privileges in it which even
+a wife should recognize and respect. He should at least, in all common
+fairness, have the status of a star boarder in the home his money keeps
+a going concern. He seldom does, however. There is not one home in a
+thousand where the man of the house has even a room of his own which
+he can furnish in accordance with his own taste and where he can mess
+around as much as he likes.
+
+I have known many men who tried to establish dens for themselves
+in their houses, but before they got fairly settled, with their
+collections of stamps or fishing rods or stuffed animals or what-not
+disposed around them, their wives decided that it would be just the
+place for a sewing room or the nursery. Three hooks in a closet and a
+couple of drawers in a chiffonier are about all most men get for their
+private use in their homes, and at that they generally find that their
+wives and daughters have superimposed feminine fripperies over their
+best suits and parked their silk stockings on top of their shirts. So
+universal is the feeling among women they have a right to the entire
+house that when a wife does concede an easy chair and a reading lamp
+to her husband she boasts of it loudly and calls everybody’s attention
+to her unusual and generous gesture, whereat all marvel. And even her
+husband himself puffs out his chest and feels that he is a pampered
+household pet.
+
+Why women should feel that they have an exclusive right to exercise
+the hospitality of the home nobody knows, but they do. If you will
+observe you will see that in most homes it is the wife’s family who are
+perpetually billeted in the spare bedroom, while the husband’s family
+makes few and occasional visits. You will also observe that there are
+ten men who have their mothers-in-law living with them to one man whose
+mother resides under his roof. Any wife would think it very mean in
+him if her husband did not extend a cordial welcome to Aunt Sally and
+Cousin Sue when they were invited for a visit and if he wasn’t willing
+to have her pretty young sister come and stay indefinitely in town with
+them so as to have the benefits of the city. And she expects him to
+register great joy when her mother telegraphs that she is coming for a
+month or two.
+
+But it is another pair of sleeves when it comes to a husband’s
+relatives, and there are precious few men who would dare to dump a
+bunch of their kinspeople on their wives. Many a man is afraid to ask
+even his own mother to come to see him. The average husband would
+fall dead with surprise if his wife ever intimated to him that she
+considered the fact that he paid for the rent and food and light and
+heat and general upkeep of the home gave him just as much right to have
+his family stay with them as she had to have hers.
+
+As to the friends who come to the house, the wife considers it her
+prerogative to settle that little matter by herself and thinks that her
+husband has nothing to do with it. She spreads the mat with “Welcome”
+on it for those she likes and slams and bolts the door in the faces
+of those she doesn’t fancy. And she practically never fancies her
+husband’s old friends. So the man who had looked forward to having
+his old friends in his new home, who had dreamed of long talks with
+Tom by his fireside and to having Bob, who was closer than a brother,
+drop in at any time for pot-luck finds, somehow, not only that they
+do not come, but that he is afraid to ask them to come. Wives are
+always complaining that their husbands are not willing to stay at
+home. Perhaps the remedy is making the home a democracy instead of an
+autocracy. If men had more rights and privileges at home they might
+like staying in it better.
+
+
+
+
+LXVII
+
+DEVOURING FRIENDS
+
+
+“One of the greatest pests in the world is what I call the devouring
+friend,” said a woman the other day. “She is a bloodthirsty cannibal
+who gobbles you up alive, and you have no way of protecting yourself
+against her, because the sacred name of friendship bars the use of all
+the lethal weapons that you can use in defending yourself against other
+bores and social nuisances.
+
+“Of course, the common or garden variety of devouring friend is the one
+who literally eats you out of house and home. She is a self-invited
+guest who drops you a little note saying that she is passing through
+your city or that she has to have a little dental work done or wants
+to consult a doctor or do some shopping, and she does so pine to see
+her darling Susan and talk over old times, and will it be convenient
+for her to come and spend a few days with you? All of which being
+translated simply means that she desires to graft a hotel bill off you.
+
+“Anyway, she comes and camps in your spare room by the week, because
+she always manages to string out the dental work or the appointments
+with the doctor or the milliner. She should worry. For she is having
+a good time at no expense. Furthermore, by hints and insinuations she
+inveigles your husband into taking her to places of amusement that you
+have not felt that you could afford even when there were only two of
+you to pay for. And she runs your grocery bill up to the skies because
+she develops a taste for the most expensive food. And as you see her
+calmly consuming the price of your new dress you know exactly how a
+cornfield feels when a swarm of seven-year locusts settles down on it
+and goes into action.
+
+“Then there are the devouring friends who eat up your time. I am a busy
+woman. I cannot afford to waste a minute. Unfortunately for me, I have
+a number of women friends who are rich and whose principal occupation
+in life is killing time. Now, these women know perfectly well that
+I not only do all of my own housework but that I make my children’s
+clothes and that if they kill a morning for me they upset my whole
+schedule and make my work pile up upon me so that my labor is twice as
+hard.
+
+“But does that keep them from interrupting me? Lord, no. Every time
+Maud has a spat with her mother-in-law she will drop over and spend a
+whole morning giving me all the harrowing details. Every time Lulu’s
+husband gives her a new limousine I have to waste hours of my valuable
+time listening to a minute description of all its splendor. Every time
+Sallie and Susie want to be sympathized with or want to brag about
+their children they ruin the heart of a day’s work for me by backing me
+up against a wall and making me listen. And a dozen times a day I am
+interrupted by women who call me up over the telephone to hold long and
+fruitless conversations about nothing.
+
+“Yet there is no possible way to protect my precious time against
+these friends who eat it up. They are all charming women. They like me
+and I like them. I want to retain their friendship, so I cannot shut
+my door in their faces when they come to see me. I can’t ask them to
+leave when they stay too long. I can’t ring off when they call me over
+the telephone. I can’t even say ‘damn’ aloud, no matter how much I
+am thinking it. But I know what the cynic meant when he said that if
+God would save him from his friends he would protect himself from his
+enemies.
+
+“Then there are the devouring friends who swallow up all of your
+home life. My husband’s business is such that he has only one or two
+evenings at home a week. We would like to have these to ourselves to
+keep up our acquaintance or to go out on a little spree together. We
+have proclaimed this fact loudly and long to our friends and we refuse
+every invitation that it is possible to get out of for those two sacred
+occasions. But it doesn’t do a particle of good.
+
+“Being an unusually charming and entertaining individual, my husband is
+regarded by my friends as a social tidbit—a particularly savory _hors
+d’œuvre_, as it were—and they gobble up our evenings together without
+the slightest compunction. If we won’t go to them, all right. They will
+come to us. So just about the time we are settling down for a real
+heart-to-heart talk, here come the Smiths to pass a pleasant evening
+with us, or the Joneses descend upon us and bear us off, shrieking and
+protesting, to listen to their new radio, or the Thompsons telephone
+that they are just coming over for a game of bridge.
+
+“And there are the other devouring friends who nibble away at our
+independence like a mouse at a cheese, until some day we suddenly wake
+up to the fact that our freedom is all gone. We haven’t a vestige of
+liberty left. We dare not give a party and leave them out. We have
+to explain to them everything we do and tag meekly along in their
+footsteps. And there are other devouring friends who gnaw constantly
+on our sympathies by telling us all of their troubles and making us
+bear their burdens for them. They are ghouls who make us feed them our
+hearts to satisfy their morbid appetite for pity. Perhaps there is no
+way to get rid of devouring friends, but it certainly would add to
+the pleasures of life if we could swat them as we do other household
+pests.”
+
+
+
+
+LXVIII
+
+THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS
+
+
+What is the secret of happiness? I once asked Mary Anderson this
+question and she replied: “To find out what you want of life, and then
+to have the courage to take it. I wanted quiet, seclusion, home and
+husband and children, the ordinary domestic life of woman,” she went
+on. “I had the courage to leave the stage at the very height of my
+career. And I have had the courage to refuse every offer to go back,
+no matter how dazzling it was. I have also had the courage to stay in
+my sleepy little village and refuse to let myself be drawn into the
+brilliant whirl of London society. I have been happy because I knew
+what I wanted, and I have been brave enough to take it in spite of all
+temptations to be led into doing the things that I did not want to do.”
+
+Undoubtedly this is one of the answers to the great riddle that we
+are always asking and that so few solve. A great many people are
+unhappy because they do not really know what they want. They have no
+clear vision of the thing they are seeking. They are torn between
+conflicting desires and never settle down to any one thing, and find
+contentment and peace in that. You see this exemplified in the men who
+are always changing from one occupation to another, and who work with
+their minds on their golf and play golf with their minds on their work.
+You see it in the women who are fretful and peevish wives and mothers,
+complaining of the burdens of domesticity and feeling that they have
+missed happiness in not following some career, and in the women who
+have followed careers and who are always bemoaning their loneliness
+because they have no families. Yet how seldom do the disgruntled, who
+lament their fate in life so loudly, have the courage to face about and
+take the road that they at least believe leads to happiness! We behold
+so many idle tears that we are inclined to believe there are vast
+numbers of human beings who get a kind of morbid pleasure out of misery.
+
+But what is the secret of happiness? I give four guesses at the
+conundrum. The first is work, to keep so busy that we do not have
+leisure to think whether we are happy or not. There is no other
+pleasure comparable to the clean joy of being swallowed up in some
+useful, constructive work that calls forth every power of mind
+and body. Your own job, that you do competently, has for you a
+never-failing interest, a perpetual thrill that nothing else in
+the world can give. Only brainless idiots are content to loaf.
+Intelligent, thinking men and women must keep busy in order to be happy.
+
+My second guess is that happiness is the bird in the hand and not the
+bird in the bush. If we are ever to be happy we must be happy now at
+the present moment. We cannot put it off until to-morrow. You are
+always hearing people say that they are going to do this and that when
+they get rich, that they are going to travel when they are old, they
+are going to play, they are going to take up old acquaintances, they
+are going to enjoy themselves five, ten, twenty years hence. But when
+the time comes that they have set to be happy in, they find that they
+have lost their capacity for enjoyment. Those who have inched and
+pinched and sweated every penny trying to accumulate a fortune have
+formed such a habit of parsimony that it is agony to them to spend
+money. Those who have denied themselves too much have lost all desire.
+Those who have stayed at home too long have become such a fixture on
+Main Street that they are lonesome and homesick everywhere else.
+
+So the happy men and women are those who take the goods the gods
+provide each hour. They make a reasonable provision against the rainy
+day, and then they indulge themselves in the good clothes, the pretty
+home, the comfortable car, the palatable food, the little trips that
+are within their reach. They do not put off every pleasure until some
+mythical, problematic day, when they will be able to live in a palace
+and have a Rolls-Royce and Paris clothes and when they will be too
+old and rheumatic and set in their ways to want to do anything but
+sit by the fire in their own familiar chair. Never was there sounder
+philosophy conveyed than in the old comic opera ditty which said, “I
+want what I want when I want it,” and if we don’t take it then, it is
+dust and ashes in our teeth.
+
+Happiness consists in simple things. We are always envying the rich and
+great, and think how happy they must be, but we might well pity them,
+for they have far more sources of sorrow than we have. Beyond a modest
+competence, riches are a burden, and money can become a curse that
+blights every natural joy. The millionaire is cut off from the greatest
+of all happiness—that of knowing himself loved for himself alone. He
+suspects the motive of every friend, he does not even trust the woman
+he marries, and he knows his wealth to be a blight upon his children.
+The real source of happiness is in enjoying simple things—a gorgeous
+sunset, a beautiful landscape, a clever book, a good dinner, the talk
+of a friend, the unfaltering love of husband or wife, a baby’s arms
+around your neck, a fine son and daughter filling you with pride and
+joy. These have no price tag on them. They may belong just as much to
+the poor man as the rich man. Indeed, they oftener do.
+
+Finally, remember the song, “I Want to Be Happy, but I Can’t Be
+Happy Till I Make You Happy, Too.” In unselfishness, in doing good to
+others—that is the real answer to the secret of how to be happy.
+
+
+
+
+LXIX
+
+PREPAREDNESS FOR OLD AGE
+
+
+What are you storing up for your old age? Are you laying up any money
+against the time when you will be old and feeble and no longer able to
+work? The hour will strike for you, as it does for others, when your
+earning powers will be gone. Your hands will be too stiff and clumsy
+to keep on with their accustomed task. Your mind will be too slow to
+go the pace in the fierce competition in the commercial world. If you
+are an employee, you will lose your job. If you are a business man, you
+will find that your trade has somehow drifted away from you. If you are
+a professional man, you will be superseded by the new men whose stars
+are just rising on the horizon.
+
+Nothing that you can do will alter these conditions. No miracle will
+save you from the common fate of all who grow old. But if you have
+saved up enough money to make you independent, it will be merely a
+matter of mild regret to you. If, however, you have laid up nothing for
+the rainy day that is bound to come to you, it will be a tragedy that
+you will pray death to end.
+
+For in all the world there are no people so piteous and forlorn as
+those who are forced to eat the bitter bread of dependence in their old
+age, and find how steep are the stairs of another man’s house. Wherever
+they go they know themselves unwelcome. Wherever they are, they feel
+themselves a burden. There is no humiliation of the spirit they are not
+forced to endure. Their hearts are scarred all over with the stabs from
+cruel and callous speeches.
+
+In youth money is a convenience, an aid to pleasure. In age it is
+an absolute necessity, for when we are old we have to buy even
+consideration and politeness from those about us. This is true even in
+the households of our own children, for between the father and mother
+who are able to pay their own way and are the source of a never-ending
+flow of gifts and treats, and the father and mother who must be
+supported is a great gulf fixed. It is the difference between having
+the place of honor and the back seat; between being listened to with
+respect and having one’s opinions derided; between having one’s little
+peculiarities catered to as interesting characteristics and being
+snubbed for one’s old-fashioned ways.
+
+Nor is this as unfeeling and hard-boiled as it seems. The average young
+couple has all it can do, in these times of the high cost of living, to
+provide for itself and the children, and it makes the burden crushing
+to have to add the extra weight of the support of the old people of the
+families.
+
+The fate of the dependent old is so terrible that it is a marvel that
+it does not frighten every one into trying to provide against it. Yet
+it was recently stated in a journal of statistics that 80 per cent of
+the men and women more than sixty years of age were dependent either
+upon their children or upon public charity. Don’t let this misfortune
+befall you. Guard against it. Begin systematic saving while you are
+young, so that when you are old you will at least have the comfort of
+being independent.
+
+Are you laying up affection for your old age? Most of us have a curious
+and naïve belief in what we call “natural affection.” We befool
+ourselves into thinking that people must love us because they stand in
+a certain relationship to us and because there are blood ties between
+us. Never was there a more fallacious theory. There is, to be sure,
+the mother’s passion for the child she has borne and the instinctive
+clinging of the child to its mother while it is young and helpless, but
+that is all. It doesn’t follow as a matter of course that grown-up men
+and women love their parents just because they are their parents. As a
+matter of fact, they don’t, unless the father and mother have won their
+love by years of tenderness and understanding and sympathy. You can’t
+be hard and tyrannical and selfish and stingy with your children and
+expect them to love you because it is their duty to do so. If you want
+your children to love you when you are old, you have to begin winning
+their hearts when they are in the cradle.
+
+Have you laid up a good supply of friendship for your old age? No
+complaint is heard more often from the old than that they are lonely.
+Few come to see them. They are seldom asked out. No one sends them
+flowers when they are sick. They are neglected and they crave the
+little attentions that we all like and yearn for the society of their
+fellow creatures. Now, when old people are lonely, it is always their
+own fault. It is because they have neglected to lay up any friendships
+for the sere and yellow days when they have no longer the power to
+attract people to them.
+
+They have gone their selfish way through life, sufficient unto
+themselves in their youth. They have never held out a helping hand to
+those in need. They have never wept with those who wept and rejoiced
+with those who rejoiced. They have not bothered to write notes of
+condolence or congratulation. They have never visited the sick and
+afflicted. They have never spent an hour listening to an old person’s
+garrulous talk, and so, when they get old, they are repaid in the same
+coin.
+
+Are you laying up any mental riches for your old age? I know an old
+lady so feeble that she cannot stir from her chair, and whose eyes have
+failed so that she cannot tell day from night, and who is so deaf that
+she cannot be read to, but who passes her days delightfully reciting
+to herself whole cantos of Scott and Byron and recalling word for word
+chapters of Dickens and Thackeray and Miss Austen. Her mind to her a
+kingdom is, in which she finds entertainment and amusement. Will you be
+amused or bored when you are in your nineties and have nothing but your
+own society? I know another woman, middle-aged, who is deliberately
+laying up a treasure of memories of travel to solace her in her old
+age. She will never know a dull moment, for she will have something to
+think about besides her rheumatism and her diet when she sits alone in
+the twilight of life.
+
+Old age comes to us all. Don’t let it find you empty-handed or
+empty-minded. Thus shall you make it a time of happiness instead of
+torment.
+
+
+
+
+_The Blue Book of Social Usage_—
+
+Etiquette
+
+In Society, In Business, In Politics, and At Home
+
+_By EMILY POST_
+
+
+“The most complete book on social usage that ever grew between two
+covers.” There are 24 pages about introductions and greetings, 7 about
+street conduct, 13 on conduct at the theatre, 10 on conversation, 25 on
+cards and visits, 33 on invitations, 12 on teas, 61 on dinners, 12 on
+breakfasts and suppers, 26 on balls and dances, 12 on “the debutante,”
+12 on matrimonial engagements, 33 on preparations for the wedding,
+35 on “the day of the wedding,” 23 on funerals, 58 on letters, 22 on
+dress, 9 on the clothes of a gentleman, 34 on the well-appointed house,
+24 on traveling at home and abroad.
+
+The author is a shining figure in society and her charming and popular
+book is accepted everywhere as the authoritative Blue Book of Social
+Usage. Illustrated.
+
+ _Crown 8vo, Cloth. 639 pages. $4, net; flexible leather, $7.50, net;
+ postage, 18c extra._
+
+
+
+
+_The Blue Book of Personal Attire_—
+
+How to Dress Well
+
+
+A valuable treatise by an authority which considers dress for women
+from both the artistic and the practical view-points, and provides
+sound information on the principles of tasteful and attractive apparel.
+Not only does this book give details for enhancing one’s personal
+appearance, for slenderizing the stout, for broadening the slender, for
+the selection of headwear and other accessories, but also practical
+guidance for the selection and testing of materials, choosing of laces
+and furs, budgeting the dress allowance, and for the care and up keep
+of the wardrobe. It is brimful of the very information pertaining to
+dress, color, and toilet accessories about which every woman hesitates
+to accept any but truly trustworthy advice and is a fitting companion
+to Emily Post’s “Etiquette.” Modistes, designers, dressmakers, and
+milliners will also find this work of highest value. Illustrated.
+
+ _8vo, Cloth. 494 pages. $3.50, net; postage, 18c extra._
+
+
+
+
+The Blue Book of Cookery And Manual of House Management
+
+_By ISABEL COTTON SMITH_
+
+_With an Introduction by Emily Post, Author of “Etiquette”_
+
+
+This is not “just another cookbook,” but an original and authoritative
+guide for the preparation of foods and for house management. All the
+originality and importance of this volume would be of limited value
+unless it were written by so capable and practical an authority as
+Isabel Cotton Smith. It contains more than 2,000 recipes; gives
+complete information on the management of house and home, with
+invaluable suggestions for table economy, and includes everything for
+every season and every day in the year, for every possible repast from
+breakfast to late supper and from teas and picnic meals to specially
+designed menus for children at home and at school, as well as menus for
+vegetarians.
+
+ _Crown 8vo, Washable Fabrikoid. $2.50, net; postage, 18c extra._
+
+
+
+
+A Woman of Fifty
+
+_By RHETA CHILDE DORR_
+
+
+This unique autobiography of a remarkable and courageous woman covers
+one of the most revolutionary periods of time in history—from virtually
+the beginning of a concerted movement to organize the women of this
+country in the fight for equality in politics and industry to the time
+when these hitherto unattainable causes were firmly established in our
+economic and governmental systems. As journalist, lecturer, editor, and
+writer, the author has taken part in virtually every event that marks
+her generation; was the only woman war correspondent with the famed
+Russian Women’s “Battalion of Death” on the last Kerensky offensive
+on the Eastern Front; spent three years in “after war” Europe, and is
+to-day in the thick of things in this country. Written in a frank,
+forceful, and grippingly interesting style.
+
+ _8vo, Cloth. 482 pp. $2.50, net; postage, 18c extra._
+
+
+  FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers
+  354-360 Fourth Avenue, New York
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber’s Notes
+
+  pg 58 Changed: which are resonsible for more real
+             to: which are responsible for more real
+
+  pg 61 Changed: you happen to be born in a certain relationshp
+             to: you happen to be born in a certain relationship
+
+  pg 71 Changed: any particular trade or profesion
+             to: any particular trade or profession
+
+  pg 101 Changed: earn her own living as a “poor working women.”
+              to: earn her own living as a “poor working woman.”
+
+  pg 105 Changed: so far be it from me to abridge
+              to: so far be it for me to abridge
+
+  pg 150 Changed: life better than than that of the successful
+              to: life better than that of the successful
+
+  pg 179 Changed: he will be filled fell of pep and energy
+              to: he will be filled full of pep and energy
+
+  pg 179 Changed: discovery that somewhow the mysterious something
+              to: discovery that somehow the mysterious something
+
+  pg 188 Changed: she is not likely to tarnish your deal.
+              to: she is not likely to tarnish your ideal.
+
+  pg 217 Changed: as many men starving for affection as there are woman.
+              to: as many men starving for affection as there are women.
+
+  pg 218 Changed: reward depends altogther on his wife’s attitude
+              to: reward depends altogether on his wife’s attitude
+
+  pg 221 Changed: their purpose when they falter and waiver
+              to: their purpose when they falter and waver
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75448 ***
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+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Dorothy Dix—Her Book | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style>
+
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+
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+    max-width: 100%;
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+
+.figcenter {
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+    text-align: center;
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+    max-width: 100%;
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+
+/* Transcriber's notes */
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+    color: black;
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+/* Illustration classes */
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+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75448 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover">
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<figure class="figcenter illowp85" id="frontis" style="max-width: 37.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption"><p class="right fs150"><span style="padding-right: 2em"><em>Yours Sincerely</em></span><br>
+<em>Dorothy Dix</em>
+</p>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter pageborder">
+<p class="center no-indent fs200 wsp bold">
+<em>Dorothy Dix—Her Book</em></p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+<br>
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp">Every-day Help<br>
+For Every-day People</p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+<br>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp15" id="titlepage" style="max-width: 17.1875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="Decoration">
+</figure>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp">SECOND EDITION</p>
+<br>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp bold">FUNK &amp; WAGNALLS COMPANY<br>
+<span class="fs80">NEW YORK and LONDON</span><br>
+<span class="fs70">1927</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp">
+<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1926, by</span><br>
+<span class="fs120">FUNK &amp; WAGNALLS COMPANY</span><br>
+[Printed in the United States of America]<br>
+Published, August, 1926<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention<br>
+of the Pan-American Republics and the<br>
+United States, August 11, 1910.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Contents"><em>Contents</em></h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr fs70">CHAPTER</td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr fs70">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Foreword</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_xix">xix</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">How a Husband Likes to be Treated</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Charm</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Ordinary Woman</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Teach the Children to Love Father</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Strike a Balance with Matrimony</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jealousy</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Have a Goal</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Goat Family</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Spoiling a Wife</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Absence Cure for Family Ills</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Deadly Rival</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Learn a Trade, Girls</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Trial Divorce</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Marry the Man You Love</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Are You Good Company for Yourself?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Keeping Young</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gossip, the Policeman</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Lucky Working Woman</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Indoor Sport</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Should Women Tell?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Domestic Boredom</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">To Marry or Not to Marry</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Woman’s Greatest Gift</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Grafting on the Old Folks</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Are You a Good Father?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Moral Muscles of Your Children</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Mother-in-Law</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Why Our Families Rile Us</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Our Lives Are What We Make Them</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Husband Losers</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Martha or Mary?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The T. B. M. at Home</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Don’t Be Afraid to Let Your Husband See You Love Him</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Queer Things about Marriage</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Husbands—The Living Conundrum</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Power of Suggestion</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Woman’s Missionary Opportunity</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">How to be a Good Husband</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_195">195</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giving Children Advantages</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XL</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sell Yourself to Your Children</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Taking Husbands “As Is”</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Being a Good Wife</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Invalidism a Graft</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Selfishness Made to Order</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Self-Control</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Old Fathers and New Daughters</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Losing a Wife’s Love</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Lure of the Married Man</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Forget It</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">L</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lost Love</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Show Wedding</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">When Your Children Are Glad You Die</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">What Price Pleasure?</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Ideal Mother</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">How to Catch a Wife</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dangerous Girls</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">When a Girl Loves a Man</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Marriage Lessons</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Superior Business Woman</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">New Ideals for Old</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Why Divorce is Common</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Children Pay</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_310">310</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Learned Profession of Home-Making</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Father’s Influence</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXV</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Riches of Poor Children</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVI</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Man’s Right to His Home</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_330">330</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Devouring Friends</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVIII</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Secret of Happiness</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIX</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Preparedness for Old Age</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak bold" id="Foreword"><em>Foreword</em></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1><em>Dorothy Dix—Her Book</em></h1>
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Foreword by Richard Duffy</span></h3>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">To</span> the accurately estimated millions of readers
+who are familiar with Dorothy Dix’s understanding
+and interpretation of the plain facts
+of everyday life and also its enigmas, it may appear
+a presumption that one should attempt a foreword
+of explanation to make clear why a choice of her
+daily contributions to the press, not only in the
+United States and Canada, but also in farther regions
+of the world, should be deemed worthy of the
+more permanent shelter of book covers. But it becomes
+at once justifiable when we try to present
+a true account of the work of “The Little Lady of
+New Orleans,” as one of her oldest editors calls
+her. She herself confesses that, among the hundreds
+of letters she receives each day from men and
+women, young, adult and aged, there recur the questions:
+“Are you a real person, or only a newspaper
+syndicate name?” “Are you a man, or are you a
+woman?” “Are you married or single?” “Have
+you ever been married?” “If you have not been
+married, would you marry?” “If you have been
+married—and are not now—would you marry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span>
+again?” “Have you any children? If so—are they
+boys or girls—and how many?” It must be emphasized
+that the questions above recorded are not
+asked by correspondents merely curious, who put the
+questions just to probe the author of the Dorothy
+Dix articles. Not at all, these questions are asked
+in letters revealing the puzzles of life that entangle
+the very writers who address Dorothy Dix. Before
+they make the simplest inquiry as to the trustworthiness
+of Dorothy Dix, they tell their own
+troubles in the way we all have of saying: “Of
+course what I have said to you is wholly confidential.
+Now let me know where you stand—I mean about
+absolute personal fidelity.” To a hard-boiled business
+man, or business woman, such a remark seems
+trite. Yet, we must remember that hard-boiled business
+persons run to the courts every so often to
+discover between themselves, at great expense, how
+personal fidelity, in gush and in fact, sharply
+contrast.</p>
+
+<p>The self-styled hard-boiled people and the people
+who pretend they are less sophisticated than they
+are, look to Dorothy Dix for a way out of all their
+troubles. These two classes are to be reckoned with,
+because they are always telling their troubles to
+some confidant—the less known, the better. But the
+vast majority of the people who write to Dorothy
+Dix for counsel and guidance are profoundly
+sincere and earnest, not so much because they fear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span>
+to be otherwise, but because they are so firmly persuaded
+of the sincerity and earnestness of life itself,
+when they look it square in the face and without pose
+of any kind. All and any of these correspondents
+of Dorothy Dix are struggling with their problems
+of how to make life livable. In the case of the
+young woman who has a good job and, at the same
+time, has a good home with her parents, the question
+arises whether she should marry the man she
+likes, and who on his part likes her, and then undertake
+to become a parent herself without a salaried
+job and without the safeguard of the home provided
+by her father and mother. On the other side there
+appears the problem of the young man, who would
+marry, but for responsibilities, psychological as well
+as financial, that make him stop, look and listen
+before he leaves a dependent father and mother unsupported.</p>
+
+<p>We pass to the men and women who are actually
+married and suddenly discover that they are facing
+the real and inevitable conflict of life at home as
+compared with the daily battle of the business world.
+Some husbands are go-getters, but they do not get
+anywhere because their wives are shiftless as home
+managers, or because they are spendthrifts, and
+would always, without trying, spend twice as much
+money as any husband has, or can earn. Some
+wives are the best of helpmates, but are linked to
+husbands who simply cannot or will not achieve the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span>
+quiet fame of a weekly pay-envelope which is the
+rock foundation of “Home Sweet Home.”</p>
+
+<p>Some wives are afflicted with the disease of “social
+climbing.” They spend their days and nights
+proving to their husbands that for every dollar
+earned, it is better to spend two dollars, in order
+to take a chance at three, by inviting the Smiths
+to the theatre and to supper afterward. Such wives
+usually overlook the fact that the Smiths, with
+whom they would curry favor at great expense, are
+themselves spending two dollars for every one dollar
+gained on the principle that it is a good investment
+to obtain equal social standing with the Joneses.</p>
+
+<p>Also to be encountered in this book are the varied
+specimens of husbands and wives who have become
+tired of each other and seek from Dorothy Dix
+guidance towards a way out of what they consider
+the morass of marriage. Then, too, we meet the
+father, or the mother, who is perplexed about the
+way children grow up nowadays—as tho the way
+children grew up has not always been a surprise to
+parents since the days of Romulus and Remus. To
+sum up, all <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">dramatis personæ</i> in the stupendous
+play of life, being enacted day in and day out, as
+we live, are brought on the world’s stage before us,
+not so much by Dorothy Dix as by themselves in the
+confidences they repose in her and the disclosures
+they make about themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Despite this fact there never has been nor will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</span>
+there be anything merely approaching a betrayal of
+confidence by Dorothy Dix. She talks to the whole
+world of men and women, and their worries and concerns
+are so alike that all shadow of individual
+identity is lost. She talks to them, not from the
+pedestal of the highbrow, but from the average level
+of a human being, who herself has fought the grim
+battle of life—as may be learned from her personal
+statement, which immediately follows these pages.
+One of the most distinguished of living American
+novelists, on being shown a few letters in her day’s
+mail, asked:</p>
+
+<p>“How many such letters do you receive a month?”</p>
+
+<p>She replied: “It takes me from three to four
+hours each day to answer my correspondents—and
+then I have to write my articles besides.”</p>
+
+<p>“Great Scott!” exclaimed the novelist. “You
+have more plots in a day’s letters than any hard-working
+novelist could invent in a year.”</p>
+
+<p>But none of these potential plots is available even
+for the most prolific of story-writers, because they
+are not “plots” to Dorothy Dix, but sacred testimonies
+to the help the “Little Lady of New Orleans”
+has been able to render through many years to her
+ever-increasing number of friends and confidants.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 bold"><em>Introduction</em></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Introduction"><em>Introduction</em></h2>
+</div>
+
+<h3>MY PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE</h3>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I have</span> had what people call a hard life. I have
+been through the depths of poverty and sickness.
+I have known want and struggle and anxiety and
+despair. I have always had to work beyond the limit
+of my strength.</p>
+
+<p>As I look back upon my life, I see it as a battlefield
+strewn with the wrecks of dead dreams and
+broken hopes and shattered illusions—a battle in
+which I always fought with the odds tremendously
+against me, and which has left me scarred and
+bruised and maimed and old before my time.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I have no pity for myself; no tears to shed
+over the past and gone sorrows; no envy for the
+women who have been spared all that I have gone
+through.</p>
+
+<p>For I have lived. They have only existed. I
+have drunk the cup of life down to the very dregs.
+They have only sipped at the bubbles on the top of it.</p>
+
+<p>I know things they will never know. I see things
+to which they are blind. It is only the women whose
+eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the
+broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the
+world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</span></p>
+
+<p>This of itself is a compensation for many sorrows,
+but I have more. I have proved myself to
+myself. I know that I have the strength to endure
+and the courage to carry on, and that I will not be
+craven enough to run up the white flag, no matter
+what other difficulties I may be called upon to meet.</p>
+
+<p>The skeleton at the feast of the woman who has
+always been happy and prosperous is fear. She becomes
+panic-stricken when she thinks that she may
+be called upon to meet trouble; that she may have
+hardships to endure; that her soul may be torn with
+suffering. She suffers with apprehension at the
+thought of poverty, and wonders how she could endure
+to go shabby and do without the things to which
+she is accustomed. She wonders helplessly what she
+would do if she had to earn her own living.</p>
+
+<p><em>I am not afraid of poverty</em> because I have been
+poor and I know that poverty has its consolations
+and brings you pleasures that money cannot buy.
+Nor am I afraid to support myself. I have earned
+my bread and butter for many years. I know the
+joy of work and I know that to a woman, just the
+satisfaction of knowing that she is self-supporting
+turns her crust into angel’s food.</p>
+
+<p>None of the fears with which happy women torture
+themselves upon occasion have any terrors for
+me. I know them for the bogies they are, and know,
+too, that they fly away before the person who does
+not cringe before them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</span></p>
+
+<p>Often I am tempted to envy the woman who has
+always had some strong man to stand between her
+and the world, some man whose tenderness and love
+has guarded and protected her. But I am consoled
+for not being a clinging vine when I wonder what
+the vine would do and think how broken it would be
+if the sturdy oak on which it hangs were laid low.</p>
+
+<p>I have learned in the great University of Hard
+Knocks a philosophy that no woman who has had an
+easy life ever acquires. I have learned to live each
+day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading
+to-morrow. It is the dark menace of the future
+that makes cowards of us. I put that dread from me
+because experience has taught me that when the time
+comes that I so fear, the strength and wisdom to
+meet it will be given me.</p>
+
+<p>Little annoyances have no longer the power to
+affect me. After you have seen your whole edifice
+of happiness topple and crash in ruins about you, it
+never matters to you again that a servant forgets to
+put the doilies under the finger bowls or the cook
+spills the soup.</p>
+
+<p>I have learned not to expect too much of people
+and so I can still get happiness out of the friend who
+isn’t quite true to me, or the acquaintance who gossips
+about me, and I can even find pleasure in the
+society of those whose motives I see through.</p>
+
+<p>Above all I have acquired a sense of humor, because
+there were so many things over which I had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</span>
+either to laugh or cry. And when a woman can
+joke over her troubles instead of having hysterics,
+nothing can ever hurt her much again.</p>
+
+<p>So I do not regret the hardships I have known
+because through them I have touched life at every
+point. I have lived. And it was worth the price I
+had to pay.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap" style="padding-right: 1em">Dorothy Dix.</span></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp bold"><em>Dorothy Dix—Her Book</em></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp bold"><em>Dorothy Dix—Her Book</em></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br>
+<span class="fs70">HOW A HUSBAND LIKES TO BE TREATED</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Altho</span> marriage has been the chief business
+of woman since Eve pulled off the first
+wedding in the Garden of Eden, women have
+not yet mastered the first indispensable principle
+of success in their profession. Millions of women
+have been married. Hundreds of thousands of women
+marry annually, and yet, as a class, women do not
+know how to treat a husband.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there is a shining exception to this rule,
+and the result is an inspiring picture of domestic
+bliss. But the great majority of women still go
+stumbling along into misery and divorce because
+they have not had the wit to find out how to rub
+man’s fur the right way, and make him purr under
+their hands.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, women fail to strike just the right note
+in their attitude towards their husbands. Sometimes
+they treat them better than they deserve. Sometimes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>
+worse, but seldom do they treat the men just as the
+men would like to be treated.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the real reason that women fail in this
+most important particular is because they make the
+mistake of treating a husband as if he were a rational
+human being, and the same sort of an individual
+inside of the home circle that he is outside
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>Never was there a greater error. The John
+Smith to whom a woman is married is no more the
+John Smith of the business world than he is some
+other man.</p>
+
+<p>The John Smith, who is a lawyer, or a doctor,
+or a grocer in the outer world, is a big, strong,
+broad, self-reliant man who looks at everything
+in a large way, and is just, and tolerant, and even
+stoical in meeting the vicissitudes of life. The
+woman who marries him has perceived all of these
+qualities, and loved him for them, and she naturally
+expects him to exhibit these characteristics in home
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Fatal blunder. John Smith, the business man,
+may be dealt with on a plain, sensible, aboveboard
+platform, but John Smith the husband, has to be
+jollied, and cajoled, and petted, and wheedled along
+the road he should go, if there is anything doing in
+the domestic felicity line in the household of which
+he is the alleged head.</p>
+
+<p>Now the majority of husbands average up quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
+as well as the majority of wives, but even when a
+man is really good, and true, and strong, experience
+teaches his wife that there are three ways in which he
+likes her to treat him. They are:</p>
+
+<p>(a) Like a baby.</p>
+
+<p>(b) Like a demigod.</p>
+
+<p>(c) Like a good fellow.</p>
+
+<p>No matter how big and strong a man is, nor how
+many other men he bosses, he wants his wife to
+treat him as if he were a delicate infant who had
+to be petted, and nursed, and dandled, and chucked
+under the chin. There isn’t a man living whose
+secret ideal of a perfect wife isn’t a woman who puts
+the buttons in his shirt, and lays out his collar and
+tie in the morning, who has his slippers toasting on
+the radiator when he comes home of an evening, and
+who cooks just the particular thing he likes to eat,
+with her own hands.</p>
+
+<p>Talk about your women who can hand out intellectual
+companionship! Produce your living pictures!
+Exhibit your paragons of virtue! They are
+simply not one, two, three with the wise dame who
+pets and fusses over her lord and master. And it
+isn’t because the man really wants his wife to wait
+on him. That doesn’t enter into it at all. He’s just
+like the three-year-old who howls for mama to put
+on his shoes or butter his bread when there are seven
+nurses standing around to do it.</p>
+
+<p>Men are babyish in wanting their wives to show<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
+them off. The expression on the face of little Tommy
+while his fond mother is telling the smart things
+that he said, is exactly the same expression that is
+on Tommy’s father’s face while his wife is bragging
+about how he organized a trust, or won a big lawsuit,
+or was elected judge.</p>
+
+<p>Wise,—oh, a daughter of Solomon is the woman
+who puts her husband through his paces for the
+benefit of company. Matrimony is one long, glad
+sweet song in the household of the lady who acts as
+a showman for hubby.</p>
+
+<p>Consider also a man when he is sick, or thinks he
+is sick. How does he want to be treated then? Like
+a baby. He wants his wife to sit by his bed, and
+hold his hand, and weep tears of sympathy, and if
+she doesn’t believe he is going to die every time he
+has a headache, he considers her a cold, heartless
+icicle and doubts her affection.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, the very first principle in treating a
+husband is to treat him as if he was your littlest
+baby, and if you do, he will gurgle, and coo just as
+your two-year-old does when you smother him with
+kisses, and asks: “‘Oose de most booflest boy on earf,
+an’ mudders itty, pitty wonder, and world beater?”</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, every husband likes to be treated as if
+he were a demigod.</p>
+
+<p>Men won’t admit it, but in his soul every husband
+feels that he has conferred such an inestimable boon
+upon his wife by marrying her that she can never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
+really repay him, anyway, but that it is up to her
+to keep busy on the job. Therefore, the least she
+can do is to act grateful.</p>
+
+<p>The real reason why there is a continual conflict
+in most families over the money question is not because
+husbands are stingy, but because a man likes
+to dole the money out, piece by piece, so that the
+woman who gets it may have a living exhibition of
+his generosity.</p>
+
+<p>When a man complains about how extravagant his
+wife is, and how much her hat and dress cost, it
+doesn’t mean that he begrudges her a single garment
+or the price thereof. On the contrary, it is his way
+of boasting to the world of how prosperous he is,
+and how well he provides for his family. Stupid,
+indeed, is the woman who does not comprehend this,
+and who does not keep her glad rags hanging in
+public, so to speak, and continually beat upon the
+cymbal, and chant pæans of praise about how good
+her husband is to provide her with her lovely
+clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is this as silly as it sounds. The average man
+gets practically nothing out of his labor, after he
+has supported his family, but his board and clothes,
+and it is pretty discouraging to spend your life toiling
+for those who take all that you can give, and
+make no sign of appreciation in return. So it is not
+strange that husbands like their wives to treat them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
+as a beneficent providence from whom all blessings
+flow.</p>
+
+<p>Husbands like to be treated as good fellows.</p>
+
+<p>If the average married man could put up one
+prayer more fervent than all the rest it would be
+this: “Lord, send me a wife who laughs, and a home
+that isn’t an understudy to a funeral parlor!”</p>
+
+<p>But his prayer isn’t often answered.</p>
+
+<p>Now one of the great reasons why so many husbands
+and wives make shipwreck of their lives together
+is because a man is always seeking for happiness,
+while a woman is on a perpetual still hunt for
+trouble. When anything uncomfortable happens to
+a man he tries to forget it, to put it behind him, to
+get it out of his thoughts, even if he has to drown it
+in drink. When a misfortune befalls a woman she
+gloats over it. She keeps pressing her finger on
+every sore until she makes a raging abscess of it.
+Then she goes on a jag of tears.</p>
+
+<p>The result of this feminine peculiarity is that the
+average home is not a cheerful place, nor is the average
+wife a joyous companion, and that is why a very
+large number of husbands seek their amusements
+elsewhere, and with other people. The greatest danger
+that menaces domesticity is that so many wives
+are killjoys.</p>
+
+<p>The question is often asked—why do men, who
+are penurious and niggardly to their families, and
+who never pay a household bill without grumbling,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
+spend money so lavishly on their vices? The answer
+is easy. A man’s home is dull, and the money that
+his family costs him gives him no fillip of pleasure.
+The other does. The home has been made to mean
+to him nothing but hard duty, ungilded by any joy.
+The opening of champagne for chorus girls is to
+the tune of gaiety and laughter. Therefore, he is
+willing to pay for one and begrudges paying for the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Once I was listening to a group of intelligent
+people discuss the most desirable quality in a wife.
+They named the usual standard virtues until suddenly
+one man burst out in a voice surcharged with
+genuine emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you,” he said, “what a man wants in a wife
+more than anything else is a cheerful companion.
+Goodness? Bah! All women, at least the kind a
+man marries, are good. Economy? A man likes to
+spend money on his wife. Amiability? Who wants
+a simpering doll always about? Domesticity? Stuff
+and nonsense. A man’s stomach isn’t the most important
+part of him. Besides there is a good restaurant
+on every corner, if he is bound to gorge
+himself on food.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you what a man wants is cheerfulness in his
+wife. He wants to come home at night to somebody
+who will meet him with a smile, somebody who has
+got a lot of bright little things to tell him, and who
+can make him laugh, somebody who is willing to put<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>
+on her prettiest dress and go out with him if he
+wants to go to any place of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>“He doesn’t want to come home to a woman who
+is sodden with tears, or who is running over with
+the accumulated worries of the day that she dumps
+on him, who is full of her own and other people’s
+hard luck stories, and who looks like a chapter of
+the Lamentations of Jeremiah.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course, whether a wife is melancholy or not
+does not, from an ethical standpoint, alter her husband’s
+duty to her. He should be strong enough to
+love and cherish her no matter how lacrimose she
+is; but the martyr’s crown is a piece of headgear that
+is distinctly unfashionable at the present time, and
+most men duck wearing it. Wherefore, it behooves
+the Amalgamated Order of Doleful Wives to cheer
+up, and try to be more lively companions to their
+husbands if they don’t want those gentlemen to stray
+off in search of ladies with sunnier dispositions.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, men are, emotionally, very
+primitive creatures with a few simple domestic wants.
+They desire to be petted, and jollied, and looked up
+to by their wives, and then they want to be treated
+as good fellows. They want their wives to be chums
+with them, and not reforming institutions, or lecture
+bureaus.</p>
+
+<p>The average man simply pines for cheerful comradeship
+from his wife. He wants her to enjoy the
+things that he does, to like the people he likes, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
+amuse herself with the things that divert him. He
+wants to hear her laugh, to see her eyes sparkle, and
+for her to treat him as on a par with herself, as if
+they were joyous fellow sinners together, instead of
+her being a living reproof to him as a poor low-browed
+creature, with musical-comedy tastes that
+make her shudder.</p>
+
+<p>Yet do you ever notice the ordinary married
+couple out together? It is one of the most piteous
+sights on earth. The man is spending his money
+trying to give his wife a good time, and she meets his
+noble efforts with the rasping qualities of a crosscut
+saw. That is what gives eternal pungency to
+the old Weber and Fields joke about the man who,
+when asked if he was going to take his wife with him
+on a trip to Paris, replied: “No, I am going on a
+pleasure excursion.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course whether it is any more a woman’s place
+to get along with her husband than it is his to get
+along with her is another fight, which I am not trying
+to referee here. So also is the question of how a wife
+likes to be treated. What I have tried to show is
+how a husband would like his wife to pull the wool
+over his eyes and put on the velvet glove before she
+tries to manage him—because men really enjoy being
+bamboozled by women who turn out a nice artistic
+job. What they object to is not being henpecked,
+but the raw way in which their wives do it.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br>
+<span class="fs70">CHARM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Over</span> and over again girls ask me these questions:
+What is charm? What is the secret
+of the attraction that some women have for
+men?</p>
+
+<p>What is the “come-hither” look in the eye that
+some women have that makes every man who beholds
+it get up and follow them?</p>
+
+<p>Why do some girls always have hosts of beaux
+flocking about them, while other girls just as good-looking,
+just as clever, just as good dancers, just
+as anxious to please, never have a date or a single
+sweetheart to bless themselves with?</p>
+
+<p>And to all of these questions I have to answer,
+sadly and disconsolately, that I do not know. I
+have to give up the conundrum, which is perhaps
+the riddle that the Sphinx, who is partly a woman,
+has brooded over through the centuries in her desert
+solitude, without ever being able to solve it.</p>
+
+<p>In Barrie’s delightful play, “What Every Woman
+Knows,” Maggie’s brothers, discussing her with the
+brutal frankness with which brothers approach the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
+subject of a sister, agreed that she wasn’t young,
+nor brilliant, and that she was homely, yet all the
+men were after her. Finally one of the brothers
+said: “But she’s got that damned charm.” And
+that was that.</p>
+
+<p>When a woman has that damned charm she can
+snap her fingers in the face of flappers and living pictures,
+and marry as early and as often as she pleases
+as is witnessed by the many fat, pie-faced women we
+all know who have had two, and three, or more, husbands
+apiece, and who still have a waiting list in
+case anything untoward and fatal should happen to
+the gentlemen to whom they are at present united
+in the holy bonds of matrimony.</p>
+
+<p>But what is this charm, what is this rabbit’s foot
+that some lucky women carry, and others do not?
+To say that it is personality is to attempt to explain
+one mystery by another mystery, for we do not know
+in what personal magnetism consists, or by what
+power one individual draws us, while another repulses
+us.</p>
+
+<p>We know that it isn’t beauty, because the best
+lookers among girls are seldom the most popular,
+and men who profess to worship beauty are generally
+content to adore it from a safe distance, and show
+no disposition to marry it. It is notorious that
+beauties seldom make good matches. Nor does
+charm consist of intelligence. Being a highbrow
+booms no woman’s stock, socially or matrimonially,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
+while a witty woman cuts her throat with her own
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>To be a spellbinder is for a girl’s fairy godmother
+to have wished a curse instead of a blessing upon
+her, for no woman is more anathema to men than
+the human phonograph. Even dancing, chief of accomplishments
+in these jazzy days when it is of
+more profit for a woman to have her brains in her
+heels than in her head, is but a passing attraction,
+while amiability and a sweet nature, woman’s traditional
+one best bet, are like a sticking plaster, potent
+to hold a man after marriage, but of small value in
+luring him into it.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly, charm in its perfection is a gift of
+the gods, but happily, in these days, when nature
+proves a cruel stepmother who is so mean and stingy
+that she does not give us all that is coming to us,
+we have learned to circumvent the lady. No woman
+need be as ugly as God made her, nor as unattractive
+as she was born. Drug-store complexions can put
+the inherited ones to the blush, and any girl who is
+willing to take the trouble can acquire a line of lures
+and graces that will make any bona fide siren tremble
+for her job. To the girl, then, who wishes to acquire
+charm, and who especially wishes to attract men, I
+would say, first, stress your femininity.</p>
+
+<p>I don’t mean be namby-pamby and weepy and dish-raggy,
+without any backbone. That type of woman
+has gone out of fashion as completely as bustles and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
+hoopskirts. No man now would be bored with the
+sort of perfect lady his grandmother was. But the
+eternal feminine remains still the eternal attraction
+for men, and the more womanly a woman is, the
+gentler, the tenderer, the sweeter, the more she appeals
+to men. If you will notice when a man speaks
+of the woman he loves, he invariably calls her “little”
+no matter if she is six feet high and weighs 200
+pounds. What he means is that she gives him the reaction
+of depending upon him, of looking up to him,
+and that in some subtle way she flatters his vanity
+by giving him the sense of masculine superiority.</p>
+
+<p>You never see an aggressive, double-fisted woman,
+who fights her way as a man does, get anywhere. And
+in his soul every man adores frills and furbelows,
+and likes to see women dolled up. That is why girls
+make such a terrible mistake when they ape mannish
+ways, and wear mannish clothes. When a girl puts
+on knickerbockers she throws her trump card into
+the discard.</p>
+
+<p>To the girl who wishes to acquire charm I would
+also whisper this secret: Make of yourself a mirror
+in which other people look upon themselves. Especially
+let men see a flattering reflection of themselves
+in your eyes. Can your own personal vanity. Listen
+with bated breath while other people tell you of
+their exploits, but never mention your own. Enthuse
+over their cars, their dogs. Marvel at their adventures.
+Sympathize with their disappointments.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
+Give the glad hand to their successes, and you will
+be universally regarded as a woman of perfect taste,
+wonderful insight, profound judgment, a brilliant
+talker and a companion of whom one could never
+weary. It is the tireless listeners, and not the endless
+talkers, whom men take out to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>To the girl who wishes to develop charm I would
+likewise earnestly recommend an intensive course of
+self-analysis. I would say to her: “Study yourself.
+Find out what you can wear and what you cannot
+wear. Find out the things that you can do and get
+away with, and the things that you cannot do without
+making yourself appear either a dumbbell or a
+figure of fun. Then, having ascertained what are
+your best points, turn the spotlight on them. Emphasize
+them until you make everybody sit up and
+take notice, so that even casual acquaintances will
+remember you as the girl who always wears pink, or
+the girl who always dresses in black, or the girl with
+the Mona Lisa smile, or the girl who is so jolly and
+such a cut-up, or the girl who listens to you with
+such an absorbed expression on her face that you
+could go on talking to her forever. I would urge
+girls to try to be themselves, plus, as they say in
+business, and to raise whatever charms of body, or
+mind, or heart, they have to its <em>n</em>th power. That is
+the best way to acquire personality, the “something
+different” about us that sets us apart from every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
+other human being, instead of our being just one
+of the herd.</p>
+
+<p>Don’t be a copycat. Don’t understudy the mannerisms
+of another girl just because she happens to
+be popular. Imitation airs and graces have about as
+much sparkle to them as imitation diamonds. Besides,
+you never can make a go of it. You can’t put
+on another woman’s characteristics any more than
+you can her clothes, and make them seem as if they
+were your own birthday suit. They are always a
+grotesque misfit. Charm has to be made to order
+and cut to the measurement of the individual. That
+is why one girl may do bold, outrageous things and
+everybody only shrugs his shoulders and laughs at
+her, while another girl is sent to Coventry for not
+doing half so much. That is why some women always
+have a masculine shoulder offered for them to
+weep upon, while men tell other women not to be fools
+whenever they shed a tear.</p>
+
+<p>So the trick is for the girl to find out what her own
+class is and qualify for the blue ribbon in that instead
+of trying to force her way into a bunch of
+prize winners where she doesn’t belong and where she
+will be thrown out by the judges. Yet many girls
+make the mistake of doing this very thing. A quiet,
+serious-minded, mouse-like little girl observes that
+some gay and dashing girl, who has quicksilver in
+her veins and over whose lips laughter bubbles as
+spontaneously as a mountain spring, is much admired<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
+and sought after and is the life of the party
+wherever she goes.</p>
+
+<p>“Aha! Vivacity is what makes a girl popular,”
+says the demure one to herself. “I will also be
+sprightly, and merry, and make a hit.”</p>
+
+<p>So she tries to imitate the high spirits of the gay
+girl, but she can’t do it. Her home-made vivacity
+is as flat as home-brew beer beside imported champagne.
+Instead of being bright, she is loud. Instead
+of laughing, she giggles. Instead of being
+sprightly, she jumps around like a monkey on a
+stick. She is so afraid she won’t talk enough that
+she chatters incessantly, and instead of amusing
+people she bores them to death.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the very girl who is such a failure as a live
+wire could have charmed every one if only she had
+given a master performance of girlish sweetness, and
+gentleness, and quietness. She could have been a
+great success if she had remained the shrinking
+violet that nature made her, but she was a rank failure
+as a gaudy sunflower.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is the big, Amazonian woman who tries
+to be cute and cunning, because she sees some baby
+doll getting the glad hand when she curls up on
+sofas, and sits on one foot, and perches on the edges
+of tables, and who only succeeds in looking like a performing
+elephant instead of a playful kitten when
+she performs these stunts. And there is the woman
+without an inch of funny bone in her whole anatomy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
+who tries to tell good stories because she sees some
+jolly woman raconteur set the table in a roar at dinner
+parties, and who wonders why people burst into
+tears instead of into peals of mirth when she recites
+her carefully memorized jokes.</p>
+
+<p>They couldn’t fill other women’s rôles, yet the big
+woman could have made us worship her as a goddess
+if she had stayed on her pedestal instead of coming
+down and trying to do double somersaults in the
+ring. We would have listened eagerly enough to intelligent
+talk from a serious thinker who didn’t try
+to be funny, for Heaven knows we get tired enough
+of amateur jokesmiths who think we want to be
+perpetually tickled in the ribs. Believe me, girls,
+there is much wisdom in the old proverb that advises
+the shoemaker to stick to his last. We are most admirable
+when we are what nature made us with the
+aid of a few little arts and embellishments to throw
+the original model up into higher relief. So I counsel
+you to make the most of yourselves. Abandon the
+foolish attempt of trying to make yourselves over
+into a poor copy of some woman who is admired.
+Charm isn’t standardized. It has a million forms,
+and every woman should illustrate her own particular
+version of it.</p>
+
+<p>After all what we call charm is largely a matter of
+personality and the girl who wishes to cultivate that
+elusive something that we call personality does well
+to pay much attention to her dress. This sounds<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
+like superfluous advice to the sex whose brains are
+mostly cut on the bias and shirred in the middle, and
+which is more concerned over the hang of a skirt
+than it is over the state of its immortal soul. It is
+not too much to say that three-fourths of women’s
+thoughts and interest in life and heart-felt desires
+and envies are concentrated upon clothes, and the
+marvel always is that they can put so much effort
+on a subject and get such poor results.</p>
+
+<p>For the great majority of women only think of
+dress in terms of fashion, and they follow the mode
+of the moment as sheep follow their leader over a
+wall. They wear blue or purple, pink or green, short
+skirts or long skirts, tight ones or full ones, without
+any reference to their complexions or whether
+their ankles are sylphlike or like the legs of a piano,
+or whether they are living skeletons, or have featherbed
+figures. The result is that thousands upon
+thousands of women look as if their worst enemy
+had bought their clothes, and their hats are a premeditated
+insult to their faces. But they go their
+way, serene and happy, having done the worst they
+could by themselves, but blissful in the knowledge
+that they are wearing what everybody else is wearing.
+Apparently it never enters the average woman’s
+head that by clothing herself in the feminine uniform
+of the hour she makes herself indistinguishable in the
+mob, or that she could call attention to herself by
+breaking away from it, and dressing to suit her own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
+particular type. Still less does it occur to her
+that her clothes offer her an invaluable mode of self-expression,
+and that by them she can emphasize her
+good points and camouflage her defects.</p>
+
+<p>Yet every moving picture, every play she sees,
+offers a girl an object lesson in the psychology of
+clothes that she does not heed. She never asks herself
+why the innocent, trusting maiden, too artless
+for her own good, always wears a white muslin and
+a blue sash; why the ingenue is always a mass of
+fluffy ruffles; why the betrayed heroine always wears
+a slinky black dress; why the adventuress is clothed
+in crimson and spangles; why the vamp invariably
+wears long jade earrings, and a quart of beads, and
+very little else.</p>
+
+<p>Yet astute stage managers have found that the
+surest way to make an audience visualize a woman
+in a certain way is to have her dress the part. A
+girl might, of course, be as innocent in a crimson
+dress as a white one; a woman might be as heartbroken
+in a pink silk and lace negligee as she is in
+a bedraggled black alpaca, but it would take a long
+argument to convince us of it, and we wouldn’t weep
+nearly as freely over her woes as we do when we get
+an eyeful of her in the clothes that tell us at once
+just what a poor, innocent, persecuted heroine she
+is.</p>
+
+<p>Surely this should suggest to every girl the wisdom
+of retiring to her closet, and having a heart-to-heart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
+session with her wardrobe, and a vivisection
+party with her character, and thereby try to find out
+how to dress her soul as well as her body, so as best
+and most effectively to press-agent her individuality,
+so to speak.</p>
+
+<p>If she is of the bold and dashing type, let her
+flaunt herself like a sunflower in daring costumes
+and flaming colors, but if she is of the quiet and
+gentle sort, soft fabrics, chiffons and laces and pastel
+shades belong to her, and make her look like the traditional
+modest violet that every man dreams of securing
+as a wife. Let the girl who is flat-chested and
+athletic rejoice in her sport clothes. That is her
+note, and brings out a certain piquant boyishness
+which is her greatest attraction. But let the girl
+who is plump, with gracious curves, make the most
+of her femininity by decking herself out in the frilliest
+frocks that she can find. Each will lose in charm
+if she swaps her plumage for the other’s.</p>
+
+<p>Dangling ornaments, floating ribbons and jingling
+bracelets belong to the gay and foolish and frivolous,
+but they detract from the dignity of the stately,
+thoughtful, serious-minded woman. A tailor-made
+suit is equal to a certificate of virtue, and when a girl
+is applying for a job a plain, dark-colored suit will
+do more to land her the position than a gilt-edged
+reference. Nobody ever believes that a girl in a low-necked,
+no-sleeved frock can ever be a competent business
+woman. She doesn’t look it. Every woman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
+knows that her eyes seem twice as blue if she has a
+blue lining to her hat, and that she can turn a spotlight
+on her every freckle by wearing a spotted
+dress. In the same way she can bring out her characteristics
+by the way she dresses. If she wishes
+to emphasize her cuteness, she can do it by dressing
+like a baby doll. If she wishes to be thought a goddess,
+she can add to her divinity by long-trailing
+robes. If she wishes to be thought a good sport and
+treated as a pal by men, sport clothes are hers, while
+if domesticity is her long suit, she can turn the trick
+by wearing ruffled little white aprons at home. So
+study your type, girls, and dress the part, if you
+want to make the most of the attractions with which
+nature has endowed you.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE ORDINARY WOMAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I wish</span> that I had the distributing of some of
+the Carnegie medals for heroes. I would give
+one to just the Ordinary Woman. It is true
+that she never manned a lifeboat in a stormy sea,
+or plunged into a river to save a drowning person.
+It is true that she never stopped a runaway horse,
+or dashed into a burning building, or gave any other
+spectacular exhibition of courage.</p>
+
+<p>She has only stood at her post thirty, or forty,
+or fifty years, fighting sickness and poverty and
+loneliness, and disappointment so quietly, with such
+a Spartan fortitude that the world has never noticed
+her achievements. Yet, in the presence of the Ordinary
+Woman, the battle-scarred veteran, with his
+breast covered with medals signifying valor, may
+well stand uncovered before one braver than he.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing high and heroic in her appearance.
+She is just a commonplace woman, plainly
+dressed, with a tired face and work-worn hands—the
+kind of woman that you meet a hundred times a
+day upon the street without ever giving her a second<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
+glance, still less saluting her as a heroine. Nevertheless,
+as much as the bravest soldier, she is entitled
+to the cross of the Legion of Honor for distinguished
+gallantry on the Battlefield of Life.</p>
+
+<p>Years and years ago, when she was fresh and
+young, and gay, and light-hearted, she was married.
+Her head, as is the case with most girls, was full of
+dreams. Her husband was to be a Prince Charming,
+always tender and considerate and loving, shielding
+her from every care and worry. Life itself was to be
+a fairy tale.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the dreams fell away. The husband
+was a good man, but he grew indifferent to her before
+long. He ceased to notice when she put on a fresh
+ribbon. He never paid her the little compliments
+for which a woman’s soul hungers. He never gave
+her a kiss or a caress, and their married life sank
+into a deadly monotony that had no romance to
+brighten it, no joy or love to lighten it.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day she sewed and cooked and cleaned
+and mended to make a comfortable home for a man
+who did not even give her the poor pay of a few
+words of appreciation. At his worst he was cross
+and querulous. At his best he was silent, and would
+gobble his food like a hungry animal and subside into
+his paper, leaving her to spend a dull and monotonous
+evening after a dull and monotonous day.</p>
+
+<p>The husband was not one of the fortunate few who
+have the gift of making money. He worked hard,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
+but opportunity does not smile on every man, and
+the wolf was never very far away from their door.</p>
+
+<p>Women know the worst of poverty. It is the wife,
+who has the spending of the insufficient family income,
+who learns all the bitter ways of scrimping
+and paring and saving. The husband must present
+a decent appearance, for policy’s sake, when he
+goes to business; certain things are necessities for
+the children; and so the heaviest of all the deprivations
+fall upon the woman who stays at home and
+strives to make one dollar do the work of five.</p>
+
+<p>That is the way of the Ordinary Woman; and
+what sacrifices she makes, what tastes she crucifies,
+what longings for pretty things and dainty things
+she smothers, not even her own family guess. They
+think it is an eccentricity that makes her choose the
+neck of the chicken and the hard end of the loaf and
+to stay at home from any little outing. Ah, if they
+only knew!</p>
+
+<p>For each of her children she trod the Gethsemane
+of woman, only to go through that slavery of motherhood
+which the woman endures who is too poor to
+hire competent nurses. For years and years she
+never knew what it was to have a single night’s unbroken
+sleep. The small hours of the morning found
+her walking the colic, or nursing the croup, or covering
+restless little sleepers, or putting water to
+thirsty little lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was no rest for her, day or night. There<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
+was always a child in her arms or clinging to her
+skirts. Oftener than not she was sick and nerve-worn
+and weary almost to death, but she never failed
+to rally to the call of “Mother!” as a good soldier
+rallies to his battle-cry.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody called her brave, and yet, when one of the
+children came down with malignant diphtheria, she
+braved death a hundred times, in bending over the
+little sufferer, without one thought of danger. And
+when the little one was laid away under the sod, she
+who had loved most was the first to gather herself
+together and take up the burden of life for the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>The supreme moment of the Ordinary Woman’s
+life, however, came when she educated her children
+above herself and lifted them out of her sphere. She
+did this with deliberation. She knew that in sending
+her bright boy and talented girl off to college she
+was opening up to them paths in which she could
+not follow; she knew that the time would come when
+they would look upon her with pitying tolerance or
+contempt, or perhaps—God help her!—be ashamed
+of her.</p>
+
+<p>But she did not falter in her self-sacrifice. She
+worked a little harder, she denied herself a little
+more, to give them the advantages that she never
+had. In this she was only like millions of other Ordinary
+Women who are toiling over cooking-stoves,
+slaving at sewing-machines, pinching and economizing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
+to educate and cultivate their children—digging
+with their own hands the chasm that will separate
+them almost as much as death itself would.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore I say the Ordinary Woman is the real
+heroine of life.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br>
+<span class="fs70">TEACH THE CHILDREN TO LOVE FATHER</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Are</span> you teaching your children to love and
+admire their father? Do you ceaselessly
+point out to your children their father’s
+good qualities? Do you hold their father up as a
+hero before your children’s eyes? Do you teach
+your children to appreciate their father? If you
+do not, you are not giving your husband a fair deal,
+nor a run for his money. Fatherhood calls for just
+as many sacrifices as motherhood does. The only
+coin in which these can be repaid is affection and
+gratitude, and if he is defrauded of these he is poor
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>From the time the first baby is born the average
+man becomes literally the slave of his family. He
+sells himself into bondage so that his children may
+live soft; that they may have advantages that he
+never had in his youth; that they may enjoy luxuries
+he never knew. He works overtime and grows
+prematurely old and bent, that his boys may go to
+college and belong to smart clubs and have automobiles,
+and that his daughters may attend fashionable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
+schools, and dress like fashion plates, and go in the
+right circles.</p>
+
+<p>It is father who stays at home and works through
+hot summers and cold winters, when the family goes
+to Europe. It is father who wears the shabbiest
+clothes. It is father who has the worst room and
+the smallest closet space in the home. The percentage
+of money that father spends on himself and
+in gratifying his own personal tastes and desires is
+negligible. Virtually all the money he has earned
+by a lifetime of hard toil has been lavished on his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Whether this pays or not, whether all of this
+labor and anxiety and self-denial have been worthless
+or not, depends altogether on his children’s attitude
+toward him. If they love him; if they are grateful
+to him; if they appreciate what he has done for
+them, it is the best investment that a man ever made,
+and it makes him richer than any millionaire. But
+if his children are indifferent and callous; if they
+take all that he has done for them as no more than
+their due, and without even a “thank you”; if they
+see in him nothing but a shabby little man who
+hasn’t been particularly successful as a moneymaker,
+then all his life work goes for nothing. His
+sacrifices are without reward. He is bankrupt in
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the attitude of children toward their father
+is almost entirely determined by their mother; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
+whether they look upon him as a superior being to
+be adored and worshiped, or merely as a cash register
+that they can punch whenever they want any
+money, depends altogether upon what she has taught
+them. There are women who teach their children to
+hate and fear their father by making him an ogre
+to them. When the children are bad the little culprits
+are always threatened with what their father
+will do to them. The mother thus makes the father
+the hanging judge who inflicts punishment on the
+small sinners.</p>
+
+<p>In this way the mother fills the child’s imagination
+with a picture of its father as of some dread
+creature who is always lying in wait to chastise
+him, and who could never have any sympathy or
+understanding with him, and with whom he could
+never have any possible companionship.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell your father on you when he comes home,”
+is the curse that millions of women lay between their
+children and their husbands, and that seals the children’s
+hearts forever against the fathers who have
+given them their very life blood.</p>
+
+<p>There are other women who teach their children to
+regard their fathers simply as money-making machines
+that exist solely for their own use and benefit.
+What the children want they must have at any cost
+to father, and mother undertakes to nag it out of
+him. The children see that mother has no consideration
+for father and they grow up to have none.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p>
+
+<p>She never tells them that they must not even ask
+for something they desire because business is bad
+and their father is harassed and worried about
+money. She never tells them that they must stay at
+home and let father have a little trip, because he is
+sick and nerve-worn. She lets them wring the last
+penny out of him with no more feeling for him than
+if he were some sort of automatic device worked by
+her for supplying their desires and needs.</p>
+
+<p>Other women teach their children to despise their
+fathers by always criticizing them and calling attention
+to their faults. They are forever telling the
+children that their fathers are lacking in enterprise,
+that they are poor business men, that they are too
+easy and let people take advantage of them, that
+they are high-tempered and hard to get along with,
+that they have this and that weakness, until the
+child’s mind is thoroughly poisoned with the idea
+that his father amounts to nothing and his opinions
+are not to be respected.</p>
+
+<p>Very few women ever deliberately set themselves
+to teach their children to love and appreciate their
+fathers. Very few women ever try to make their
+children see their fathers as heroes who, for their
+sakes, are fighting the battle of life as bravely and
+gallantly as any knight of old. Very few women
+teach their children to show any gratitude to the
+fathers who have sacrificed so much for them. Why
+so many women fail in this important duty is partly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
+through carelessness and a lack of thought, but
+mostly because of an unconscious mother jealousy.
+They want to be first with their children and monopolize
+their love. But it is a cruel thing to the child,
+and to the father. It robs them both of so much
+joy in each other that they miss.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br>
+<span class="fs70">STRIKE A BALANCE WITH MATRIMONY</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I get</span> hundreds upon hundreds of letters from
+disgruntled wives bemoaning their fates. They
+tell me that they are sick and weary of the monotony
+of domestic drudgery; that they have few
+amusements; that their husbands are indifferent to
+them and never pay them any compliments or show
+them any affection; that their husbands find fault
+with them for their every mistake, but never give
+them one word of praise for all the good work
+they do.</p>
+
+<p>And these women have brooded over the hardships
+of their lot until they have grown morbid and they
+see the world as one great gob of gloom, with themselves
+as the blackest spot in it.</p>
+
+<p>Without doubt, marriage is a cruel and a bitter
+disappointment to nine-tenths of those who enter
+into the holy estate. Especially is it disillusioning
+to women because they build such impossible hopes
+upon it, and go into it with such a blind faith that
+they are going to find it an earthly paradise.</p>
+
+<p>It is incredible, but it is true, that despite her
+lifelong knowledge of the daily life her mother has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
+led and her observation of the domestic strife in
+the households of her married friends and neighbors,
+every girl honestly believes that her own matrimonial
+venture will be a perpetual picnic, and that the
+man she marries will remain the perfect lover.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it doesn’t happen, and when the woman
+finds out that her own marriage brings her more
+kicks than ha’pence; when she realizes that she must
+share the common lot; when she has to bend her back
+to the hard and dreary labor of making a family
+comfortable, for which she gets neither the glad
+hand nor a pay envelope, and when she has to put
+up with a man who seems to have cornered the whole
+visible supply of pure cussedness, why, it gets upon
+her nerves, and she feels like flunking it.</p>
+
+<p>So she beats upon her breast and cries out that
+this is not the marriage of which she dreamed. This
+sordid existence is not what she married for.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it isn’t. But it is marriage as it is.
+None of us realize our ideals. Our dreams never
+come true. And even when we get what we want, it
+is so warped and twisted that it is no longer the
+object of our desires, and we have paid for it more
+than it is worth. That is life.</p>
+
+<p>To these unhappy wives I would offer this bit of
+homely counsel:</p>
+
+<p>Sit down, sisters, and have a real heart-to-heart
+session with your own souls. Put out of your mind
+firmly and for all time the idiotic idea that there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
+any lot of perfect peace and happiness, any road
+you might have traveled that is not strewn with
+tacks. Worry and anxiety and sickness and sorrow
+and disappointment and loneliness are the portion
+alike of the highest and the lowest, and you cannot
+escape the human lot. It is life.</p>
+
+<p>Then take a calm and dispassionate survey of
+your own situation. You will find your work tiresome
+and monotonous. So does every other person
+in the world find his or hers. The thing we do for
+our daily bread is bound to become a grind. Do you
+think for a moment that the banker doesn’t get sick
+and weary of grappling with credits and loans; that
+the author doesn’t have to flog himself to his desk;
+that the actor doesn’t weary of the lines he has said
+over thousands of times; that the film star is not
+nauseated with grease paint?</p>
+
+<p>Every one thrills to his task at first as you did
+to your new pots and pans and bridal furniture.
+But the novelty wears off, and then comes the long,
+grim stretch of carrying on, because it is your job
+to which you have set your hand and which you
+mean to make a good job just because it is yours.
+That is life.</p>
+
+<p>You complain that your husband takes your good
+work as a matter of course, but he howls loud and
+long over your mistakes. That is what happens to
+all workers. If you were a stenographer and spelled
+one word wrong; if you were a saleswoman and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
+made one error in your calculations, your boss would
+pass over the thousands of words you had spelled
+correctly and the hundreds of good sales you had
+made, to call you down for your blunder.</p>
+
+<p>If you were a writer or an actor, you would find
+that the critics would forget all the good work you
+had done to call attention to the weakness of your
+new book, or bemoan the performance you gave in
+a new part. As long as we walk straight no one
+notices it, but when we fall off the path we attract
+attention. It is life.</p>
+
+<p>These unhappy wives ask, “What shall I do?”
+and one knows not how to answer the question. To
+tell them that, if they are patient and forbearing,
+and go on doing their duty as wives, they can change
+mean husbands into good ones is to tell them a
+wicked lie, and mislead them with false hopes. The
+leopard changes his spots just about as often as a
+man does his disposition, and I have yet to see the
+tightwad become generous; the surly, glum man turn
+into a ray of sunshine in his home; or the hard, cold,
+selfish man become the perfect lover to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is divorce the solution of the unhappy wife’s
+problem. Marriage is not an episode of which you
+can say when you get a divorce, “This unpleasant
+chapter of my life is ended. I will shut the book,
+and forget all about it, and be perfectly happy
+henceforth.” Marriage sets its ineffaceable seal upon
+a woman, it colors her whole life; and divorce can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
+no more give her back her lost joy, and faith, and
+trust, than it can restore her lost girlhood.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, there are nearly always children to consider;
+children whose welfare a good mother places
+above her own; children for whom a home must be
+kept together; children who must be educated; who
+must be started in life, who need a father’s support
+and control. Divorce is not for the woman with
+children unless conditions are absolutely intolerable.
+And for the woman herself divorce is often a jumping
+out of the frying pan into the fire, for when she
+finds that she is rid of an unkind husband, she has
+to face a world that is unkinder still. Generally the
+woman has no private fortune. The courts award
+her but a meager alimony, and the collecting of that
+is generally about the hardest job on earth. She is
+trained to no business or occupation. Nobody
+wants her services, and she comes to know that the
+grumbling of an ill-tempered husband is no harder
+to endure than the howl of the wolf outside of her
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the best advice that one can offer these
+unhappy wives is to try to forget what they expected
+of marriage, and to just put it on a business
+basis, so much for so much, with a settled determination
+to make the best of a bad bargain. Their
+little flier in Heart’s Consolidated hasn’t paid the
+dividends they expected it to. Well, our speculations
+seldom do. Their matrimonial partners have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>
+proved hard to get along with. Well, many business
+men endure cranky men partners, who rasp
+their nerves, for the sake of the good of the firm.</p>
+
+<p>And on the credit side of the ledger the unhappy
+wife can set this down, that she has, at least, her
+home, and her settled position in society, and they
+are great gain. It takes years and years of struggle
+and striving for the lone woman to reach the goal
+where she can have her own house, and gather about
+her the household gods that women worship, and
+that bless one by their presence.</p>
+
+<p>I am not arguing that a woman would consider a
+house, no matter if it were a palace, a satisfactory
+substitute for a tender, loving husband, but I am
+trying to induce the woman who has an indifferent
+husband to realize that she is not half as badly off
+as she thinks she is, as long as she has her creature
+comforts.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the law of compensation always
+holds. The man who is a poor husband is often a
+good provider. Flirtatious husbands often atone
+for their sidesteppings with diamonds and furs.
+Stingy ones leave women rich widows. Even
+grouches leave their wives free to amuse themselves
+in their own way. After all, life is a series
+of compromises. If we don’t get the best, we are
+very foolish to throw away the second best and
+the wise woman who finds marriage a failure doesn’t
+go into physical and spiritual bankruptcy. She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
+gets the best out of what she has. She makes the
+most of her bargain.</p>
+
+<p>All of which just boils down into this: Dry your
+eyes on your best embroidered towels, O ye disgruntled
+sisters, and realize that you are not so
+unfortunate as you think you are, and what you are
+called upon to bear is just life.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br>
+<span class="fs70">JEALOUSY</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A woman</span> wants to know if there is any cure
+for jealousy. She says that she knows her
+husband loves her devotedly. He is true
+and faithful to her. He is as domesticated as the
+house cat and casts no roving eye at the pretty
+flappers. Nevertheless, every time he speaks to
+another woman she endures grinding torments of
+suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>There is only one cure for jealousy. That is to
+use a little common sense, but this puts the remedy
+out of the reach of the green-eyed, because jealousy
+is a form of insanity.</p>
+
+<p>It is a lack of mental balance that makes people
+imagine things that do not exist, that causes them
+to see deep, dark plots in the most innocent acts and
+that makes them deliberately torture themselves by
+believing that the ones that they love most are traitors
+to them. Also, it is what the alienists call “the
+exaggerated ego” that makes any man or woman
+believe that he or she can supply another individual’s
+whole need of human companionship.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p>
+
+<p>For jealousy isn’t confined solely to lovers. Some
+of the most acute attacks are the jealousy that men
+and women feel for their in-laws. Sometimes parents
+are even jealous of their own children. Wives are
+often jealous of their husband’s business, and always
+jealous of the old friends of their bachelor days.
+But however and wherever it is, and no matter how
+causeless and needless it may be, jealousy poisons
+the life and ruins the happiness of all of those who
+indulge in it. It is the source of endless quarrels
+between husbands and wives, and it slays love quicker
+than any other one thing. Indeed, the jealous bring
+down the curse they fear upon their own heads.</p>
+
+<p>By their suspicions the jealous materialize the
+very thing they most dread, for there is no surer
+way of driving a man or a woman into philandering
+than by keeping dangling continually before his or
+her eyes a romantic possibility in which he or she is
+likely to indulge at any moment. Many a married
+man would never think of himself as a lady-killer—in
+fact, he would consider that he was married and
+settled, and done with sentimental episodes, except
+that his wife keeps alive his belief in himself as a
+heart-smasher by her jealousy. If she considers him
+so fascinating that she is afraid to let him have a
+casual conversation with another woman, or take a
+turn around a ballroom floor with a pretty girl, he
+argues that he must be some sheik. And so he buys
+him some Klassy Kut Kollege Klothes and sets his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
+hat on the side of his head and proceeds to justify
+her once groundless suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, jealousy is its own undoing, because
+it strikes a death blow at our personal liberty, which
+is dearer to us and more necessary to our happiness
+than any man or woman ever is. None of us likes to
+be called upon to furnish an alibi. None of us enjoys
+being put through a questionnaire about everything
+that was said to us and everything we said.
+None of us but resents not being free to go and come
+as we like within reasonable bounds and to hold ordinary
+social intercourse with any one we choose. So
+if husbands and wives went about deliberately to kill
+every particle of affection that their mates have for
+them, they could take no better way to do it than
+by spying upon them, by attributing unworthy motives
+to them, by curtailing their freedom and by
+making such jealous scenes that, for the sake of
+peace, they are forced to lie and deceive. Besides,
+jealousy is an unforgivable insult.</p>
+
+<p>There are women who have conniption fits every
+time their husbands make themselves agreeable to
+their dinner partners or take a chance-met old
+woman friend out to lunch. There are wives who
+never believe that their husbands can admire a beautiful
+woman or enjoy the society of a brilliant one
+innocently. They attribute the basest motives to
+the men they love and accuse them not only of being
+faithless, but of the grossest animalism, which was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
+far and away from the thoughts of the poor gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, jealousy is an indication of the inferiority
+complex. The woman who is jealous of all
+other women in her heart believes them all her superiors.
+She believes them better looking, more intelligent,
+more charming, with more attraction for her
+husband than she has. That is why she is so afraid
+of their getting him away from her. You can’t imagine
+a queen being jealous of a milkmaid or a Lillian
+Russell being jealous of an ugly duckling, or a
+star dancer not being willing to have her husband to
+tread a measure with some lump of a girl who would
+walk all over his feet. All of this being true, then,
+the way to cure jealousy is to apply common sense
+to the situation. Try to look at it fairly and
+squarely. In the first place, your husband or wife
+wouldn’t have married you if he or she hadn’t preferred
+you to every one else in the world. If you
+had charm before marriage you have it still, if you
+will take the trouble to use it. In the second place,
+you know that you enjoy talking to other people,
+and that your contact with them is perfectly harmless.
+Why not believe your husband or wife is as
+decent as you are? In the third place, why keep
+your husband or wife always fed up with the idea
+that he or she is a fascinator that no woman or man
+can resist? It makes them want to try and see if
+they can stand them up. And lastly, if you are married<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+to a man or woman whom you believe to have so
+little truth and honor, and who cares so little for
+you that he or she can’t be trusted out of your sight,
+why worry about him or about her? He or she isn’t
+worth a single pang of jealousy.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br>
+<span class="fs70">HAVE A GOAL</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> great trouble with the majority of
+women is that they have no plan of life,
+no real objective. They are the victims of
+fads. They wobble about from interest to interest.
+The thing they were crazy about yesterday they
+throw into the discard to-day. They waste their
+time, and energy, and ability in pursuing will-o’-the-wisps.
+Like the hero of the popular song, they are
+on their way, but they don’t know where they are
+going.</p>
+
+<p>This is why so many women fail, as is abundantly
+proved by the fact that when a woman does make up
+her mind about what she wants to do, when she has
+one settled ambition instead of a lot of vague desires,
+she is almost invariably successful. Let her once
+determine to tread a definite path and she not only
+arrives, but she arrives with bells on.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the reason that women tackle the business
+of existence in this hit-or-miss fashion is not
+really their fault, poor dears. It is because of the
+idiotic way in which we bring up girls on the assumption
+that each one has a regiment of fairy godmothers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+and guardian angels looking after her and
+taking care of her, so that she doesn’t need to bother
+her pretty little head about learning how to take
+care of herself. So we don’t teach a girl, as we do
+a boy, that our lives are just what we make them,
+that we are the architects of our own fate, and that
+whether our lives are ugly, and botchy, and of little
+worth, or beautiful, and well-rounded, and valuable,
+depends upon our having some plan of life in our
+heads and working to it.</p>
+
+<p>We tell the boy that he who is jack-of-all-trades
+is good at none, and that if he wishes to be a carpenter,
+or a master plumber, or a bank president,
+or a surgeon, he must serve his apprenticeship in his
+chosen trade or profession and concentrate on the
+study of it if he means to succeed. He will never
+get anywhere as long as he goes from job to job
+and dabbles first at one thing and then at another.
+But we don’t teach girls that it is just as important
+for them to have some definite plan of life and prepare
+themselves to do some particular work as it is
+for their brothers. Most girls in these days have
+to earn their own living until they are married. But
+most of them do just as little work as they can get
+by with, and they do this little aimlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there is a stenographer who works by a
+plan. She has set herself to become a highly paid
+private secretary. Here and there is a shop-girl
+who has her eye on a buyer’s job and trips to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
+Europe. Here and there is a milliner or a dressmaker
+whose dream is of her own shop. Here and
+there is a boarding-house keeper whose ambition it
+is to run a hotel. Very seldom do these women fail
+to attain their desires. They know what they are
+trying to do and they make every lick of work count.
+They bend every energy to one end instead of wasting
+it on a hundred ineffectual endeavors. They put
+their backs, their hearts, their brains into their work
+and that combination invariably spells success.</p>
+
+<p>But the great majority of working women simply
+potter purposelessly along. They don’t expect to
+do what they are doing very long, and so they don’t
+take the trouble to try to learn how to do it well.
+They have no interest in their work, no ambition.
+They haven’t even bothered to pick out the thing
+to do for which they have a natural aptitude. They
+have taken up the occupation they follow just because
+they happened to do so. They don’t give a
+single lobe of their brain to studying it or trying to
+fit themselves to be competent. They take life as
+casually as that. Yet they may have to do this
+same work for thirty or forty years, for it is by no
+means certain that every girl will get a husband or
+that the husband will be able to support her if she
+does get him.</p>
+
+<p>Women do not even have any plan about following
+the great career of wifehood and motherhood to
+which they all look forward. Probably every girl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>
+who goes to the altar desires to be a good wife and
+mother. But she does not crystallize these vague
+intentions into any concrete plan of action. Not
+one woman in a thousand sits down in her bridal
+bungalow or apartment and works out a scheme for
+handling her husband without friction, for running
+her house economically and for making her marriage
+a success. On the contrary, she trusts it all to luck.
+If she is a good housekeeper, she feeds her husband
+well. If she doesn’t like to cook, she gives him dyspepsia
+by sitting him down to dinners of underdone
+meat and overdone bread and watery vegetables. If
+she is amiable and good-natured, she gets along with
+him. If she is high tempered, she rows with him.
+If she is thrifty, she saves his money and they prosper.
+If she is extravagant, she runs him into debt.</p>
+
+<p>It is because wives have no plan about what they
+do as wives that matrimony is such a gamble. And
+it is the same way about motherhood. There is
+no other thought in the world so terrible as that
+mothers bring up their children without any plan
+about what they are trying to make them. They
+are shaping an immortal soul, and they don’t even
+know what they are trying to make of it. That is
+the capital crime of aimlessness. Women will never
+succeed until they conquer this weakness and learn
+how to plan their lives. You cannot do anything
+effectively unless you know what you are trying
+to do.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE GOAT FAMILY</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Kind</span> reader, meet my friends, the Goats.
+They are not rich, for, altho Mr. Goat has
+been an able and energetic business man all
+his life, and Mrs. Goat has been a thrifty housekeeper,
+they have never been able to get much ahead
+because they have always had such a horde of parasites
+to support. Ever since they had a home they
+have run a free hotel. They have literally been
+eaten out of house and home by self-invited guests,
+by forty-seventh cousins who always cashed in the
+blood relationship for board and lodging, and by old
+friends who suddenly remembered, when they happened
+to be in their town, how they loved the Goats
+and hated to pay for their own beds and meals.</p>
+
+<p>Any one of their many acquaintances who wished
+to take a vacation without expense, or have an
+operation performed, or go to the opera, or see the
+sights of the city, just wished himself or herself on
+the Goats, and arrived bag and baggage to camp in
+the spare bedroom. And that was all there was to
+it; a pleasant and economical arrangement so far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
+as the guests were concerned. And if it was inconvenient
+to the Goats and they had to sleep around
+on cots and do without new clothes to pay for the
+food that the deadbeats gobbled up, why, nobody
+bothered about that. And the Goats never complained.
+They never made a move to chuck these
+grafters out, not even rich Cousin Susan, who could
+have bought the family up a hundred times over,
+when she came and stayed six months, wore Mother
+Goat to a frazzle waiting on her and ran them into
+debt because she couldn’t eat anything but the most
+expensive foods. No, they feel that it would be a
+stain on their escutcheon to assert themselves and
+look out for themselves a little, and so they lived
+up to the Goat coat-of-arms, which is a doormat
+couchant, with everybody trampling over it.</p>
+
+<p>By and by the eldest Miss Goat got married. Her
+husband proved to be a bumptious, egotistical, opinionated
+fellow, and when he was about the whole
+Goat family had to walk on eggs and suppress all
+their own opinions and tastes to avoid irritating him.
+Indeed, when their daughter married, the Goats
+acquired a new son, as the phrase goes, because
+every Sunday and on high days and holidays the
+young couple arrived to take dinner with papa and
+mamma. It was so sweet to be all together at such
+times, and it was also so economical and saved them
+the work and worry of getting their own dinner.
+Then the son Billy got married. Not being born a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
+Goat, Billy’s wife had not the suffer-and-be-strong
+complex in her. On the contrary, she was a go-getter,
+and what she wanted she had to have. Therefore,
+Father Goat was often called on for money to
+help pay Mrs. Billy’s bills, which had to be met
+regardless of what sacrifice it entailed on the Goats
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Billy died, and, of course, Billy took his
+motherless children, one of them a tiny baby, back
+home for mother and sister to take care of. They
+did it for a few years, until Billy married again,
+altho it reduced poor, worn-out mother to a physical
+wreck. The family didn’t approve of Billy’s choice
+of a second wife, but, with the Goat faculty for
+swallowing anything, they accepted her and felt that
+at least one burden would be removed from them and
+that Billy would take his children and set up his own
+home.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, however, that the second wife refuses
+to be bothered with stepchildren, and so Billy has
+brought his brood back for mother and sister to rear
+and support. It takes all the money he can make to
+provide for his wife and her relatives whom she has
+saddled upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Goat says that no sacrifice is too great
+to make for her darling son, nor does she hesitate to
+offer up as a burnt offering her unmarried daughter,
+Nanny Goat, who labors in an office all day to make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
+the money to help maintain the family, and who
+comes home at night and does most of the housework.</p>
+
+<p>But Nanny is beginning to show un-Goatlike
+traits. She doesn’t see why she should work to feed
+a lot of bum company who sponge on them instead
+of paying their own board somewhere. She doesn’t
+see why she should spend her Sundays and holidays,
+cooking dinners for sister and brother and the in-laws
+when they might just as well eat at home or go
+to a restaurant. And she doesn’t see what right
+brother has to foist the care of his children and their
+support on his old parents and his young sister.</p>
+
+<p>“I am spending my life slaving for other people
+and bearing other people’s burdens,” wails poor
+little Nanny Goat. “I earn a good salary, but I
+can never have any pretty clothes or indulge myself
+in any of the amusements I crave, because all my
+money is spent on people who just make a convenience
+of us, and who think more of being invited
+somewhere else to tea than they do of living on us
+without cost for a month. All my youth, when I
+ought to have the pleasures of the young, is being
+given to trying to raise my brother’s children, and
+do for them the things that he himself is too weak
+and pusillanimous to do. And I am sick and tired
+of it. I am tired of supporting grafters that are
+more able to work than I am. I am sick of being
+bled white by blood-suckers. I am sore at having to
+do other people’s duty for them, and I want to know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
+how I can get out of being a perpetual Goat as long
+as I live.”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! poor little Nanny, it is easier for the leopard
+to change its spots than it is for one who was
+born a Goat to cease being one. Still, the thing can
+be done, if you have nerve enough to butt your way
+to freedom. Shut the door in the face of the deadbeat
+visitors. Make your brother act the part of
+a man and assume his own responsibilities. And
+you will find that you have gained not only relief
+but that you have gone up a hundred per cent in
+every one’s esteem.</p>
+
+<p>For while we all make use of the Goat family, we
+hold them in contempt because they let us make
+goats of them.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX<br>
+<span class="fs70">SPOILING A WIFE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A man</span> asks: “Can a husband be too good to
+his wife?” Yes. A husband can be too
+good to his wife. So can a wife be too
+good to her husband. Husbands and wives are just
+as easily spoiled as babies are, and they react to
+spoiling exactly the same way that babies do. They
+become peevish, and fretful, and unreasonable. They
+howl for the moon. The more they are given in to,
+the more they demand and the more unrelenting their
+tyranny becomes. They smash things in sheer wantonness,
+and they need nothing on earth so much as
+to be turned across somebody’s knee and given a
+good spanking, and made to behave themselves.</p>
+
+<p>All of us know plenty of men and women, with
+many fine and noble qualities, who would have made
+splendid husbands and wives if they had not been
+badly spoiled by their overindulgent wives and husbands.
+But instead of being disciplined, and forced
+to control themselves, and made to act like reasonable
+human beings, they had their weaknesses indulged,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
+their selfishness encouraged, their exactions
+given in to, until they became a curse to themselves
+and to those who had the misfortune to be married
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, when my correspondent speaks of a
+man being “good” to his wife, he means it in the
+sense of being indulgent to her. No man can be too
+good to his wife in the way of being kind, and tender,
+and sympathetic, and just, and fair to her. But he
+is not good to her—in fact, he does her a cruel
+wrong—when he is overly indulgent to her. He
+ruins her life no less than his own because the spoiled
+wife is never happy. She is always discontented,
+restless, dissatisfied, wanting something she hasn’t
+got and that is just beyond her reach. She thinks
+only of herself, and her pleasures, and the self-centered
+can always find flaws in their lot. The only
+contented wives are those who are doing their part
+toward making their marriage a success. The grafting
+wives are always whiny, and complaining, and
+disgruntled.</p>
+
+<p>A man, for instance, is too good to his wife when
+he lets her lie down on her end of the matrimonial
+partnership. His part of the contract is to work
+and make the money to support a home. Her part
+is to make a comfortable home. There are many
+women who refuse to do this, and who force their
+husbands to live around in boarding houses and
+hotels. There are many more women who are so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
+lazy and shiftless that they keep their houses as
+dirty as pigstys, and never give their husbands
+a meal that isn’t a first-aid to the undertaker.
+There are men who have to get up and get their
+own breakfasts before they start to business, while
+their good-for-nothing wives slumber and sleep.
+There are men who have to come home after a hard
+day’s work and help get the dinner, and wash the
+dishes, and bathe the baby, and sweep the floors, and
+do all the housework that their trifling wives have
+left undone.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing but being a bedridden invalid excuses
+a woman for not doing her share of the work and
+for not feeding her family on properly cooked food,
+and any man is very silly who puts up with slack
+housekeeping from an able-bodied wife. She would
+get busy quickly enough with the broom and the
+cookbook if she knew she would lose her job unless
+she made her man comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>A man is too good to his wife—or too bad to her—when
+he lets her ruin him with her extravagance.
+There are men of ability, men who are industrious,
+men who are filled with ambition and who were on
+the high road to success when they married. But
+they got spenders and wasters for wives, and thereafter
+their lives became just a frantic struggle to
+keep even with the bill collector. Strive as they
+would, they could never get ahead. They had to let
+every opportunity pass them because they never had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
+a cent to put into any enterprise. Every dollar had
+gone to pay for the wife’s clothes, and entertaining,
+and trying to keep up with people better off than
+they.</p>
+
+<p>The man who never says “No” to his wife’s ceaseless
+demands on his pocketbook may think that he is
+being good to her, but in reality he could do her no
+worse turn. For you can no more satisfy a greedy
+woman than you can a greedy child. Such women
+are the daughters of the Scriptural horse leech, forever
+crying: “More, more, more!” And in the end,
+when the crash comes, the extravagant wife is
+crushed under the ruin she has brought upon her
+household.</p>
+
+<p>A man is too good to his wife when he makes all
+of the sacrifices and she monopolizes all of the privileges.
+There are households in which the husband
+has no rights or consideration whatever. He goes
+shabby, while wife is arrayed like Solomon in all his
+glory. He walks, while wife rides around in a limousine.
+He stays at home, while wife goes forth to
+summer and winter resorts. His tastes, his comfort,
+his pleasure are never considered. He cultivates
+selfishness in his wife by never demanding a square
+deal from her and by never making her give as well
+as take. And his reward is his wife’s contempt, for
+no woman respects a man upon whom she can wipe
+her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes, a man can easily be too good to his wife.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
+The really good husbands are not those who make
+spoiled babies of their wives, but those who encourage
+their wives to develop into self-controlled, helpful,
+useful women.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE ABSENCE CURE FOR FAMILY ILLS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">One</span> of the most pathetic things on earth is
+the unnecessary unhappiness we endure.
+The big, heartbreaking tragedies no one
+may escape. The loss of those we love. Frustrated
+hopes. Disappointments. Despair. These are the
+inevitable portion of humanity, and there is dignity
+in meeting them with courage.</p>
+
+<p>But to have your life poisoned by the sting of a
+gnat; to be done to death by pin pricks, to be robbed
+of your happiness by petty aggravations, that is a
+different matter, and one rages alike against the
+futility of it, and the ignominy of it. And, curiously
+enough, we neither endure with fortitude these
+little, petty ills that spoil the peace of our days,
+nor do we try to seek a remedy for them.</p>
+
+<p>Take family troubles, for example, which are responsible
+for more real, heartbreaking, never-ending
+misery than anything else in the world. A man and
+a woman drawn together by some fleeting physical
+attraction get married. When that is over, they find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>
+that they have not one thing on earth in common.
+Their tastes differ on everything from politics to pie.
+Their every idea and opinion is antagonistic. They
+do not think the same thoughts, or speak the same
+language. They may be people of the highest integrity,
+models of all the virtues. They may try to do
+their duty nobly and with self-sacrifice. But their
+home is a dark and bloody battleground where they
+fight over every topic like dogs over a bone, and they
+make life a hell on earth for each other.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes parents and children cannot get along
+together. Sometimes a nice, domestic old hen hatches
+out a swan. Sometimes a swan finds that nature has
+bestowed an ugly duckling upon her, and great is
+the clacking, and the clucking, and the feather-picking
+around the barnyard.</p>
+
+<p>Often brothers and sisters cannot agree. They
+clash on every subject under the sun. They express
+their opinions of each other with the brutal candor
+of near relationship, and leave each other sullen and
+sore with resentment. They never sit down to a meal
+without being verbally armed to the teeth, and the
+maimed survivors feel as if they had been through the
+battle of the Marne. Sometimes there is just one
+particular member of a family who is a perpetual
+storm center, and who has but to blow in at the door
+to shatter the peace and harmony of the household.</p>
+
+<p>Being obliged to live with disagreeable and antagonistic
+people is the greatest affliction that can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+possibly befall us. Nothing compensates for it.
+Not tho we dwell in a palace, with every meal a banquet,
+and have everything that money can buy us.
+Better it is to dwell on a housetop, or in a lodging
+house, and eat at a quick lunch place, and have
+peace, than abide in splendor with those who irritate
+the very soul out of us.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are we consoled by the fact that the very
+people who are so impossible to live with love us
+well enough to die for us.</p>
+
+<p>We know well enough that it is mother’s affection
+for us, and her anxiety about us, that makes her nag
+us incessantly, and hand out advice to us until we
+are ready to scream. In their philosophical moments
+men and women realize that even their in-laws
+knock them for their own good.</p>
+
+<p>But it is the result, and not the theory, with which
+we are concerned, and as you listen to the wail of
+those who cry out against uncongenial marriages,
+and the moans of anguish of the in-laws who dwell
+under the same roof, and listen to the sounds of
+fratricidal strife, when everybody could be so happy
+if they didn’t have to live with each other, you
+wonder that so few people have the wisdom and the
+courage to apply the one sure cure for their misery.
+That is to separate. Apart they would be happy.
+They would even love each other. They would get
+a perspective on each other’s good qualities. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+living together they merely get on each other’s
+nerves, and hate each other.</p>
+
+<p>The old idea that blood is thicker than water, and
+that just because you happen to be born in a certain
+relationship to a group of individuals makes you
+automatically love them, and desire their society,
+hasn’t a word of truth in it. It is not even true in
+the relationship between parents and children.</p>
+
+<p>As long as their children are young and helpless,
+most mothers have an animal fondness for them.
+But when they are older, it very often happens that
+a mother cannot get along in peace with her children.
+She does not understand them. She has nothing
+in common with them, and she is glad enough
+when they are grown and leave home.</p>
+
+<p>No theory has been more mischievous than the old
+convention that people who were of the same family
+had to keep on living together, no matter how much
+they rubbed each other the wrong way, nor how
+unpleasant this enforced companionship was. There
+is no sense in doing it. No rhyme nor reason for it.
+Because Aunt Jane is Aunt Jane is no reason why
+you should take her into your home and be bored the
+balance of your life by her reminiscences, nor is
+there any reason why you should have your temper
+continually rasped by antagonistic sisters and brothers
+when there are plenty of agreeable strangers in
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Try the absence cure on your domestic troubles.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
+Get up and leave an unpleasant home. You have
+no idea how much better you will love a lot of your
+relatives when you put about a thousand miles
+between you and them.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE DEADLY RIVAL</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">It</span> would be interesting to know how many
+estranged husbands and wives began drifting
+apart with the advent of the first baby. Children
+are popularly supposed to be the tie that binds
+a man and woman indissolubly together in body and
+spirit in marriage. Often this is true, and in their
+love and hopes and ambitions for their children a
+husband and wife literally do become “two souls with
+but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
+Also very often for the sake of their children men
+and women endure a marriage that they have come
+to loathe and hate, and are bound together like
+prisoners whose balls and chains clank at every
+movement they make.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, children’s hands do not always draw
+husbands and wives closer together. They just as
+often push them apart, and when this happens it is
+oftener the woman’s fault than the man’s. Few men
+prefer their children above their wives, but for the
+great majority of women their husbands exist only
+as their children’s father and as purveyors to their
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The first baby definitely and for all time puts the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
+husband’s nose out of joint. Up to that time, husband
+has been king of the domestic realm. His wife
+has put on her prettiest clothes and adorned herself
+for him. She has been chum and playmate. She has
+exerted herself to amuse and entertain him. She has
+looked out for his comfort, has seen that he had the
+best of everything, and he has reveled in the bliss
+of having the center of the stage and the spotlight
+turned always upon him. Then arrives the baby,
+and from having been the worshiped head of the
+house, husband finds that he is nothing, with no one
+so poor as to do him reverence.</p>
+
+<p>Wife no longer cares what sort of a figure she cuts
+in his eyes, or whether he admires her or not. She
+looks sloppy around the house because the baby pulls
+at her clothes and musses her chiffons. When husband
+wants to go out at night she refuses because
+she can’t leave the baby, and if he drags her along
+anyway, she interrupts the most thrilling part of a
+play to ask him if he thinks the nurse has forgotten
+to give the baby his bottle.</p>
+
+<p>There are no more chatty evenings at home, because
+she is off worshiping before the baby’s shrine.
+She quits reading anything but baby books, and her
+conversation gets to be about as stimulating as sterilized
+milk. She is too busy with the baby to show
+her husband any of the little attentions that men so
+love, or to see even that he has the things he likes
+to eat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p>
+
+<p>There are thousands of homes which are run exclusively
+for the children. There is never any food on
+the table except just the simple things that children
+can eat. There is never any conversation except
+about the children. The wife never manifests the
+slightest interest in her husband, or shows him any
+affection. All of the tenderness, the caresses, the
+sympathy and understanding is lavished on the children.
+It is the children’s likes and dislikes and
+prejudices that are remembered and catered to.</p>
+
+<p>There are many wives who begrudge every cent
+that a husband spends on himself because they want
+the money to throw away on the children. They will
+nag their husbands into giving up smoking so that
+they can buy the baby a real lace cap. There are
+wives who literally work their husbands to death that
+their daughters may go off to finishing schools, and
+their boys have the latest model sports automobile.</p>
+
+<p>Now the average man loves his children, but he has
+not this crazy, obsessing passion for them that their
+mother has. When the first baby comes he is proud
+of it and fond of it, and he wants it to have every
+proper care and attention, but he doesn’t want to
+spend hours sitting by its crib, gloating over it and
+marveling at how naturally it breathes. He wants
+to go about the ordinary affairs of life as he did
+before the baby was born, and he wants his wife’s
+companionship.</p>
+
+<p>But she will seldom go with him, and when she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
+does, she is no fun because she doesn’t enter into the
+spirit of anything. She has left her whole interest
+in life behind in the nursery. Nor is she an entertaining
+companion at home any more. And it gets
+on his nerves being told to “sh-h-h-h-sh” every time
+he shuts the door, for fear he will wake the baby.</p>
+
+<p>He even discovers that his wife is relieved when
+he goes out without her, and leaves her undisturbed
+to her infant adoration. And so the rift is first made
+between them. Each starts on a life in which the
+other has no part, and that takes them farther away
+from each other as the years go by.</p>
+
+<p>If the true co-respondent were ever named in
+many a divorce case, it would be the first baby.
+There are always plenty of women a man can find
+who will play with him while his wife is busy in the
+nursery; who will listen to him and flatter him, while
+his wife is telling the baby he is the most boofulest
+thing in the world. While mama is holding the
+baby’s hand, some vamp is generally holding papa’s.
+It is a great thing to be a good mother, but it is
+equally as great a thing to be a good wife. And it
+is a bad thing to do either one at the expense of the
+other. Often children are better off for a little
+wholesome neglect, but a husband never is.</p>
+
+<p>Remember that, ladies, and don’t make your baby
+your husband’s deadly rival.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII<br>
+<span class="fs70">LEARN A TRADE, GIRLS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">These</span> few lines are addressed to the thousands
+of girls who have finished school and
+who are now standing, as the poet puts it,
+“where the brook and river meet” wondering “where
+do we go from here?”</p>
+
+<p>I want to urge you, girls, with all the earnestness
+of which I am capable, to psychoanalyze yourselves
+and try to find out what talents and aptitudes nature
+bestowed upon you, and then to go to some
+school where you can develop your gift and fit yourself
+to be self-supporting.</p>
+
+<p>I give this advice to the rich girl no less than to
+the poor girl, for in these days of shifting fortunes
+we have the new poor as well as the new rich, and
+no woman knows how soon she may be called upon
+to earn her own bread and butter or starve. If she
+has been taught how to do this, losing her money is
+merely an inconvenience to her; but if she does not
+know how to earn a dollar, it is a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>No women in the world are so pitiful as those
+who have, as the saying goes, “seen better days”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>
+and, with their money gone, are suddenly flung out
+into the world to make their own living, with no
+trade, no profession, no skill in any line, no knowledge
+of how to make a penny. They can only eke
+out an existence by doing the most ill-paid work, or
+else they become parasites, or are forced by hunger,
+and shabbiness, and need into the sad sisterhood of
+the streets.</p>
+
+<p>Don’t risk such a fate befalling you. Prepare
+yourself in time against it. Have that within yourself
+which will not be affected by the fall in stocks
+or the depreciation of real estate. Many things
+may rob you of your fortune, but you cannot lose
+your trained brain and skilful hand. They will be
+a resource that you can always fall back upon in
+any emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I know, when I urge you girls to fit
+yourselves to learn some gainful occupation by which
+you can support yourselves, that you smile and say
+to yourselves that you do not expect to earn your
+own living long. You are going to marry and follow
+woman’s oldest profession, that of wife and
+mother. That is as may be. In the past the great
+majority of women have been able to count, with a
+fair degree of safety, on being able to marry, but it
+is by no means a foregone conclusion that the girl of
+to-day will get a husband.</p>
+
+<p>There has been a most decided decline and falloff
+in matrimony and home life, and it is foolish for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
+girls to think that they have the same chance of
+marrying that their mothers and grandmothers had.
+Now, for the girl who is sitting around and waiting
+for some man to come along and marry her, it is a
+catastrophe to be passed by. She becomes the sour
+and disgruntled old maid, eating the bitter bread of
+dependence, the fringe on some family that doesn’t
+want her. Or else she has to take any sort of a poor
+stick of a man as a prop to lean upon.</p>
+
+<p>Far different is it with the girl who has fitted
+herself for some definite work and is competently
+doing it. She has a profession in which she is vitally
+interested. She has an occupation which fills her
+time. She makes enough money to indulge herself
+in the luxuries that women love, and so marriage
+becomes to her merely an incident of life, not the
+whole thing. If the right man comes along, well
+and good. If not, also well and good. She has her
+pleasant, independent, interesting life as a girl bachelor.
+The world to her is full of such a number of
+things besides wedding rings.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, girls, even if you do marry, you may
+still need to keep on being a bread-winner instead of
+becoming a breadmaker. The high cost of living has
+to be reckoned with, and not every man under present
+economic conditions is able to support a family
+alone and unaided. In the past the good wife helped
+her husband by doing the housework, and turning,
+and mending, and pinching the pennies. In the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
+future the good wife will doubtless help her husband
+by keeping on with her well-paid job and assisting in
+making the money to give her family the living conditions,
+and her children the education that the man
+alone could not afford to give them. So, except
+among the rich, marriage is going to mean a retirement
+from business no more for women than it is
+for men.</p>
+
+<p>Another reason why I urge you, girls, to learn
+some gainful occupation and perfect yourself in it
+is because it will do more than any other one thing
+to make you happy. It will keep you from being
+bored, and boredom is at the root of all fretful discontent.
+People who are busy, who have a definite
+object in view and are striving to attain it, find the
+day all too short, are always content and cheerful.
+And talk about thrills! You never really know one
+until you hold your first pay envelope in your hand
+and it surges over you that the money in it represents
+your own work that was good enough for somebody
+to pay for.</p>
+
+<p>Being able to make your own living sets you free.
+Economic independence is the only independence in
+the world. As long as you must look to another for
+your food and clothes you are a slave to that person.
+You must obey him. You must defer to him.
+You must bend your will to his.</p>
+
+<p>But when you can stand on your own feet you can
+snap your fingers in the face of the world and tell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>
+it where it gets off. You do not have to endure
+tyrannical parents. You do not have to put up with
+a cruel husband. You can support yourself, and
+you are free.</p>
+
+<p>So I urge you, girls, never to rest until you have
+fitted yourselves to earn your own bread, and butter,
+and cake. And remember, the better your work the
+more you earn. It is efficiency that pulls down the
+big pay envelope.</p>
+
+<p>It doesn’t make a bit of difference what you do,
+my dear. It is the way you do it that counts. You
+can make a success or a failure of any occupation
+under the sun. The fat pay envelope is the reward
+of superexcellent work. It isn’t the perquisite of
+any particular trade or profession.</p>
+
+<p>We do best those things that we enjoy doing, and
+so I urge you to sit down quietly and study yourself
+and try to find out what nature intended you to be.</p>
+
+<p>Probably you have no very decided talent, no
+cosmic urge that makes you feel that you must
+paint, or sing, or dance, or cook, or keep books, or
+else life will be dust and ashes in your mouth.</p>
+
+<p>But you are sure to find that there is something
+that you like to do better than other things. It
+may be trimming hats. It may be messing around
+the kitchen. It may be that you are quick at figures
+and can always remember dates. It may be that you
+write a good hand, or always got a hundred in
+spelling at school.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is always some one thing for which you have
+a turn, as the phrase goes, and that points the road
+for you to follow.</p>
+
+<p>If you have no mechanical skill, don’t do anything
+that requires deftness of the hands. If you can’t
+spell, don’t waste any time trying to be a stenographer.
+If you cannot add up a column of figures
+three times without getting four different results,
+pass up bookkeeping. You will never make a success
+of anything for which you have no aptitude.
+You will always hate it and be bored by it.</p>
+
+<p>The successful people are those who love their
+work so well that it is a sheer joy to do it; who never
+count the labor that they put into it, and who are
+so interested in it that it is perpetually in their
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore choose the thing that you like to do
+and get fun out of doing, and don’t just blunder into
+taking the first job that presents itself or make the
+mistake of taking up some profession to which you
+are not called because some other girls are doing so
+or because it seems to you romantic or elegant.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, in these days of the emancipation of
+women, every road is as free for a girl to follow as
+it is to a boy, but you will find that those women
+make the greatest successes who stick to purely
+feminine lines. There is just as much need for
+woman’s work in the world as there is for man’s, and
+when it is equally well done it is equally well paid.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>
+In some occupations it is a little better paid because
+there are fewer women experts than there are men.</p>
+
+<p>There are very few women who have risen from
+the ranks to become presidents of banks, or trust
+magnates, or big manufacturers; but every community
+has in it women who have made tidy fortunes as
+dressmakers, or milliners, or boarding-house keepers.</p>
+
+<p>Teaching, nursing, cooking, sewing; home-making
+in all its ramifications and branches; buying and
+selling pretty things; the building and furnishing of
+houses; the healing of the sick, all of these are
+strictly within the feminine province, and you will
+not make a mistake if you choose whichever one of
+these occupations appeals to your fancy. Women
+have been unconsciously trained along these lines for
+centuries and have for them an inherited aptitude.
+It takes the average man years of profound study
+to acquire the sense of color that a girl baby is
+born with. And any dub of a woman can give an
+architect points on lights, and kitchen sinks, and the
+heights of shelves and about closets. So stick to
+your last and capitalize your feminine intuitions instead
+of trying to invade masculine fields. Even
+women writers and women artists are more successful
+when their work is most womanly. And great
+actresses will be remembered for the feminine rôles
+they portrayed, not for the masculine parts they
+essayed and in which they were grotesque failures.</p>
+
+<p>Having selected your occupation, perfect yourself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>
+in it. Master its technique. Don’t be satisfied to
+be an also-ran. Make of yourself a blue-ribbon
+winner. You will have to work longer hours and
+harder doing ill-paid work than you will doing
+highly paid work. The difference between a $15
+cook and a $10,000 chef is just a matter of skill.
+One woman gets $5 for a hat, another $50. It is
+just the touch to a bow or ribbon or a twist to a
+bit of velvet that does it. Whether you get a thin
+pay envelope or a thick one as a stenographer, or
+bookkeeper, or clerk, depends upon how expert you
+are. So make up your mind that you are not going
+to work for a pittance, and go after the big salary
+by making yourself worth it. Employers are just
+pining to pay the price of good work.</p>
+
+<p>Then tackle your job as if you meant to make a
+life-work of it. Don’t look upon it as a bridge of
+sighs that you have to travel over with reluctant
+feet from the schoolroom to the altar. Think of it
+as something you are going to do as long as you
+live; something that is going to be your friend, and
+comforter, and stay, and to which you will give the
+best that is in you. That won’t keep you from marrying
+if the right man comes along, and it will be a
+powerful stay if no man comes. Not many girls do
+this. They regard their work as only a makeshift
+until they can marry, and so they never take the
+trouble to learn how to do it properly. That is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
+why they fail, and why they are ill-paid. Don’t be
+one of them. Choose a congenial occupation and
+put your heart and your back into it, and your
+success will be assured.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">TRIAL DIVORCE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I believe</span> the one thing that would do more
+than anything else to stop the utter wrecking
+of homes and the half-orphaning of children,
+in the case of unhappy marriages, would be the
+institution of trial divorce and the refusal of the
+courts to make any divorce decree absolute under
+two years. For so many husbands and wives think
+they have ceased to love each other, when they are
+only too much fed up with each other’s society. So
+many persons think they long for freedom, when
+they only need a rest. So many persons think
+divorce a panacea for every ill, who find out, when
+they try it, that the remedy is worse than the disease.</p>
+
+<p>The great majority of men and women are romantically
+in love when they get married, and they
+expect to live ever afterward in a state of storybook
+bliss. Then comes the inevitable disillusionment,
+when they find out that they have married
+ordinary human beings instead of angels and motion-picture
+heroes. Comes the clash of personalities.
+The fight of the selfish to get the best for one’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
+self. The rebellion at the sacrifices that matrimony
+demands.</p>
+
+<p>The woman begins to nag. The man gets grouchy
+and surly. Each magnifies every fault of the
+other. Resentment and disappointment blot out
+every memory of love and tenderness, of goodness
+and nobility. They come to the point where they
+feel that they cannot stand each other a minute
+longer and rush off to the divorce courts.</p>
+
+<p>But the ink is hardly dry on their decrees before
+they begin to view each other in a kindlier light.
+The man, living in his club or at a boarding house,
+wandering from restaurant to restaurant, hating the
+cooking and getting his digestion upset, begins to
+think of his ex-wife’s good points. How true and
+loyal and devoted she was! What a good cook and
+housekeeper! And he wonders that he didn’t have
+enough sense of humor to laugh at her nagging
+instead of letting it get on his nerves.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, trying to make a home for herself
+with less money than she is accustomed to, bewildered
+and terrified at having to face life for herself,
+with no man to depend on, begins to recall her
+husband’s virtues instead of his faults, and to reflect
+that it is better to have even a husband who is short
+on compliments, and shy on attentions, and long on
+knocks, than to have no husband at all.</p>
+
+<p>And in their secret souls both are conscience-stricken
+when they look at their children and see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>
+them lacking a mother’s or a father’s care and a
+real home. So there are thousands of couples who
+are merely disgruntled with each other who would
+come together again if a trial divorce gave them
+time in which the galled spots that the matrimonial
+yoke has made on their necks could heal and they
+could find out that they hadn’t got such bad teammates,
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>The trial divorce would do much to solve even
+those cases in which husbands and wives think that
+they have fallen out of love with their lawful mates
+and have found their affinities in others. Nine times
+out of ten the reason that men and women lose their
+affection for their husbands and wives is just because
+they are bored with them. They have had an overdose
+of them. They have seen them too long and
+at too close range.</p>
+
+<p>Every woman knows that when she starts off on
+her summer vacation she sees her husband as just a
+hump-shouldered, fat, bald-headed man, who is
+slouchy about dressing; but after she has been away
+a week she begins to remember what a classical nose
+he has. In a fortnight she thinks how handsome and
+distinguished-looking he is, and by the end of the
+month he is a perfect Valentino to her. The man
+has just the same reactions about his wife. She
+goes away fat and frumpy and middle-aged, and she
+returns merely plump and more attractive than any
+flapper to him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p>
+
+<p>Many men and women who think they are permanently
+tired of their husbands and wives are only
+temporarily weary of looking at the same face and
+listening to the same line of conversation across the
+breakfast table, and if a trial divorce gave them a
+second choice they would find that they preferred
+the old love to the new.</p>
+
+<p>For the lure of the “other woman” and the “other
+man” is chiefly that they are unattainable and unknown,
+and these charms vanish before the trial
+divorce that makes them possible and familiar. It
+gives the foolish, infatuated husband and wife a
+chance really to compare the long-haired poet or the
+short-haired flapper with the partners they had and
+are about to lose.</p>
+
+<p>Give a man time to forget his wife’s nagging, and
+his peaches-and-cream complexioned secretary will
+not look as good a risk, after all, to him as his
+faithful old wife. Give a woman time to forget the
+mean things her husband said to her when they quarreled,
+and she will think a long time before she exchanges
+her good provider for some impecunious
+glib love-maker.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, that few men and women find in
+divorce the solution of their woes that they expected.
+They picture it as a state of bliss in which they
+will be free of all woes and cares, an earthly
+paradise in which there will be no fretting wives or
+fault-finding husbands, and in which they will be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>
+able to do exactly as they please. But they find its
+golden apples Dead Sea fruit that turns to ashes on
+their lips. The man who has resented his wife’s
+tyranny and writhed under her curtain lectures,
+strangely finds out that he wants to go home, when
+he has no home to which to go, and nobody to care
+whether he ever comes back or not.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who has thought she would be happy
+if she no longer had to live with a neglectful husband,
+finds that the world also neglects her and that
+her freedom has merely brought her the freedom of
+earning her own living. And when this hard and
+bitter knowledge soaks into the consciousness of men
+and women many of them would be glad enough to
+go back again to their old husbands and wives if
+they could.</p>
+
+<p>So, when we unscramble our scrambled marriage
+laws, let’s put the trial divorce into them.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">MARRY THE MAN YOU LOVE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A young</span> woman wants to know whether it
+is better to marry the man she loves, or
+the man who loves her. Both, I should say.
+Marriage should be a mutual benefit association in
+which both parties give and receive; in which they
+love and are loved in equal measure. Cupid, however,
+is no dispenser of justice. He rarely holds the
+scales even. Very few husbands and wives feel the
+same amount of affection for each other. In almost
+every married couple one kisses and the other submits
+to being kissed, as the French proverb cynically
+puts it.</p>
+
+<p>This being the case, it is better for the woman
+to be the kisser than the kissee, because, while it is
+misfortune to a woman never to be loved, it is a
+tragedy to her never to love.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, every woman desires to be worshiped
+by some man, and she dreams of having a husband
+who will be a perpetual lover and spend his life laying
+tributes at her feet. She feels that she would be
+perfectly happy doing the goddess-on-a-pedestal
+act, and occasionally deigning to bestow a kind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
+word on her adorer, as one throws a bone to a dog.
+Obsessed by this romantic vision, which flatters her
+vanity, many a woman is beguiled into marrying a
+man for whom she has only a mild liking because he
+is so crazy about her. She thinks that he can supply
+enough love for two, and that she will be happy
+and satisfied with just being loved.</p>
+
+<p>It does not take her long to find out that she has
+made a sad mistake, and that there is nothing with
+which we can get so easily satiated as we can with
+the affection we do not return. We have no appetite
+for it and it is tasteless in our mouths. Nor are
+there any greater bores than those who love us, who
+cling to us, who want to be always with us, but whom
+we do not love and of whom we get tired to death.</p>
+
+<p>All of us know doormat husbands whose wives
+ruthlessly trample them under foot. We all know
+peevish, disgruntled, discontented wives, whose husbands
+slave to give them luxuries for which they
+never get so much as—“Thank you.” We have all
+held up our hands in horror when some wife left a
+good, devoted husband and eloped with another man
+or packed her trunk and hiked out for Hollywood,
+and we wondered what was the matter with these
+women that they were not satisfied with their husband’s
+love.</p>
+
+<p>The trouble with them was that they had married
+men who loved them instead of men they loved. If
+they had been doing the love-making and trying to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
+hold the affections of husbands whom they suspected
+every flapper of trying to steal from them, they
+would have been too busy, too thrilled and interested
+to get into mischief.</p>
+
+<p>There are many reasons why a woman who is
+contemplating matrimony should lay greater stress
+upon the state of her own affections than she does
+upon the man’s. The principal one, of course, is
+because a woman is ten times as much married to
+her husband as he is to her, and therefore it is ten
+times more important that she should be pleased
+with her bargain than it is that he should be satisfied
+with his.</p>
+
+<p>A married man has a million interests, and distractions,
+and amusements, and compensations outside
+of his home, and if his wife does not turn out
+to be all that his fondest fancy painted her, he has
+his business to fall back upon, his ambition and his
+career to console him. He is never wholly dependent
+on his wife for his happiness. But a woman stakes
+her all on her matrimonial gamble, and if she does
+not love her husband, if she does not find happiness
+in her home, she has nothing.</p>
+
+<p>A woman’s emotions make her life. What she
+feels is of more interest to her than what she does.
+She cannot substitute liking for loving any more
+than she can water for wine. And no matter how
+much she admires the man to whom she is married,
+no matter how grateful she is to him for his kindness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
+to her, unless he can raise a thrill in her breast
+everything is cinders, ashes and dust to her.</p>
+
+<p>She feels that she has missed the best thing in life,
+the thing she most wanted; and she is restless and
+dissatisfied, and is forever on a still hunt to find her
+real soul-mate.</p>
+
+<p>To the average woman, marriage is a state of perpetual
+sacrifice. She must go through the agony of
+bearing children, and the long, weary years of ceaseless
+care and anxiety in rearing them. She must
+work harder than any hireling at the dull and monotonous
+task of cooking and cleaning and scrubbing
+and sewing and mending that it takes to make
+a comfortable home. And the only thing on earth
+that can make all of this worth while is love for her
+husband. That sets a star in her sky. That gilds
+the humblest task. The woman who stands over a
+stove cooking a dinner for the husband to whom she
+is utterly indifferent is a slave driven to her appointed
+task by her sense of duty. The woman who
+stands over a stove cooking dinner for a husband
+she adores is a priestess making a burnt offering of
+herself on the altar of her god.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who marries the man she loves is never
+bored, and boredom is the particular curse of the
+feminine sex. She throws herself heart and soul into
+her husband’s interests, and is more eager for his
+success than he is himself. She is never dull, because
+the smallest thing that concerns him is of more import<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
+to her than the events that shake the great
+outer world. She can find food for thought and
+scope for her activities in the fact that her husband
+likes onions with his beefsteak or prefers mushrooms.
+Her days are filled with pleasurable excitement in
+preparing for his homecoming of an evening, and
+when she hears his key in the latch her heart strikes
+up “Hail to the King.”</p>
+
+<p>The woman who marries the man she loves is never
+dissatisfied, never disgruntled. He may be a poor
+thing, but he is her own, the one she cut out of the
+bunch and which she marked with her own brand.
+Having got the one thing she wanted most, she can
+well afford to pity her poor sisters who have only
+limousines and pearls and the merely tolerated husbands
+who are the purveyors thereof. A woman
+should always marry a man with whom she is very
+much in love, because it insures her a stimulating
+and interesting life. The reason that most women
+run down and get slack and slouchy is because they
+are bored to tears with domesticity. They do not
+care for their husbands and so they take no trouble
+to please them.</p>
+
+<p>But the woman who is in love with her husband,
+who married the man she wanted, is on her tiptoes
+all of the time. She means to keep him and she takes
+no chances on disillusioning him with curl papers,
+and cold cream, and bad cooking, and tantrums.
+She is eternally in pursuit; and while there may be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
+times when she gets tired and feels as if she would
+like to sit down and take things easy, still there is
+no denying that the love chase puts pep in any
+lady’s day.</p>
+
+<p>A woman should never marry any man except the
+one with whom she is very much in love, because
+every woman craves romance, and if she doesn’t get
+it at home she is very apt to seek it abroad, or else
+she goes through life hungry, unsatisfied. The
+wives who get into scandals; who think they find
+soul-mates in their preachers, or their doctors, or
+long-haired poets; the wives who run off after
+strange cults and who burden down the mails with
+letters to movie actors are all women who married
+men they didn’t love.</p>
+
+<p>The women who are crazily in love with their husbands
+make their own angel’s food at home and don’t
+have to go around trying to pick up stray crumbs
+on the street. Of course, the woman who loves her
+husband better than he does her has her moments of
+acute jealousy, but even these are full of ginger and
+are better than the dull stagnation of having a man
+that you don’t take the trouble to lock up at night
+because you know you can’t lose him.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, it is more blessed to give than to receive,
+and it is better for a woman to love than to be loved.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV<br>
+<span class="fs70">ARE YOU GOOD COMPANY FOR YOURSELF?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Do</span> you ever think what poor company most
+of us are for ourselves? It is strange but
+true that the one individual on God’s earth
+who bores the average man and woman more than
+any one else is just himself and herself. There is
+no society they so dread as their own, and no expedient
+so desperate that they will not resort to it
+rather than be left alone with themselves. They will
+fasten themselves like leeches on kinspeople and
+friends who try to shake them loose. They will stay
+on in homes where they know they are not welcome.
+They will put up with any discomfort in order to
+herd together. They will hold up the telephone
+poles at the corners of streets, and walk the aisles
+of the department stores until they are ready to
+drop with fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>They will belong to clubs where they foregather
+with the dull and prosy and fat-witted, and where
+they spend hours listening to egotists monologue
+about how great and wonderful they are. Evening
+after evening they go to vaudeville performances
+whose every turn is so stupid it is enough to make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>
+even a hero scream with pain, and to see moving
+pictures whose scenarios are an insult to the intelligence
+of an idiot.</p>
+
+<p>Anything—anywhere, to get away from themselves,
+to escape having to spend an hour in their
+own company. So universal is the belief that it is
+the limit of social and mental poverty to be reduced
+to your own society for company, that we speak of
+those who live alone as being lonesome, and pity
+them accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>It does not even occur to us that they may have
+that within themselves which could make them gay
+and witty companions to themselves, of whom they
+would never tire.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy, of course, to see why many people are
+bored to tears with their own company. Men and
+women who never read anything can’t have very
+much that is new and interesting to say to themselves.
+After they have discussed the state of the
+green grocery trade with themselves, on which they
+are rather fed up anyway after having wrestled with
+it all day, or mulled over the last gossip about the
+neighbors next door, and wondered for the millionth
+time how the Joneses can afford a new car, and
+where the Smith girl has been spending the evening
+when she came home at 3 A. M., they find that they
+have exhausted their conversational repertoire.</p>
+
+<p>But if they are reading people they can never
+have a dull instant when they are alone, for every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>
+book, every magazine, every newspaper is a magic
+carpet that takes them in an instant into the uttermost
+parts of the world. There isn’t a strange sight
+they may not see, or a secret whispered behind a
+closed door they may not hear; nor a romance unfolded
+whose thrill does not touch their hearts and
+stir their pulse. Education and cultivation would
+be worth while if they did nothing else except take
+the curse off loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>You can see how people who are envious and
+jealous and quarrelsome and mean-spirited dread to
+be left alone with themselves. They have devils
+from hell for company, those men and women whose
+souls are filled with bitterness and hate, and who are
+forever thrashing over old grievances, recalling old
+wrongs, bringing to life again old enmities.</p>
+
+<p>We all avoid the pessimistic and the cynical—those
+who can see nothing cheerful or good in the
+world, and with whom even a chance meeting seems
+to take the warmth out of the sunshine, and God out
+of His heaven, and make all life dark and foul. How
+terrible, then, must it be to live with yourself when
+you have nothing to say to yourself that does not
+leave a dark-brown taste in your mouth? It is not
+strange that those who have lived hard and selfish
+and grasping lives are poor company for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot imagine a widow spending a cheery
+evening recalling how she nagged her poor, dead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
+husband, how cross and peevish and complaining she
+was, or how little she had done to repay him for all
+that he had done for her. Neither can you imagine
+a woman enjoying telling herself that if she had been
+less extravagant, and content with simple things, if
+she hadn’t demanded fine clothes and jewels and
+trips to Europe, that her husband would not have
+had to kill himself working, and that she might now
+have some one to talk to, living and breathing, instead
+of a demon of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>It is not strange that a man wants other company
+than the recollection of how his coldness and
+neglect turned the bright, joyous, loving, tender
+girl he married into a quiet, sad woman who cringed
+like a whipped dog before his cruel fault-finding.
+Nor is it strange that the man who has driven hard
+bargains and overreached in trade, who has ground
+down the faces of those who worked for him, who has
+taken advantage of the ignorant and the trustful,
+and built his fortune on the ruins of widows and
+children, does not find his own society exhilarating.</p>
+
+<p>When we are old we have nothing but our memories
+left us. They are enough company if they are
+filled with the smiling faces of those we loved, who
+recall to us kindly acts we have done, helping hands
+we have held out, and if they murmur to us of kindly,
+gracious deeds. But they are terrible companions
+if they are filled with memories of cruelty and wrong.
+Considering that, do what we may, we can never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
+escape from ourselves, that we are bound to endure
+our own society, is it not a pity that we do not
+emulate the poet who said, “My mind to me a kingdom
+is,” and make ourselves better company for
+ourselves!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">KEEPING YOUNG</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">None</span> of us wants to die. No matter how
+strong our religious faith, nor how lustily
+we sing “Heaven is my home,” none of us
+is in a hurry to go there. We prefer to stay in a
+world in which we are acquainted and acclimated.
+Likewise, we all dread old age. It fills us with horror
+to think of becoming bent and tottering old
+men and women, our vigor of mind and body gone,
+sans hair, sans teeth, sans everything. So from
+time immemorial humanity has been on the still hunt
+for some magic that will stay the devastating hand
+of time and enable it to hold on to the youth it
+prizes so dearly. The ancients sailed the world over
+seeking fabled islands and miraculous fountains of
+perpetual youth. We moderns pin our faith to the
+surgeon’s knife and the druggist’s bottles, to monkey
+glands, and face liftings, and paints, and powders,
+and hair dyes.</p>
+
+<p>All in vain. The black oxen of the years march
+over us, treading out our youth and beauty, our
+strength and high spirits, and nothing that we can
+do will stop them. So it seems a pity that we should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>
+waste so much thought, so much struggle, and effort,
+and energy, and money in essaying an impossible
+task. For do what we may, we cannot keep young,
+and when we try to camouflage age as juvenility the
+only people in the world that we fool are ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>We can dye our hair the gold, or the black, or the
+jet of girlhood, but we cannot put under it the fresh
+face of sixteen. We can have our skin gored and
+tucked until all of our wrinkles are taken out, but
+there still remain the tired, old eyes that have seen
+fifty or sixty years. We can starve ourselves until
+we get the figures of flappers, but we are not lithe
+and graceful. We are living skeletons. We can roll
+our stockings and borrow our granddaughter’s
+clothes, but it doesn’t make us look like debutantes.
+It makes us look like those afflicted with senile dementia.
+The truth is, the more we fight age the
+harder it fights back and the sooner it conquers us.
+None grow old so quickly as those who work themselves
+into premature age trying to keep young.</p>
+
+<p>Once I was standing behind a jaunty little figure
+perched on the runningboard of a car. She wore the
+gayest and sportiest of sport suits. She had the
+thin figure of a girl of fifteen. Her bobbed henna-colored
+hair curled under the brim of a rakish little
+hat. Presently she turned around and disclosed a
+face that was like a mask, it was so plastered over
+with cosmetics. “Heavens! Did you ever see such
+an old hag?” exclaimed a man near me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now, this woman was not more than fifty years
+old. She was in the prime of life, at an age when
+many women are handsomer than they ever were
+in their lives. No one would have thought of her
+as being old at all, if she had been willing to appear
+her own honest age; if she had had the pleasing
+plumpness that belonged to her time of life; if
+her soft, gray hair had waved about her face, and
+if she had been appropriately dressed. It was her
+effort to appear kiddish that called attention to
+what an old goat she was.</p>
+
+<p>If bobbing and dyeing their hair, and dieting
+themselves to emaciation, and wearing knee-length
+skirts made elderly women look young and girlish,
+they would not only be justified in doing so, it would
+be a virtue to do it, for thereby they would make
+themselves easy on the eyes. But just the reverse
+is true. Their affectation of youth only calls attention
+to what a long distance they have traveled from
+youth. Old mutton never seems so old, and tough,
+and stringy as when it is dressed as spring lamb.</p>
+
+<p>And the folly of trying to act young after you
+are old is just as great as that of trying to look
+sixteen when you are sixty. Women have been told
+so often they must keep their spirits young, they
+must never think old thoughts, they must never
+speak of age, or admit to themselves they are getting
+older, that they have come to believe that,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>
+simply by forgetting their birthdays, they can maintain
+perpetual girlhood.</p>
+
+<p>We all know women who begin every reminiscence
+by saying that they were very young at the time
+it happened, and who give us to understand their
+husbands were cradle snatchers, who married them
+when they were mere infants. We know old women
+who are always teasing themselves about men, and
+talking about their best beaus, and pretending to
+have flirtations with boys young enough to be their
+grandsons, and repeating compliments about their
+eyes or their fascinations they allege men paid them,
+but that even an idiot would know that they made
+up themselves. How ridiculous the poor souls make
+themselves! How infinitely older they appear than
+the women who do not try to pose as vamps after
+they have ceased to look the part, and who regard
+men just as they do women, as interesting and agreeable
+human beings.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, after all, we make too big a bugaboo
+of growing old. The twilight has its charms no less
+than the dawn or high noon, and so the last lap of
+the journey of life has its compensations and its
+joys if we are willing to accept them.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, the only way we can escape old age is
+by dying young. But if we welcome it as a friend, it
+deals kindlier with us than if we fight it as an enemy.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">GOSSIP, THE POLICEMAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A young</span> woman writes me that she considers
+that she has a right to live her own
+life in her own way and do exactly as she
+pleases. So she has broken most of the Ten Commandments
+and snapped her fingers in the face of
+Mrs. Grundy. And now that she finds that her
+reputation is being torn to tatters, she thinks that
+she is being most unfairly treated.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, how I hate the whole tribe of kitty-cats!”
+she wails. “Oh, how hard, and cruel, and unjust
+people are!” Then she asks, “Don’t you think that
+gossip is the unpardonable sin?”</p>
+
+<p>Not at all. Gossip is one of the most powerful
+influences in the world for good. It is the invisible,
+omnipresent policeman that enforces law and order.
+It is the scourge that keeps the trembling wretch in
+order and makes the weak-kneed and the wobbly
+walk the straight and narrow path.</p>
+
+<p>We can stifle the voice of conscience, but we can’t
+silence the voice of our neighbors. We can dope
+ourselves into believing that we have a right to make
+our own code of conduct, but we can’t force the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>
+community in which we live to take our point of
+view on the matter, or to make any exceptions in
+our behalf to the standards that society has set up
+for good behavior. And it is this fear of what
+“they’ll say” that makes us curb our appetites and
+passions and keep up at least an outward show of
+decency. For no matter how vain and egotistic we
+are; no matter how self-complacent and self-satisfied
+we are; no matter how independent we think we
+are, we are all cowards who grovel in the dust before
+public opinion. It is the lifted eyebrow. It is the
+cold, measured, appraising look that weighs us in
+the balance and finds us wanting. It is the turn of
+a shoulder away from us and the little hush that
+falls on a group as we approach that tells us that
+we have been the subject of unfavorable discussion,
+which we dread more than we do the wrath of God.</p>
+
+<p>It is the knowledge that she will be gossiped about
+if she indulges in any flirtations which keeps many
+a bored young married woman with romantic yearnings
+from indulging in little affairs with good-looking
+bachelors. She knows there might really be no
+harm in her having lunch with Mr. A. or going to
+the theater with Captain C., but that she could
+never explain it to the woman who lives across the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>And the next time the Current Events Club meets
+she knows that she will be the current event of burning
+interest discussed. Therefore she turns down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
+the alluring invitations and stays at home, and
+minds her p’s and her q’s and her babies.</p>
+
+<p>And it is the fear of gossip that makes many an
+indiscreet girl watch her step and saves her from
+the stumble that would land her in the pit. She is
+easy-going and good-natured, and warm-hearted and
+affectionate, and she sees no harm in letting boys
+that she likes kiss her and fondle her, but it makes
+the flesh creep on her bones to think of the Amalgamated
+Scandal Mongers’ Union getting out their
+hammers and going for her if she does. She knows
+well enough that the neighbors on either side keep
+tab on what hour her beaux go home and what goes
+on as they sit on the front porch or stoop of
+an evening, and she conducts herself accordingly.
+There is no chaperon so efficient as Mrs. Grundy.</p>
+
+<p>If we could only do as we pleased and get away
+with it without any censorious comments from our
+fellow creatures, there would be many more philandering
+husbands and wives than there are, many
+more girls wandering down the primrose path, many
+more neglected children and ill-kept houses, many
+more wife-beating husbands and virago wives. It is
+the knowledge that, if they give way to their natural
+impulses, they will be talked about, which gives many
+would-be sinners the strength to resist the temptation
+to be as bad as they would like to be.</p>
+
+<p>The people who think it is so wicked to be talked
+about are only those who have something to hide,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
+something that reflects on their character. It is our
+bad deeds we don’t want discussed. We are tickled
+to death to have our good ones broadcasted to the
+ends of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>No man objects to having it told about that he is
+a model husband, a good provider and a tender
+father. The thing he wants hushed up is that he
+half starves his family in order to spend the money
+on a flapper. No woman wants to put the soft
+pedal on the conversation when her friends are telling
+what a wonderful wife and mother she is; but
+she doesn’t know how women, who call themselves her
+friends, can be catty enough to whisper behind their
+hands that she went out joy-riding with young
+Snookums and didn’t get home until 4 in the morning,
+while the baby was nearly dying with the croup.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are down on gossip and feel that the
+world should cover up their shortcomings with a
+blanket of silence are unreasonable. Why should
+other people be more careful of your reputation
+than you are yourself? If you do not care enough
+for your good name to protect it, why demand that
+service of the general public? Foolish and vain expectation!
+For the gossipers keep on their good
+work, and the only way you can escape being talked
+about is to be so exemplary that you are a dull
+subject for conversation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE LUCKY WORKING WOMAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Why</span> do we hold to the theory that work is
+a blessing to men, but a curse to women?
+We know beyond all questioning that the
+necessity of earning his bread by the sweat of his
+brow was the consolation prize that Adam was
+handed along with his eviction papers when he was
+turned out of Eden. We know that the only happy
+man is the busy man. We know that only in constructive
+labor does a man find an interest that
+never palls and a game in which there is a perpetual
+thrill. We know that work is the greatest anodyne
+for sorrow and the best protection against temptation.
+We know that, as Stevenson says, “if a man
+loves the labor of any trade apart from any question
+of success or fame, the gods have called him,
+and he is of all men most enviable.”</p>
+
+<p>So manifold are the benefits men derive from work,
+so salutary are its effects upon them, that we have
+a contempt for the idle, purposeless man and feel
+that, no matter how much money he has, he has no
+right to spend his life in loafing. We are eager to
+get our boys to work, so that their restless young<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>
+energy may find a legitimate outlet, instead of being
+employed in devising new forms of dissipation. The
+young man must have something to do, and if he
+isn’t bending his back in honest farming he will be
+breaking his neck in sowing a wild-oats crop.</p>
+
+<p>Our attitude, however, toward women and work is
+diametrically opposite. We do not regard work as
+a good thing for women. On the contrary, we consider
+it a misfortune for a woman to have to work.
+We have even coined a phrase for it and speak of
+the woman who must earn her own living as a “poor
+working woman.” Worse still, the woman who
+works pities herself. The mother whose daughters
+go down to business every morning bewails their
+fate and feels that destiny has dealt most unkindly
+by them. The woman who must do her own housework,
+and look after her own babies, and make her
+own clothes sheds barrels of tears over her lot.</p>
+
+<p>Men also accept this view of the situation that
+labor is a curse to women, and work themselves to
+death in order that their wives and daughters may
+live in parasitic ease, with servants to wait upon
+them and have nothing to do but kill time. In fact,
+the consensus of opinion seems to be that the ideal
+state for a woman is that in which she never performs
+any useful labor, but merely sits on a silk cushion
+and feeds upon strawberries, sugar and cream.
+All of this is a distorted view of the situation. Women
+need to work just as much as men do. Idleness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>
+has just as disastrous an effect upon the feminine
+character as it has upon the male, and among women,
+as among men, the only happy, contented ones are
+those who are so much engrossed in some useful
+labor that they haven’t leisure in which to consider
+whether they are satisfied or not.</p>
+
+<p>Mother “poor Marys” and “poor Sallys” her
+daughters who have to earn their living, but nowhere
+else will you see healthier, happier girls than
+those holding down good jobs in stores and offices.
+Nine times out of ten the girl behind the counter is
+brighter, more alert, and finds life a far more entertaining
+proposition than does her purposeless idle
+sister before the counter.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is the domestic woman who has to do her own
+housework entitled to shed any tears of self-pity on
+our necks. There is no more reason why a husky
+young woman shouldn’t do her share of the work of
+the domestic partnership than there is why her husband
+should not do his. It is no more of a hardship
+for her to have to work than it is for him, and many
+a rich old woman who sits now with empty hands
+that ache for occupation will tell you that her happiest
+days were the busy, crowded ones when she got
+up at five o’clock to cook her husband’s breakfast
+before he went to the factory and sat up until eleven
+o’clock washing and patching his clothes so that he
+could make a decent appearance next day.</p>
+
+<p>It is a significant fact that the women who fill<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>
+sanitariums and enrich nerve specialists are not the
+overworked, hard-driven wives and mothers. They
+are the middle-aged and elderly women, who have
+nothing to do but to canvass their systems for symptoms
+of every disease they read about in the magazines.
+It takes leisure to develop invalidism. Busy
+people keep well because they haven’t time to be sick.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly every man’s ambition is to keep his wife
+in idleness, and he thinks that he is being a good
+husband when he can boast that she hasn’t a thing
+on earth to do but to amuse herself. It is pathetic
+that the thing that so many good husbands strive
+for is their undoing. For it is the idle women who
+are the peevish, fretful, discontented wives. It is
+the idle women who run off with all sorts of fool
+fads and fancies. It is the idle women who decide
+that their good, honest, hard-working husbands are
+not their real soul-mates, and who get into scandals
+with jazzhounds and elope with romantic-looking
+sheiks they have picked up in hotel lobbies.</p>
+
+<p>The idle woman is never a happy woman. Having
+nothing to do but to think about herself, she is
+sure to prod around in her mind until she finds a
+grievance. Having nothing to do, she is sure to get
+into mischief. Having no interesting occupation,
+she begins to hunt for thrills. And the net result is
+that she works harder trying to amuse herself than
+she would at scrubbing floors, and the only reward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>
+is that life is flat, stale and unpalatable in her
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Let us hope that the time will soon come when we
+will have enough intelligence to perceive that work
+is a woman’s salvation even as it is a man’s, and
+when we will congratulate the woman with a job
+instead of pitying her.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIX">XIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">AN INDOOR SPORT</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">This</span> is a sad world, mates, with too little
+sunshine in it, so far be it from me to
+abridge, abate or curtail any innocent
+pleasure. But it does seem to me that there are
+certain diversions that should be indulged in only in
+the privacy of home. One of these is the family
+spat. Apparently a large number of men and
+women get married for the sole purpose of providing
+themselves with a sparring partner, with whom
+they can put on the gloves at a moment’s notice
+with, or without, the slightest provocation. Life
+has no dull moments for them, because they are
+always saying something that draws blood, or framing
+a retort that will cut to the quick, and the
+excitement of a battle to the death is perpetually
+thrilling their nerves.</p>
+
+<p>Without doubt, it is a merry and adventurous
+existence for the doughty domestic warriors who
+enjoy that kind of thing! I would not be cruel
+enough to deny them the cheery pastime of going
+to the mat over every trivial difference of opinion.
+But I do contend that conjugal quarrels are an indoor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>
+sport that should be pursued only when the
+participants have sought the seclusion that the
+cabin grants, as they used to say in “Pinafore,”
+and when all the shades have been pulled down and
+the keyholes stuffed with cotton.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly the lack of an audience might take off
+a little of the edge of the bout for the battling husband
+and spouse; but, oh, how immeasurably it
+would add to the comfort and happiness of those
+of us who are the innocent bystanders and who are
+forced to look on, sick with horror, at these encounters!
+In all good truth I know of no other
+situation so miserable and so embarrassing as to
+be called upon to referee a fight between a married
+couple. Their quarrel is, to begin with, a matter
+with which we have no concern; one in which we do
+not desire to meddle; one in which we ardently wish
+to take neither side. It makes us feel as if we were
+cowards to keep silent while a man hurls deadly insults
+at his wife, and we writhe in vicarious shame
+while a woman vituperates her husband.</p>
+
+<p>We have the sense of having assisted in an indecent
+orgy when a husband and wife strip every rag
+of reserve away from their relationship and fling
+open the doors of their skeleton closets, and rattle
+their bones in public. Nor are we consoled by the
+knowledge that the people who make public exhibitions
+of their tempers must enjoy doing so or else
+they would not do it. Yet we all number among our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>
+friends, husbands and wives, otherwise estimable and
+charming individuals, who always stage their fights
+in the most conspicuous place they can find, and
+who seem to prefer an audience to privacy. When
+you meet them for an evening’s diversion they are
+having a preliminary set-to. Perhaps the husband
+has come home late from the office, or has forgotten
+to mail a letter, or possibly the wife has kept her
+husband waiting while she did her hair over the
+second time. During the selection of the dinner
+they get warmed up to the work and put in some
+punches with real steam behind them. They clinch,
+and bite, and gouge over the selection of a play, and
+they reach for each other’s vital spots and get in
+dirty jabs at the supper dance that follows the
+play.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless the fighters are enjoying themselves,
+but a pleasant time is not being had by all. The
+abashed onlookers know not what to do. They do
+not know whether to rush in and make it a free-for-all
+fight or to try to mediate between the warring
+couple, or whether to pretend to have been suddenly
+stricken deaf, dumb and blind. And they wind up
+by feeling outraged that they should have been
+placed in such a mortifying position, and wishing
+heartily that husbands and wives would keep their
+quarrels for home consumption, and not inflict them
+on their friends.</p>
+
+<p>The same strictures apply to the woman who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>
+henpecks her husband. That also is one of the quiet
+home joys that should be strictly confined to the
+domestic circle. I raise no voice of protest against
+the woman who has wit and strength and determination
+enough to oust her husband out of his position
+as head of the house and assume it herself. It is a
+matter between the husband and wife, and if he
+hasn’t enough spunk to fight for his rights he deserves
+to lose them. But why cannot the bossy
+women be content with exercising their tyranny quietly
+and unobtrusively? Why do they insist upon
+rattling the chains by which they lead their husbands
+until they call public attention to them?</p>
+
+<p>Think of the women you know who always say
+“MY house.” “MY car.” “MY children.” Who
+always walk ahead of their husbands and point out
+a seat, and say, “John, sit there,” and who always
+tell John where to get on and where to get off! And
+think how all the rest of us are embarrassed for
+poor John! Believe me, dirty linen should be washed
+at home, and family quarrels staged there. That is
+one of the main things for which homes are designed.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XX">XX<br>
+<span class="fs70">SHOULD WOMEN TELL?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I get</span> a great many letters from women who
+write that there is a dark stain on their past
+life. In the headstrong folly of youth they
+took a step down the primrose path, then repented
+of their sin, and turned their back upon it, and laid
+hold upon righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes nobody knows of the slip but the girl
+herself and the man who was her partner in wrong-doing.
+Sometimes a woman who had mired her
+skirts to the knees has washed them clean with her
+tears of remorse, and had the courage to build
+anew her life in some place where her early escapades
+are unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Then love comes to these women. Good men offer
+them marriage and an honorable place in society.
+And the question they ask is, shall they tell these
+men the story of their life before they marry them,
+or bury the secret in their heart, and leave the
+matter on the knees of the gods?</p>
+
+<p>This is a problem no human wisdom can solve,
+for, so far as the woman is concerned, it is a case<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
+in which she will be damned if she does, and damned
+if she doesn’t. Her chances of getting happiness—or
+misery—through opening up her skeleton closet
+and exhibiting its contents to the man who has asked
+her to be his wife are about even, with the odds
+for happiness slightly in favor of keeping the lid
+clamped down good and hard on her secret.</p>
+
+<p>The question of right does not enter into the
+matter unless you institute a prematrimonial confessional
+in which men shall bare their souls as well
+as women. There is no more real reason why a
+woman should tell a man every detail of her past
+than there is why he should tell her of every time
+that he has strayed off of the straight and narrow
+path.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that a couple who knew the worst of
+each other would start out their life together on a
+firm foundation of honest understanding, but nobody
+can claim that it would make for their felicity,
+or increase their affection for each other. On the
+contrary, they would have swept away every illusion.
+They would have destroyed the faith of each
+in the other, and they would have called into being
+an evil spirit, a ghost out of the past, that they
+could not banish, and that would forever stand
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>Men have had the wisdom to perceive this. They
+realize that what a woman doesn’t know doesn’t hurt
+her, but that the thing that she does know she worries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>
+herself to death over, and so few men are foolish
+enough to furnish a wife with a working diagram
+of their past lives with which she can torture herself,
+and them. They draw a discreet veil over episodes
+that are best forgotten, anyway, and deal only
+in glittering generalities in referring to their gay
+bachelor days. Moreover, women are sensible
+enough to let it go at that. No woman wants her
+husband to tell her things that stab her every time
+she thinks of them, and that eat like a canker into
+her memory.</p>
+
+<p>It is only when the case is reversed, and when it
+is the woman who has a blot upon her past, that she
+wonders if it is the right thing, the honorable thing,
+to tell the man who wants to marry her about it.
+Of course, the woman is bound in this by the double
+code of morals, which makes one standard for the
+woman and another for the man, and that, humorously
+enough, makes a husband feel that he has been
+exceedingly ill-used if he discovers that his wife has
+a past that matches his own.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, because she is afraid that in future
+years her husband may find out about her past life,
+or else driven by her conscience, or for the sheer
+relief of sharing her burden with another, the woman
+nearly always tells everything to the man before
+marriage. Sometimes it drives him from her. Sometimes
+he loves her enough to marry her, in spite of
+her revelations.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p>
+
+<p>But, while he forgives, he never forgets. Always
+he is haunted by the memories of what she has revealed.
+He never trusts her, never wholly believes
+in her, and he has to be a bigger-souled man than
+most men are if he does not reproach her with her
+past, and use it as a whip of scorpions to scourge
+her with when he is angry with her.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, when either a man’s or a woman’s past
+life has in it some sinister curse that reaches out
+and lays a hand on the future of the one he or she
+marries, he or she is bound in honor to tell the other
+one about it. But when there is nothing of this kind,
+nothing but a youthful folly, a mistake, a blunder
+in the dark, bitterly repented of and lived down, it
+seems to me the part of wisdom for both men and
+women to forego post-mortems, and to wash the slate
+clean and make a fresh start.</p>
+
+<p>What they have done does not matter so much as
+what they are going to do. And it often happens
+that just because a man or woman has stumbled in
+the past they walk the more carefully among the
+pitfalls of life, and that out of the sorrows and
+repentance for their sins they have brought a tenderness,
+a compassion, a forbearance and an understanding
+that makes them better men and women
+than the vast majority of those who have lived
+blameless lives.</p>
+
+<p>Confession is always weakness. The brave soul<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>
+keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment
+in silence. It takes a strong man or woman to keep
+from blabbing, but it pays never to tell anything
+that you do not wish the world to know.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXI">XXI<br>
+<span class="fs70">DOMESTIC BOREDOM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> thing that oftenest makes marriage a
+failure is its dulness. The real specter on
+the hearth is that awful silence. It is because
+husbands and wives have nothing interesting
+to say to each other that they quarrel. It is no
+joke, it is a sad truth, that in any theater or restaurant
+you can spot the married couples at a first
+glance. They are the couples who are sitting up
+reading the program through from cover to cover
+between the acts, or are apparently memorizing the
+menu while the waiter brings their order. The alert,
+interesting, smiling people who are gayly chatting
+together are the unwed, or those who are talking to
+other people’s husbands and wives.</p>
+
+<p>Let even a bore drop into a droopy, dejected
+family circle that has been yawning itself to death
+and everybody brightens up and the stream of conversation
+which had apparently dried up at its
+source begins to flow again. Two may be company
+and three a crowd before marriage, but generally
+after marriage two is gobs of silence and three a
+godsend.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p>
+
+<p>Yet the majority of people marry for companionship.
+Before marriage they could never get
+enough of each other’s society, and they esteemed
+each other perfect spellbinders. How is it, then,
+that they get so fed up on each other’s company
+that they sit up like mutes in the solitude of their
+homes? Why is it that, apart from fault-finding
+and spats and complaints about the servants and
+the tradesmen and bulletins about the children,
+there is so little family conversation; practically
+none that is interesting and cheerful and inspiring?
+You would think that a husband and wife who have
+all interests in common could never talk themselves
+out. But they do, and they come to the place where
+they take refuge behind the evening paper or in
+solitaire to save themselves from the pretense of
+even having to maintain the appearance of keeping
+up social intercourse.</p>
+
+<p>Wives lay the blame for this state of affairs on
+their husbands. They say, heaven knows, that they
+would be glad enough to talk, but that you can’t
+maintain a conversation with a person who always
+grunts by way of reply, and who could give a clam
+on ice points on silence and then beat it at the game.
+Men retort that they have exhausted their conversational
+powers during business hours, and they desire
+to rest their vocal cords at home. Nevertheless,
+it is observable that if somebody interesting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>
+happens to call, or they go out to dinner, the very
+man who was silent at home finds plenty to say.</p>
+
+<p>Now there are several reasons why there is so
+little conversation in the home. The first reason is
+because home talk is so often unpleasant. Women,
+especially, are prone to flavor it with gloom. They
+like to recite the litany of the day’s mischances.
+They spoil the flavor of a dinner by telling how
+much it cost. They bring on a scene with a child
+by telling of its naughtiness. They thrash over
+their old grievances because they can’t have what
+richer women have.</p>
+
+<p>All of this gets on the husband’s nerves, and he
+retorts by saying a few pithy things about what a
+fool a man is to marry and burden himself with a
+family and what a poor manager his wife is, and he
+gives a few knocks to the dinner for good measure.
+After which conversation naturally languishes.</p>
+
+<p>Another reason that there is little conversation
+at home is because it is dangerous. Experience
+teaches us that we have to watch our tongues and
+delete our home talk if we want to save ourselves
+from endless trouble.</p>
+
+<p>A man hates to lie to his wife about what he does.
+He would enjoy telling her all about the poker game
+he stayed downtown for last night, and the funny
+things the boys said and did, but he does not do it
+because well he knows that the price of such an indiscreet
+revelation would be to have her nagging him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>
+about it forever and a day. A wife would just love
+to tell her husband about her adventures in buying
+a new hat, and how she fell for the twenty-five-dollar
+one instead of the fifteen-dollar one she meant
+to buy. But she is well aware that she would never
+hear the last of her extravagance if she did. So
+they both keep silent.</p>
+
+<p>There is little home conversation because nobody
+is interested, and nobody pretends to be, in what you
+say. In the family circle nobody listens. Nobody
+laughs at your jokes. Nobody sees the points of
+your merry cracks. Try to tell a good story, and
+somebody is sure to remark that they have heard it
+before, and that it is an ancient wheeze. If you had
+discovered the North Pole and were relating your
+hairbreadth adventures in reaching it by airplane,
+somebody would interrupt at the most breathless
+moment to say that the iceman forgot to deliver the
+ice yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Wives won’t listen even when their husbands try
+to tell them about their hopes and plans and ambitions
+in their careers. And when a woman tries to
+talk to her husband about the things that are of
+vital interest to her he falls asleep and snores in
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>And that is why conversation is a lost art in the
+family circle.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXII">XXII<br>
+<span class="fs70">TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A young</span> woman once said to me:</p>
+
+<p>“I am, as you know, the private secretary
+of the head of a very big business
+concern. I get a generous salary. My hours are
+easy. My employer, who is an elderly man, is one
+of the finest men in the world, and treats me with
+every courtesy, kindness and consideration. I feel
+it a privilege to be in daily contact with such a
+brilliant mind as he has. I love my work. I have
+what they call in men a business head. To me
+there is no other romance so fascinating as the
+romance of commerce; no game so absorbing as the
+business game. And it thrills me to the finger tips
+to know that I have a part, even if it is a small
+one, in this great adventure that sends men and
+ships to the uttermost parts of the earth and that
+gambles for fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>“It gratifies my vanity to know that I have
+worked up from the bottom to my present fine position,
+and it pleases my ambition to know that I can
+climb still higher, and that every year I will be more
+efficient and more valuable to my employer. I enjoy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>
+the money I make, and the luxuries it brings me,
+as only a woman can who comes of a poor family,
+and whose girlhood has been barren of all the pretty
+things that girls crave. I find a lot of solid satisfaction
+in watching my bank account grow, knowing
+that, if I keep on with my job for a few years, I
+will have put by enough to safeguard my old age.</p>
+
+<p>“So far, so good. If I were going to remain perpetually
+on the sunny side of forty, I would ask no
+life better than that of the successful business
+woman. But the dread hour will strike for me, as it
+does for all other women, and I am wondering if,
+when it does, I will not find myself a lonely old
+woman, and wish that I had married and had
+children.</p>
+
+<p>“I am thirty now, and I have got to decide the
+question in the next year or two. Shall I give up
+my mahogany desk for a gas range? Shall I forfeit
+my fat pay envelope for a job where I shall
+have to toil ten times as hard for only my board and
+clothes? Shall I give up the occupation for which
+I spent years in preparing myself, for which I have
+talent and which is a joy for me to perform, for
+domestic service which I loathe, for which I have no
+aptitude and in which I am utterly unskilled?</p>
+
+<p>“When I see my sister shabby, bedraggled, overworked,
+with her crying babies and grouchy husband
+I feel like clinging to my good, soft, easy office
+position with both hands. Then rises that specter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>
+of the future in my pathway, and I wonder if in
+staying single I will miss the best that life has to
+give to a woman, and if I will regret it if I refuse to
+follow the traditional career of my sex.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, I know that there are women who try
+to have their cake, and eat it, too; who grab matrimony
+with one hand, and hold on to their jobs with
+the other, but my observation is that they always
+fall between the stools. They are failures both as
+business women and as wives and mothers, for to
+succeed in anything you have to give everything that
+is in you to it.</p>
+
+<p>“No woman is of much use in an office when nine-tenths
+of her brain and all of her interest are back
+home in a cradle and she is worrying over whether
+a hired nurse is giving the baby its milk. Nor can
+any woman who comes back home at night, with a
+worn-out body and jangled nerves, be anybody’s
+ideal of a wife and mother.</p>
+
+<p>“So as far as I am concerned I have to decide the
+question which I am going to be, a business woman
+or a domestic woman, before I take the fatal step,
+and for the life of me I can’t make up my mind
+which to do. To marry or not to marry, that is the
+problem that I am acquiring gray hairs and wrinkles
+debating.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, if a fairy prince should come along
+and say, ‘Come and be my queen, and ride beside me
+in my limousine and tour the world with me on my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>
+yacht,’ I should doff my Cinderella working suit and
+put on my glass slippers, and step out with him.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is only in novels that millionaires espouse
+poor working girls. The men who come a-courting
+me are just ordinary young chaps on small salaries,
+whose wives will have to do their own cooking, and
+wear hand-me-downs.</p>
+
+<p>“Nor would there be any difficulty in settling the
+question if I had an overwhelming passion for some
+man. Then I would cry, ‘All for love and my job
+well lost!’ and a two-by-four flat would look better
+to me than to be president of the greatest corporation
+in the world. But I am not really in love. I
+have merely an affection for a certain chap that I
+might possibly cultivate into a warmer emotion if
+I decided that it was better, after all, to marry.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is cruel, isn’t it, that a woman has to
+choose between marriage and her career? When a
+man marries he merely annexes a home and wife and
+children to the pleasures and interests of his work,
+but a woman has to sacrifice one or the other. And
+I don’t know which one to choose.”</p>
+
+<p>“And whichever way you decide, you will be apt
+to regret it,” I replied consolingly.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIII">XXIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WOMAN’S GREATEST GIFT</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A man</span> told me the other day that he had not
+married until he was forty-five years old
+because he was determined not to marry
+any woman who did not have a sense of humor, and
+it took him that long to find one.</p>
+
+<p>A wise man! A very Solomon among men! May
+his tribe increase! It is a million times more important
+for a woman to have a well-developed
+funny bone than it is for her to have a Grecian
+profile, yet when men go to marry they pick out a
+girl for a wife because she has melting black eyes,
+or soulful blue eyes, without ever once observing
+whether the said eyes look on the funny side of life
+or take a dark, pessimistic, bilious view of it. Which
+is one of the reasons that domestic life is no merry
+jest to the average husband.</p>
+
+<p>A sense of humor is desirable in a man, but it is
+absolutely essential for a woman to have a sense of
+humor if she is to be an agreeable life partner,
+because a woman’s existence is made up of little,
+nagging things, at which she must either laugh or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>
+cry, and if she can’t laugh them off, they get on
+her nerves, and she goes to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>It is the neurotic, haggard women, who can’t see a
+joke even after it is diagrammed for them, who fill
+the insane asylums and the sanitariums and divorce
+courts. The women who wear the smile that won’t
+come off, and whose laughter is set on a hair trigger,
+get to be fair, fat and forty, and you couldn’t pry
+their husbands away from them with a crowbar. It
+is the lack of a sense of humor that causes women
+to make tragedies instead of comedies out of trifles.</p>
+
+<p>Take the servant trouble, for instance. Women
+worry themselves sick over the mistakes of a green
+maid, and it never occurs to them that the very
+blunders that they are shedding tears over are
+screamingly funny contretemps that they pay out
+money to see imitated in a sketch on the vaudeville
+stage.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, no one wants the soup to be seasoned
+with sugar instead of salt, nor the waste-paper basket
+to be put on the mantel as a parlor ornament
+as a perpetual thing, but the mistress who can get
+a laugh instead of a sick headache out of the mistakes
+of her Norah or Dinah, fresh from Ireland or
+the cotton fields, saves her own face and that of
+the maid whom she later trains into being a good
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, a woman with a sense of humor can
+take the curse off of even bad cooking, for there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>
+not one of us who would not rather sit down to a
+boiled dinner with a jolly woman, full of good stories
+and anecdotes, than to attend a banquet where
+the hostess is gloomy and peevish and whiny, and
+who frets with her children and spats with her
+husband.</p>
+
+<p>Whether a woman makes a success or failure of
+matrimony depends altogether on whether she has
+a sense of humor or not. If she can see her husband
+as one of the most mirth-provoking, side-splitting,
+uproarious human jokes that nature ever perpetrated
+she will be happy, and he will bless heaven
+on his knees for having given him the paragon of
+wives. But if she sees him as an Awful Problem, or
+a subject for reformation, neither one of them will
+ever know a happy hour, and the marriage will
+either end in a divorce court or a long endurance
+contest.</p>
+
+<p>The women who wreck marriages are the ones who
+take their husbands seriously, and who get tragic
+every time their husbands look at another woman,
+or play a little poker, or fail to come home at the
+appointed hour, and who weep when their husbands
+forget an anniversary, or fail in some little attention
+they consider their due. The women who keep their
+husbands enslaved from the altar to the grave are
+the women who laugh with their husband over their
+little faults and peculiarities. They make a joke of
+their husband’s weakness for a pretty face; they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>
+have a dozen funny stories to tell about how they
+helped their husbands out of scrapes, and, instead of
+feeling ill-used and assuming the pose of a domestic
+martyr when their husbands forget their birthdays,
+they go out and buy themselves a particularly nice
+present, which they pay for without a murmur because
+they know that a wife with a sense of humor is
+worth anything she costs.</p>
+
+<p>A sense of humor is even more necessary to a
+mother than it is to a wife. The humorless woman
+takes her children too tragically. They wear her
+out, and she alienates them from her by her ceaseless
+nagging because she thinks that every little
+foolish thing they do is full of direful significance.
+The mother with a sense of humor knows that youth
+is as subject to certain follies as it is to the mumps
+and the measles and the whooping cough, and that
+it must go through these experiences, as it did
+through the cycle of infantile diseases, but that
+they are not fatal if they are carefully watched.</p>
+
+<p>She may not approve of all the manifestations of
+flapperism and jellybeanitis, but she knows that the
+remedy for them is laughter and not tears, and so
+she keeps her young ones in bounds with good-natured
+ridicule. Nor does she break her heart with
+dismal forebodings about the terrible fate that is
+bound to overtake boys and girls who do not dress
+and act as did their grandparents. She has seen
+too many silly young people develop into fine men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>
+and women to borrow trouble worrying over what is
+going to become of the race.</p>
+
+<p>In its last analysis, a sense of humor is just the
+sense of proportion that enables us to see things
+in their true relation to life. It is the thing that
+keeps us from making mountains out of molehills,
+and that gives us the courage to smile instead of
+cry. Happy the woman who has this gift, and
+thrice happy the man who gets her for a wife.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIV">XXIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">GRAFTING ON THE OLD FOLKS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">It</span> is a curious thing, in a way it is a beautiful
+thing, and it’s a selfish thing, that children
+rarely ever think of their parents as human
+beings. Children think of their fathers and mothers
+as the source whence all blessings flow or they think
+of them as an avenging justice. But it seldom
+occurs to them that their parents are men and
+women, in addition to being parents; that they have
+the same preferences and long for the same pleasures
+as other people, and that they have a few rights
+that even their children should respect.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a small child unquestionably takes for
+granted all that its parents give and do for it. It
+is merely the order of nature that Mother should
+appear at its bed with the cup of water for which
+it cries out in the night; that Mother should clean
+up the dirt it brings into the house and spend hours
+over the stove cooking the things it likes to eat;
+and that Father should work while it plays and go
+shabby to give it fine clothes.</p>
+
+<p>As they grow up, children continue to demand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>
+more and more of their parents. They bleed Father
+and Mother white for the things they want. They
+are not intentionally cruel, but they will take the
+last dollar they can wring out of the family purse
+without ever once thinking that Father and Mother
+might like to spend some of the money they earn on
+themselves and in gratifying their own desires. And,
+curiously enough, even after they have grown to
+man’s and woman’s estate, the great majority of
+people still hold to this point of view about their
+parents. In regulating their lives, they do not take
+their parents’ rights into consideration. They do
+not say, “My father and mother have sacrificed
+enough for me; they have done enough for me. Now
+I will stand on my own feet, and be as little a burden
+as possible to them.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the most flagrant illustration of this
+is found in the loafer sons and daughters who let
+their old parents work and support them. We all
+know husky, able-bodied young men who play golf
+while Father slaves in an office, and strapping big
+girls who perform on the piano while Mother is performing
+on the gas range. Apparently, it never
+crosses the mind of these despicable young people
+that after they are old enough to support themselves
+they have no right to sponge upon their parents,
+and graft their living off them. Still less do they
+ever think that Mother and Father would like to
+take things easier as they grow older, and indulge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>
+in a few of the luxuries they have had to deny themselves
+while they were raising and educating their
+children.</p>
+
+<p>Another illustration of how little children regard
+the rights of their parents you may see in the nonchalance
+with which young mothers turn over their
+children to their own mothers. When Sally wants
+to go to a bridge luncheon or Maud wants to take
+a trip, they dump the children down on Mother.
+When Clarabell wants to go to Europe for the
+summer, she doesn’t worry at all as to what to do
+with the children. She leaves them, with a thousand
+instructions as to diet and clothes, and manners and
+morals, with Mother. So that in innumerable families
+Mother becomes nothing but a sort of universal
+nursemaid.</p>
+
+<p>It would shock these daughters to be told what a
+mean, selfish thing they do in not standing by and
+doing their own baby tending as Mother did hers.
+They, themselves, know what it is to walk the colic—what
+broken nights mean, how incessant must be the
+care given little children—how nerve-racking children’s
+noise is. Yet they foist this burden on
+Mother without a pang of compunction because
+they are so used to seeing her doing everything
+for them.</p>
+
+<p>It never occurs to them that she would like to
+fold her hands in a little peace and rest; furthermore,
+that she has earned it by bringing up one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>
+family, and her daughters haven’t any right to
+make her substitute on raising another one.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are the children who lay their matrimonial
+burdens on their parents. John gets married
+before he is earning enough to support a family.
+Susie marries a ne’er-do-well, in spite of all
+efforts to prevent it. Fanny discovers that the
+man to whom she is married is not her soul mate,
+and gets a divorce, and comes back home with two
+or three children. None of these selfish young people,
+bent on gratifying their own desires, considers
+Father’s and Mother’s rights in the matter, yet the
+parents, in the end, are the real sacrifices.</p>
+
+<p>They can’t let John and his wife and children
+starve, and so the money that Father and Mother
+had saved up for their old age goes in pittances
+to help him along. They can’t shut the door in
+Fanny’s face when she comes back with her divorce
+and her half-orphaned children, so Father works
+harder, and Mother pinches and economizes more
+to raise and educate this second family that their
+children have thrown upon them. Surely there is
+no other thing that children need to realize so much
+as that their parents have some rights. Perhaps if
+they understood this, and that after a man and a
+woman have raised a family of children they have
+a right to peace and quiet and their own money,
+there would be fewer parasitic sons and daughters.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, if they realized that parents had rights,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>
+more young people would consider how their marriages
+would react on their parents, and many a disgruntled
+wife would carry on with a marriage that
+wasn’t perfectly congenial rather than burden her
+old parents with her own and her children’s support.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXV">XXV<br>
+<span class="fs70">ARE YOU A GOOD FATHER?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Are</span> you a good father to your daughter, Mr.
+Man? You smile derisively at my question.
+A good father to your little girl? You’ll
+tell the world you are! Why, she is just the very
+core of your heart, and there hasn’t been a blessed
+thing that she has wanted since the day she was
+born that you haven’t given her. Why, you have
+almost broken your neck trying to get the moon
+for her when she cried for it. Pretty dresses, fashionable
+schools, good times, her own car, far more
+luxuries than you could afford her, you have lavished
+upon her without stint. You have kept her
+wrapped in cotton wool, and she has never known
+there was such a thing as work or responsibility or
+self-denial in the world. You may have failed in
+many other directions in doing your full duty, but
+you can pat yourself on the back and thank God
+that you have been a good father!</p>
+
+<p>Well, let me tell you that if all you have done for
+your daughter is just to pamper her and spoil her
+and make her weak and selfish and self-centered, you
+have not been a good father. You have been the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>
+worst sort of father. You have never looked upon
+your daughter as anything but a pretty doll to
+dress up and play with, and dolls cannot take care
+of themselves in the rough-and-tumble fight of life.
+Sooner or later they are apt to get broken.</p>
+
+<p>Let me tell you what I consider a good father.
+A good father is a man who doesn’t look upon his
+daughter as a toy or a piece of bric-a-brac, but as a
+human being who has been born with the heavy
+handicap of the feminine sex upon her. That means
+that she will always be less strong than a boy, less
+capable of taking care of herself, in far more
+danger. Fewer opportunities will be open to her,
+and many more perils beset her than would a boy.
+Therefore, she needs more protection. She needs to
+be better trained to deal with the world. So the good
+father sees to it that his girl gets the very best
+education that she will take. Not the flubdub, fluffy ruffles
+sort, but a solid, practical education that
+develops whatever gray matter she has got in her
+pretty little head, that teaches her to think and
+reason and that gives her a solid foundation on
+which to rear her house of life.</p>
+
+<p>Then the good father has his daughter taught
+some profession or trade whereby she can earn a
+living, and he has her follow this occupation for at
+least a year. He does this for many reasons. He
+does it because he knows how easily money is lost,
+and he wants to know that his daughter has in herself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>
+the skill and ability to make her own living if she
+is ever thrown on her own resources. He does it
+because he knows the knowledge that she can stand
+on her own feet and earn her own bread and butter
+and cake, gives a girl a poise nothing else in the
+world can give. He does it because the discipline
+of a business office, the experience in handling money
+and an insight into the troubles and problems of
+men are the best preparation any girl can have for
+matrimony.</p>
+
+<p>A good father chums with his daughter. He begins
+being confidential with her in her cradle, and
+this makes it natural that when she grows up she
+should discuss with him the boys who come to see
+her, and that father should be able to form her
+tastes and assiduously guide her in her choice of
+a husband. Girls know nothing about men. It is
+impossible that they should, but there is nothing
+about any young chap that father can’t find out,
+and if he knew that this youth had a hectic past, or
+that one drank, or the other one was a trifling
+ne’er-do-well, it would be the simplest thing possible
+to prevent many an unhappy marriage by making
+daughter see a suitor through the sophisticated eyes
+of a worldly-wise man, instead of the romantic ones
+of a young girl.</p>
+
+<p>A good father tries to protect his daughter after
+he is dead. So, when he makes his will he leaves her
+whatever money he has to bequeath her tied up good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>
+and tight in a trust company so that she cannot
+touch anything but the interest. He knows that
+every woman who has any money is the foredoomed
+prey of get-rich-quick sharks and all of her parasitic
+relatives. He has seen too many women sell
+their gilt-edge bonds and invest the proceeds in
+wildcat stock that promised to pay 40 per cent and
+never paid a penny. He has seen too many women
+lend their money without security to Deacon Jones,
+because he prayed so beautifully, or to Uncle John,
+because they didn’t have the nerve to say “No” to
+a member of the family.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, a good father leaves his daughter’s
+money in trust for her, not only to save her money
+but to save her from friction with her husband. He
+has seen many a man graft his wife’s fortune deliberately,
+and he has seen many more good men, who
+were poor business men, bring their wives to poverty.
+And he knows that it takes more backbone
+than the average woman possesses to hold on to her
+money when the man she loves is continually asking
+her for it. So father saves her the necessity of any
+arguments on the subject. Are you doing these
+things for your daughter, Mr. Man? Are you a
+good father?</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVI">XXVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE MORAL MUSCLES OF YOUR CHILDREN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> most overdressed and overindulged children
+are those whose parents were poor in
+their youth. The most undisciplined and
+uncontrolled children are those whose parents were
+reared in strict and stern households. When you
+see a little girl playing around in a befrilled lace
+and embroidered dress and silk stockings, you do
+not need to be told that at her age her mother wore
+gingham and went barefooted. When you see a
+young boy splitting the road open in an imported
+car you know that when his father was a lad he
+trudged on foot to the factory with his dinner pail
+on his arm. When you see ill-mannered young people
+who smoke and drink and carouse and recognize
+no law but their own pleasure; who run roughshod
+over the rights of others; who have no respect for
+age, and who either patronize their parents or treat
+them with contempt, you know that they are the
+offspring of fathers and mothers who were given
+few privileges when they were young and who were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>
+coerced by determined and strong-handed parents
+into walking the straight and narrow path.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more common than to hear people say,
+“I don’t want my children to be denied things as I
+was in my childhood”; “I don’t want my children to
+have to work as I did when I was a child”; “I don’t
+want my children to be suppressed and tyrannized
+over as I was when I was young.”</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, so common is this feeling that sometimes
+it seems that the present generation is being brought
+up by the rule of contraries, and that the only
+fixed idea that many parents have is to rear their
+sons and daughters exactly opposite from the way
+they were reared; to give them everything they
+didn’t have and to let them do everything they were
+not permitted to do.</p>
+
+<p>There is something very pathetic in this. It
+speaks so eloquently of the ungratified cravings of
+childhood, of the weariness of little hands that never
+knew any playtime; of the thwarted desires for
+pleasure at the time of life when one is mad for
+amusement, and it is easy to understand why parents
+whose own childhood was stinted and dull should
+want to lap their children in luxury and give them
+all the fun they missed. But in trying to save their
+children the hardships they have gone through, they
+are also cutting their sons and daughters off from
+the experiences that make such men and women as
+they are themselves—the kind of men and women<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>
+who rise from poverty to fortune and from obscurity
+to fame. For it is not in the lap of ease
+that successes are made. It takes struggle and self-denial
+and discipline to form character.</p>
+
+<p>That is why we have the proverb that it is three
+generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves. The
+poor man by energy and industry piles up a fortune,
+but because he has had to work and save in his youth
+he teaches his children to be idlers and wasters and
+spenders, and they run through their fortune and
+their children must go to work again at the bottom
+of the wheel. Probably the children of the self-made
+man have naturally just as much ability as he has,
+but they nearly always amount to nothing, because
+their foolish father has denied them all the advantages
+he had when he was young and he has enervated
+them with indulgences.</p>
+
+<p>People who have been brought up in puritanic
+homes almost invariably let their children run wild.
+They put no restraints upon them. They demand
+nothing of them. They resent the lack of liberty
+they had in their youth, and so they give their children
+license. They do not seem to realize that the
+system at which they rail made good citizens, instead
+of the hoodlums which they are turning out. They
+do not reflect that they owe their health and
+strength to clean living; that because they were
+made to do things they formed habits of industry;
+that because they were made to do hard things just<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>
+because it was a duty to do them they developed the
+grit which keeps men and women from being quitters;
+that because they were taught obedience and
+self-control they became captains of their own souls
+and masters of their fate, instead of being the playthings
+of their passions and emotions.</p>
+
+<p>They must know, if they stop to think at all, how
+much better fitted they were to meet life, how much
+more secure they were of happiness than are their
+children, who have never been taught to do anything
+they do not want to do, or to deny themselves
+the gratification of any appetite or desire.</p>
+
+<p>For life doesn’t change. The world does not alter
+and no matter how much we would like to soft-pad
+existence for our children and stand between them
+and every hardship and sorrow, we cannot do it.
+At the last, in one way or another, they must come
+to grips with fate, and when they do the weak and
+dissolute will perish. The spendthrifts will come to
+want. The self-seekers will have their hearts broken.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it is a great temptation for parents to
+lavish upon their children everything that money
+will buy, and it is much easier to give strong-willed
+youngsters their heads and let them go their own
+gait than it is to hold them in check, but that way
+destruction lies for the child. And this is something
+that parents, who are denying their children the
+struggle of life that made them what they are, might
+well reflect upon.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVII">XXVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE MOTHER-IN-LAW</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Undoubtedly</span> there is no other thing over
+which so many tears are shed and which is
+such a potent source of discord and misery
+as in-laws. Innumerable young women have the
+happiness of their youth wrecked by their quarrels
+with their mothers-in-law. Innumerable old women
+have their last days made bitter to them by the
+knowledge that they are unwelcome guests in their
+sons’ houses and that their daughters-in-law hate
+them. Innumerable men are made miserable by
+being torn between the two women they love, who
+fight over them like dogs over a bone. Discussing
+this subject the other day, a woman who is a mother-in-law
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Like everything else, the mother-in-law question
+is a fifty-fifty proposition, and when they don’t get
+along together both are to blame. Certainly it isn’t
+an easy thing for a woman who has run her own
+house and been at the head of everything to take a
+back seat in her daughter-in-law’s home. And it
+isn’t easy to forget that your children are your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>
+children and to keep hands off in their affairs and
+treat them with the formality you would strangers.</p>
+
+<p>“On the other hand, most daughters-in-law meet
+their mothers-in-law with a chip on their shoulders
+and are always hunting for trouble. They seem to
+feel that when a man marries he should forget the
+mother who bore him and wipe out the memory of
+all the years of close association that there has been
+between them. They are even jealous of the slightest
+attention and consideration that their husbands
+show their mothers.</p>
+
+<p>“They seem to forget that if it wasn’t for these
+much-resented mothers-in-law they wouldn’t have
+any husbands at all, and that the better husbands
+they have the more they owe to their mothers-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>“For if a man is tender, and kind, and generous,
+and considerate to his wife, it is because his mother
+has taught him to be chivalrous to women. She has
+trained him to be a good husband just as she has
+trained him to be a good citizen, and he honors and
+respects his wife because he so greatly honors and
+respects his mother.</p>
+
+<p>“You never saw a bad son who was a good husband.
+You never hear of a man who abused and
+cursed his mother, and regarded her as only a slave
+to wait upon him, who didn’t treat his wife the same
+way. And so we mothers who raise up clean,
+straight sons, who enter into marriage with high
+ideals and a determination to cherish their wives and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>
+make them happy, have done the girls who get them
+such a service as they could not repay if they were
+down on their knees before us the balance of their
+days.</p>
+
+<p>“But if any daughter-in-law has ever lifted her
+voice in thanks to her mother-in-law for teaching
+her son to be unselfish, or to be generous with money,
+or to pay her the little attentions that women love,
+I have never heard of it.</p>
+
+<p>“And there is another queer thing about daughters-in-law.
+They seem to think that marriage
+should obliterate a man’s past and break all the ties
+of his life.</p>
+
+<p>“He and his mother may have been the closest
+of companions; he may have asked her advice on
+every subject and talked over all of his plans with
+her, but woe be unto all concerned if he tries that
+after he takes a wife.</p>
+
+<p>“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the wife
+grows green-eyed and considers it rank treachery to
+her, and for the sake of peace mother and son have
+to forego the little talks that were such a joy to
+them both or else do this stealthily and hold a stolen
+rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet it does look as if any woman who wasn’t a
+moron would have sense enough to see that any man
+who could forget his mother and all he owed to her
+would be such a disloyal creature that he would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>
+forget his wife when some younger and fairer woman
+came along.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, the chief charge that our daughters-in-law
+have against us is that we are always meddling
+in their affairs. Perhaps we do, but aren’t
+our children’s affairs our affairs too? Hasn’t the
+mother who has raised her son to manhood and who
+has made him strong and capable of earning a fine
+salary a right to say something when she sees his
+hard-earned money being wasted, his home neglected
+and his health ruined by bad cooking?</p>
+
+<p>“If a mother saw her own daughter treating her
+husband that way, she would rebuke her and show
+her where she was making a fatal mistake, and the
+daughter would not resent it. Why can’t a daughter-in-law
+take the same advice and profit by it,
+instead of flying at the throat of the mother-in-law
+and considering herself a martyr to mother-in-lawism?</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, there are exceptions to all rules. I
+know daughters-in-law who are real daughters to
+their husbands’ mothers. I even know daughters-in-law
+who have borne with angelic patience cranky
+women who could not even get along with their own
+daughters. And I know mothers-in-law whose presence
+is like a benediction in a house and others who
+are firebrands wherever they go. So perhaps there
+is no way to settle the question so long as we are all
+human and not female saints. But God pity the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>
+mother who is obliged to live with her children, no
+matter how kind they may be! She is always the
+fifth wheel, and feels it. Perhaps those savages who
+kill off all the old people haven’t such a bad plan of
+disposing of the question, after all.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVIII">XXVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WHY OUR FAMILIES RILE US</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A woman</span> wants to know why it is that we
+find it harder to get along with our families
+than we do with other people, and why
+our own blood-and-kin rile us more than anybody
+else on earth. Probably the main reason why we
+find it so difficult to live in peace and harmony with
+those who are really near and dear to us is because
+we are too much alike. We have inherited the same
+traits of character, and when these come in collision
+there is a resounding crash, and the noise of wrecked
+tempers and exploding wrath.</p>
+
+<p>Father, an iron-willed, tyrannical gentleman, who
+has ruled his little world like a despot, cannot get
+along with John, who is of the same fiber, and
+equally determined to have his own way and do as
+he pleases. Father and John may have a very sincere
+affection for each other and admire each other’s
+good qualities, but they can never be together an
+hour without getting into a fight over something.</p>
+
+<p>Mother is a born manager, one of the ladies who
+honestly believe, with the famous Frenchman, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>
+she could have saved the Almighty from making
+some mortifying mistakes if she had been consulted
+at the creation. Mary is mother’s own daughter in
+her perfect belief that she knows exactly how to run
+the universe. What wonder, then, that they clash
+over every gown and hat that is bought; over every
+man that comes to see Mary; over everywhere that
+Mary goes?</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the reason that we can’t get along with
+our own people is because we are so entirely different
+from them. Often and often children are changelings,
+and those of our own flesh have no tie of spiritual
+kinship with us. The father who is a hard-headed,
+practical business man has nothing in common
+with the son who is a quivering bunch of nerves
+and sensibilities; who is a dreamer of dreams, and
+who counts wealth in terms of beauty, instead of
+dollars. Mother, who was a beauty and a belle in
+her day, with scores of lovers sighing at her feet,
+has looked forward to reliving her triumphs in her
+daughter. And when daughter grows up to be a
+big, sturdy young person who wants to go into business
+and who loathes society, what wonder that they
+get on each other’s nerves?</p>
+
+<p>When you hear parents speak bitterly of what a
+disappointment children are, and how ungrateful, it
+merely means that their children are different from
+them. John insists on being a doctor or a lawyer
+instead of going into the hardware business father<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>
+has been building up for him for twenty years.
+Mary wants to marry a poor young man, instead
+of the nice, settled, rich widower mother has picked
+out for her. Other people find John brilliant and
+talented. Father calls him a fool to his face because
+he won’t do father’s way. Other women are sympathetic
+with Mary’s romance, and her willingness to
+sacrifice riches for love. It infuriates mother to see
+her throwing an establishment and pearls and a
+limousine away, for a sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Often the reason we cannot get along with our
+own families is because they are like a mirror in
+which we see our own faults in all their hideousness.
+Father’s lack of ambition that has kept him from
+making anything of his life; mother’s shiftlessness
+and wastefulness that have kept the family poor;
+brother’s brutal temper; sister’s sharp tongue that
+cuts like a two-edge sword—these irritate us, and
+we find them harder to forgive than we would such
+defects in other people because we know that we
+are, ourselves, prone to just these weaknesses.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these fundamental reasons why it is hard
+to get along with our relatives, there are a thousand
+minor causes of discord. One of the principal ones
+is the lack of politeness in the family circle, for
+most people feel that good manners are like good
+clothes, and should be worn only for the benefit of
+company. It is an amazing but true thing that
+practically the only people who ever say mean, insulting,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>
+wounding things to us are those of our own
+household.</p>
+
+<p>Strangers listen to us with apparent interest, and
+laugh at our jokes. Our friends compliment our
+new frocks and cars. If our casual acquaintances
+do not like our taste or respect our judgment, they
+keep silent about it. It is our families who stab
+our vanity to the quick by yawning in our faces,
+and asking us if we are going to tell that old story
+over again; who bluntly inform us that our new hat
+is ten years too young for us, and that there is
+nothing so ridiculous as old women trying to be
+flappers; who criticize the way we are raising our
+children, and tell us the home truths we would rather
+die than hear.</p>
+
+<p>Still another reason why it is hard to get along
+with our families is because it is generally held that
+the mere fact that you love people gives you a perfect
+right to nag them. We speak of family ties as
+binding. Binding is right, for in the average home
+no one can rise up or sit down, eat or fast, go or
+come, without having to give an account of why he
+or she did it or didn’t do it, and being advised to do
+it some other way.</p>
+
+<p>It is for these, and a thousand other reasons,
+that we find it difficult to get along with our families,
+and fly to those who do not feel that they have
+a right to boss, correct, advise or otherwise interfere
+with us in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIX">XXIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">OUR LIVES ARE WHAT WE MAKE THEM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">You</span> have been in factory towns where more
+or less benevolent corporations have built
+rows upon rows of houses, each one as like
+its neighbor as peas in a pod. But one house would
+have dirty, grimy, unwashed windows, with old newspapers
+or rags stuffed in a broken window pane.
+The yard would be filled with old cans and ashes and
+refuse, and the place would look like a shack, unfit
+for human habitation.</p>
+
+<p>The house next door would have bright and shining
+windows, with clean, freshly starched muslin curtains
+and a gay red geranium in a pot showing
+between them. Flowers would be blooming in the
+yard, and a vine trained over the doorway, and the
+place would be a home, bright, cheerful and attractive.
+Yet the two houses were exactly alike. The
+only difference was in what the people in them made
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>One cook can take a cheap cut of meat and a
+handful of vegetables and make of them a ragout,
+over which an epicure would smack his lips. Another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>
+cook will take the same meat and vegetables
+and make of them a watery stew, with neither flavor
+nor nutriment to it. It is the same material, but
+the difference is in the cooks.</p>
+
+<p>That is the way it is all through life. There are
+a few fortunate individuals who seem to be the darlings
+of the gods, and with whom Lady Luck walks
+hand in hand. And there are also a few miserable
+ones who appear to have been born double-crossed
+by fate. But the great majority of us get a pretty
+even deal. We have the same family relationships.
+We go to the same schools. We have the same
+chance to work, and the balance is up to us. We
+are happy or miserable, successful or failures, rich
+or poor, according to what we make out of our lives.
+We marry, millions of us. And set up homes. One
+out of every seven of the marriages ends in divorce.
+More than three-fourths of the homes are wrecked,
+not because there is anything especially wrong, not
+because either husband or wife is an outbreaking
+criminal, but because they are too ignorant or too
+selfish to make their marriage a success.</p>
+
+<p>All husbands and wives are cut off the same bolt
+of humanity. No man is perfect. No woman is an
+angel. No domestic machine runs along without a
+jar or a hitch. Every marriage calls for sacrifices,
+for patience, for forgiveness, endurance, and you
+get out of it just what you put into it—heaven or
+hell.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p>
+
+<p>You go to homes that simply irradiate peace and
+love and good cheer, where there is a happy and
+contented man, and a smiling and blissful woman:
+where there are fine children growing up in the right
+atmosphere. And you go to another home that is
+a place of torment, where a surly man snarls and
+snaps, and a disgruntled woman whines and complains,
+and unruly, uncontrolled children fight like
+the Kilkenny cats.</p>
+
+<p>Yet both of these families started out with the
+same equipment. Both couples were in love when
+they were married. Both had about the same
+amount of money. Both were called upon to make
+the same sacrifices. Both had the same chances at
+happiness. Yet one made a success of marriage,
+and the other failed.</p>
+
+<p>We talk about opportunity, and when we fail we
+lay the blame on luck. We say we never had a
+chance. But the truth is that we are our own luck,
+that we make our own opportunities.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever think that every day in the year
+there are thousands of green country boys going
+into every big city, seeking their fortunes, and thousands
+of city boys leaving those same cities because
+they think that everything is overcrowded and overdone,
+and that they have no opportunity there?
+And many of those country boys will find the chance
+the city boy overlooked, and pick up the fortune he
+passed by.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p>
+
+<p>The world is full of failures, croaking that there
+is no money in farming or the mercantile business,
+and warning young men that they will starve if they
+become lawyers, or doctors, or actors, or writers,
+or artists. Yet there are rich farmers with bursting
+granaries. Everywhere millionaire business men.
+There are world-famous lawyers and doctors and
+matinée idols and men who write best sellers.</p>
+
+<p>And the successes are side by side with the failures,
+working in the same environment, under the
+same conditions, and the only difference is the difference
+in the men themselves. It is the difference in
+the energy, the grit, the determination, the stick-at-iveness,
+the heart and soul and brains that one man
+put into his work and the other didn’t. Whether
+we are happy or not depends upon ourselves, for in
+reality we all have pretty much the same raw material
+with which to work.</p>
+
+<p>Sickness, suffering, the death of those we love,
+disappointment, come to us all. The poorest woman
+alive and the millionairess bear their children in the
+same agony, and weep the same tears over little
+coffins. Money does not buy love, tenderness, nor
+peace of mind, and just as many hearts ache under
+silver brocade as under cotton.</p>
+
+<p>But we can hold our souls serene if we will. We
+can keep from fretting. We can resolutely extract
+the sweet instead of the bitter out of life. We can
+dwell on our blessings instead of our miseries, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>
+we can acquire a philosophy that will enable us to
+laugh instead of weep over the misadventures that
+befall us.</p>
+
+<p>For our lives are what we make them. It is all
+up to us.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXX">XXX<br>
+<span class="fs70">HUSBAND LOSERS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Three</span> divorced women were talking together
+the other day and one of them said:</p>
+
+<p>“When we wives lose our husbands we
+always accuse some other woman of having stolen
+them from us; and we cry out that our husbands
+are cruel ingrates, who have taken the best years of
+our lives and then thrown us aside like broken toys
+when we were no longer young and beautiful. And
+we pose as blameless martyrs who are the pitiful
+victims of man’s perfidy.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, it saves our faces to be able to lay all
+the blame for our wrecked homes on others, and it
+soothes our hurt vanity to be wept over as a poor,
+innocent, deserted wife. But in the still watches of
+the night, when we have it out with our own souls,
+there are mighty few of us who can shrive our consciences
+and know that we are blameless.</p>
+
+<p>“Most of us know in our heart of hearts that if
+our husband’s love died, we did our part in administering
+the lethal dose. We may have done it
+through ignorance, through carelessness, through
+blundering stupidity; we may have even done it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>
+with the best intentions in the world and with the
+firm conviction that we were forcing down their
+throats a remedy that would cure them of all the
+little ailments and weakness of character from which
+they suffered. But the point is, we did it. We were
+accessory to the crime, and we could have prevented
+it if we had so wished.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, as you know, my husband forsook me for
+his secretary. I called her a thief who had used
+her position to rob me of a husband and my little
+children of their father, and I looked upon him with
+bitterness and contempt, as a poor weakling who
+let an adventuress make him forget his honor as a
+man and his duty to his wife and children. I called
+Heaven to witness that I was innocent and that I
+had been a good, true, virtuous woman, who had
+always done her duty to her family. It took me a
+long time to see that, if my husband grew weary
+of me, I had made him tired by my incessant nagging
+and fault finding; that if he ceased to love me,
+it was because I was no longer lovable, and that the
+other woman had not really stolen him from me. I
+had simply handed him over to her on a silver salver.</p>
+
+<p>“You see, I was one of the wives who did not
+realize that it is easy enough to get a husband, but
+the work comes in in keeping one. I thought that
+after a woman was married she could let herself go,
+and so I never bothered to keep myself dolled up at
+home, or to try to make myself pleasant and agreeable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>
+I went in negligee, both as to clothes and
+manners. Any old rag was good enough to wear
+at home. Any disagreeable topic was a suitable
+breakfast-table discussion, and I felt perfectly free
+to quarrel with my husband, and criticize him, and
+ridicule all of his little faults and idiosyncrasies.</p>
+
+<p>“I forgot that he went from a sloppy wife to an
+office where a trim, perfectly groomed woman,
+younger and better looking than I, waited for him.
+I forgot that he went from my nagging and fault
+finding to a girl who was paid to agree with him
+and whose job depended largely on her flattering
+him and telling him how wonderful and great he was.
+It wouldn’t have been human for him not to constitute
+a daily comparison between us, and it was
+inevitable that when he did, that I should lose out.
+If I had kept my doors locked and my burglar
+alarms in working order no one could have looted
+my home. And so I am just as responsible for the
+wreck of it as are those who broke it up.”</p>
+
+<p>“My husband was a gay, pleasure-loving man,”
+said the second divorcee. “He always wanted to be
+going somewhere. He loved to be in the thick of
+crowds. He adored dancing, and restaurants, and
+the bright lights. He loved fine clothes, and always
+wanted me to look like a fashion plate. Now, I am
+a serious-minded woman and was brought up to take
+a serious view of things, and I felt it my duty to
+cure my husband of his frivolity by leading him up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>
+to what I considered the higher life. I began by
+trying to wean him away from his old friends, on
+whom I turned such a cold shoulder that they soon
+ceased coming to the house. I lectured him about
+his extravagance and the way he threw away money,
+and finally got possession of the family purse and
+doled out dimes to him. I wouldn’t go out with him
+of an evening, and I rarely let him go without a
+scene. At first he submitted, but he looked bored
+and sulky, and then he broke out of jail, which was
+all his home had come to be to him, and that was
+the beginning of the end.</p>
+
+<p>“For, of course, when I wouldn’t play with him
+he found some other woman who would, and who
+wouldn’t wet-blanket every occasion by her moral
+strictures or spoil every meal at a restaurant by
+looking at the pay check. If I had been willing to
+flatter him, and jolly him, and dance with him, and
+let him spend his money on me, he would never have
+left me. But I wouldn’t do it, and my austerity
+got on his nerves. He wanted a playmate instead
+of a censor, and so I feel that I am just as much
+to blame as he was.”</p>
+
+<p>“I lost my husband through ambition,” said the
+third divorcee. “He was an artist of great talent,
+and I was mad for him to win fame and money, so
+I never let him rest. I prodded him on all the time.
+I was forever a goad in his side, and so I became
+to him a sort of incarnate conscience, a perpetual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>
+reminder of all the unpleasant duties of life. He
+was temperamental, a child of impulse, and I became
+his task-mistress, a slave driver to him. Finally he
+got to the place where he could stand it no more,
+and he eloped with a young girl as irresponsible as
+he was. She will never push him on to success as I
+would have done, but she lets him follow every whim
+and she will hold him, as I could have done if I had
+had intelligence enough to see that you can’t make
+a work horse out of Pegasus.”</p>
+
+<p>“How much happiness we might save if only our
+wisdom did not come too late,” sighed the first
+woman.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXI">XXXI<br>
+<span class="fs70">MARTHA OR MARY?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Clever</span> Mary—who, take it from me,
+knows her way about—was talking about
+her friend, Martha, the other day.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, Martha is the Perfect Housewife,”
+she said, “but she is a mighty poor wife. Without
+doubt, she is a great and glorious housekeeper and
+a cook and baker and cleaner. Never have I seen
+a rumple in her curtains. Her bedspreads are like
+the driven snow. And you could eat off her floors.
+Her house is so immaculate that her husband must
+feel a perfect stranger in it, and like a bull in a
+china shop.</p>
+
+<p>“But her days are so taken up with work that
+she has time for nothing else—not a minute to read
+or to play, or to be a companion to her husband.
+In fact, she is so worn out by the time night comes
+that she is too tired to do anything but go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>“Her husband loves to read, but if he sits up
+late, the light annoys her so much that she can’t
+sleep, so she says. So she nags him until he gives it
+up in disgust. She, herself, never reads anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>
+except the advertisements of the department stores
+in the papers, and the thrilling accounts of vacuum
+cleaners and patent breakfast foods in the backs of
+the magazines. And when her husband tries to talk
+to her about the things he is interested in—books,
+sports, his business—he had just as well try to ring
+any other dumbbell.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, I do all my own housework, and I must be
+a fairly capable housewife, for my mother-in-law
+has put her O.K. on me, and that settles that. But
+there isn’t a spot in my house where we can’t park
+ourselves at any time. My library table is filled
+with books and magazines, and if husband drops
+ashes and scatters the Sunday papers all over the
+place, I let him, and gently and painlessly remove
+them after he has passed on.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t really know anything about sports. I
+wouldn’t recognize a home run if I met it on the
+street, but when hubby wants to talk about baseball
+I assume an intelligent expression. And I am never
+too tired to play with my husband. I grab my hat
+the minute he suggests the movies. I can get ready
+to go anywhere in an hour. I just adjust my complexion—Martha
+considers that a real vice—and
+we are off.</p>
+
+<p>“Martha can’t understand why my husband very
+rarely goes away from home of an evening and
+almost never without me—while hers beats it to the
+corner drug store as soon as he has eaten his superexcellent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>
+dinner. And I just can’t make her see
+that it is because she puts her house before him.
+She worships cleanliness and order, and sacrifices
+everything to them. The first thing Martha knows,
+she is going to lose her husband, and she will go
+around wailing and weeping and telling how hard
+she worked and what a good housekeeper she was.
+She never will know that she literally drove him
+away from her with a broom handle.</p>
+
+<p>“I told Martha the other day that if she would
+spend less time polishing her mahogany and more
+time polishing her finger nails and rubbing up her
+mind, it would be better for her. But she just
+smiled that superior smile that a model housekeeper
+always bestows on the woman whom she suspects of
+having dust on the back pantry shelf, and made a
+dive for a basement sale of somebody’s patent
+cleaning fluid.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary is right. Cleanliness and order are two of
+the domestic virtues that may easily be converted
+into vices. We all know spick and span houses that
+are no more homes than a shiny tin box would be.
+Nobody would dare disarrange a sofa cushion in
+one of them. Nobody would have the courage to
+move a chair from its appointed place. To track a
+bit of mud on one of the shining floors would be a
+high crime and misdemeanor. To leave anything
+hanging around would be a sacrilege unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>Husband and children flee these temples of order<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>
+and cleanliness as they would a torture chamber.
+And they live in dread and fear of the woman who
+has worked herself cross and irritable attaining her
+ideal of housewifery. Most of the real homes are
+places not too bright and good for human nature’s
+daily use. They are places where you can take
+your ease; places run on a flexible schedule and only
+reasonably clean and orderly.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless, the old lady who laid down the maxim,
+“Feed the brute,” as a rule for retaining a husband’s
+affections said a wise mouthful to women.
+But more is to be added, for man does not live by
+bread alone, and it is just as important to feed his
+soul as his stomach. Every woman who fails to give
+her husband good, nourishing food fails as a wife,
+but she fails even more if she does not give him companionship.
+For, after all, there is a good restaurant
+on every corner where a man can satisfy his
+physical hunger, but none but his wife can minister
+to his spiritual hunger. Foolish is the woman who
+doesn’t realize this and who spends her time keeping
+her house clean instead of making it a home.</p>
+
+<p>But that is the trouble with matrimony. A
+woman can’t be either a Martha or a Mary. To
+be a good wife she has got to be both.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXII">XXXII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE T. B. M. AT HOME</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A man</span> wants to know if I don’t think his
+wife is very wrong and foolish to be hurt
+and offended because he is often irritable
+and cross at home. He says that she knows that
+he adores her, and that he is a model of all the
+standardized domestic virtues, but that he works all
+day under a terrific strain, and by the time night
+comes his nerves are worn to a frazzle. He thinks
+that his wife should appreciate this, and that instead
+of further rasping them with argumentation, she
+should apply a soothing emolument to them.</p>
+
+<p>I agree with the gentleman that it is always the
+part of prudence for a wife to give the soft answer
+that turneth away wrath, instead of retorting with
+a snappy comeback when her husband makes a nasty
+crack at her. It certainly doesn’t add to the peace
+and harmony of a home for a wife to be ready to
+jump into her fighting clothes every time her husband
+makes a pass at her. Nothing comes of family
+rows but bitterness, and anger, and disillusion. Nor
+does any love long survive them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p>
+
+<p>I also agree with the gentleman that any woman
+who has cut her wisdom teeth on matrimony should
+be able to assay her husband’s temper and tell how
+much of it is due to raw nerves and how much to
+pure cussedness, and so know when to spread the
+salve and when to hand him a solar-plexus blow.
+Furthermore, I opine that a wife who starts anything
+with her husband at evening until after he is
+fed and rested, and has had his smoke and his paper
+unmolested, deserves to be put in the Home for the
+Incurably Feeble-Minded for the balance of her natural
+life or else bound over by the courts to keep
+the peace. For she is either lacking in brains or
+just loves a fight for the fight’s sake.</p>
+
+<p>It is the greatest possible pity that women haven’t
+more sense of humor than they have, for if they did
+they would be able to laugh at many things their
+husbands do over which they shed scalding tears. It
+would enable them to see how really funny it is for
+a big man to get into a babyish tantrum over nothing
+and how much easier it is to kid him out of it
+than it is to make a scene over it. Unhappily, however,
+few women have a funny bone, and fewer still
+can see the joke when it is on them, and so husbands
+and wives meet temper with temper and irritability
+with irritability, and the domestic war goes merrily
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The mistake that most wives make is in taking
+their husbands too seriously. They have heard so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>
+much about the mighty masculine intellect that they
+think their husbands are profound, thoughtful human
+beings who mean every word they say and
+whose every act is part of a deeply considered plan
+of life. Whereas the truth is that men babble just
+as meaninglessly as women do, and are the creatures
+of impulse. Also, women are under the misapprehension
+that they have a monopoly on nerves, and
+that hysterics are the sole prerogative of the feminine
+sex.</p>
+
+<p>These beliefs make women attach a significance to
+the things that men say and do to which they are
+not entitled; and it makes them “get their husbands
+wrong” and break their hearts over crimes that the
+poor, blundering men do not even know that they
+are committing.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence whereof the wife’s feelings are in
+a constant state of laceration, and she meets each
+hard knock with a still harder one, or else goes off
+and salts her wounds down in the brine of her tears.</p>
+
+<p>Now, no one will argue that a human cyclone is a
+pleasant companion to live with, nor would any sane
+woman pick out a man who is giving a life-like imitation
+of the Day of Wrath with whom to spend her
+evenings. But, all the same, women make themselves
+unnecessarily miserable by taking their husbands’
+humors too seriously.</p>
+
+<p>The cruel speeches that stab the wife to the soul
+are not prompted by malice toward her. They are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>
+the reaction of nerves that have been frazzled to the
+breaking point by the worries of the day at the
+office. The frozen silence which the wife finds it so
+hard to endure is just sheer exhaustion of mind and
+body, and the woman who can just take her husband’s
+moods this way can not only save herself
+many a tearfest, but can make her husband eat out
+of her hand by feeding him and laughing at him and
+jollying him along.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly, the woman who is married to a nervous,
+overworked man might well do a little mental balancing
+of accounts and check off a lot of temper,
+and impatience, and unreason, and fault finding
+against the finery he gives her, and the success he
+has achieved, of which she is so proud and which he
+has literally bought with his life’s blood. She might
+well forgive his faults and deal leniently with them,
+since they are the direct result of his struggle to
+lap her in luxury.</p>
+
+<p>She is, believe me, a discerning and a tender wife
+who answers her husband’s irascible speeches with a
+pat on the head and a “there, there, it’s all right,”
+as she would a sick and fretful child, instead of
+going to the mat with him.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the wife’s side of the question. Now
+for the husband’s.</p>
+
+<p>Business furnishes no alibi for surliness, and
+grouchiness, and general disagreeableness. No man
+has a right to come home at night and dump down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>
+on his own hearthstone all the nerves, and temper,
+and irritability he has kept bottled up in him all day.</p>
+
+<p>Because a woman has the misfortune to be a man’s
+wife is no reason he should insult her and say to her
+things that he would not say to any other woman
+who had an able-bodied brother, or that he would
+not dream of saying to any woman who had $10 to
+spend across his counter, or who was his client, or
+his patient.</p>
+
+<p>If a man can control his temper and his tongue
+in dealing with the outside world, he can control it
+still at home. If he can be polite and courteous and
+flattering to other women, he can make the same
+gracious speeches to his wife, instead of growling
+like a bear when she asks him a simple question.
+And if he has any sense of honor, he will be the more
+careful of what he says to his wife than he is to the
+others, because his attitude means nothing to them,
+but his wife’s whole happiness is dependent on the
+way he treats her.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does the fact that he overworks excuse a
+man’s irritability at home. Nine wives out of ten
+would rather have a little more amiability from their
+husbands and less money, if they had to choose between
+the two. The beloved husbands and wives are
+not those who work themselves into a state of nervous
+irritability for their families. They are those
+who keep themselves calm, and good natured, and
+pleasant to live with.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p>
+
+<p>To expect other people to overlook our temper
+and forgive the cross and cruel speeches that we
+flash out at them without provocation is demanding
+too much of human nature.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIII">XXXIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">DON’T BE AFRAID TO LET YOUR HUSBAND SEE
+YOU LOVE HIM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A woman</span> asks this question: “Is it wise for
+a wife who loves her husband devotedly to
+let him see how dear he is to her? Does
+the knowledge that her heart is his for keeps make
+him undervalue it? Does she best keep his interest
+in her alive by keeping him on the anxious seat?
+After all, a husband is still a man, and we know that
+before marriage the more difficult a woman is to win
+the more a man chases her; and the more a woman
+throws herself at a man’s head the more adroitly he
+dodges her. So the question is, Does this same state
+of affairs continue after marriage? Do men want
+their wives to blow hot and cold, as they do their
+sweethearts, or do they desire them to be a good,
+steady, reliable fire on the hearthstone?”</p>
+
+<p>A man’s attitude toward love undergoes a complete
+change on his wedding day. During his courtship,
+the thing that has been of more importance to
+him than anything else in the world has been the
+state of mind of his lady love. It has been a wonderful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>
+sentimental adventure following all her moods
+and tenses, and plumbing the depths of her emotions.
+It has roused his sporting blood for her to
+be coy and difficult. Taking her away from his
+rivals was a game of fascinating intrigue, and he
+thrilled with the sense of being a conquering hero
+when she finally surrendered to him.</p>
+
+<p>But marriage is another pair of sleeves. It is a
+different story altogether. A man marries to end
+romance, not to have it to-be-continued-in-our-next
+serial that will run on the balance of his life.
+He wants to be done with doubts, and fears, and
+heart burnings, and speculation about the woman
+he loves, so that he will be free to give his undivided
+attention to his business.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the tactics that won a woman a husband
+do not serve to hold him, and the wife who
+tries to pique her husband’s interest in her by her
+flirtations with other men is more apt to land in the
+divorce court than to strengthen her position in the
+domestic love nest. For men do not wish to be kept
+guessing about their wives. They want to be sure
+of them. The man who is married to a woman who
+plays around with other men and who keeps him on
+the ragged edge of nervous prostration with jealousies
+and suspicions does not think that he has
+drawn a capital prize in the matrimonial lottery.
+On the contrary, he thinks that he has been gold-bricked,
+and he is not crazy over his bargain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span></p>
+
+<p>No woman need be afraid to let her husband know
+how much she loves him, because her love makes the
+strongest claim she can possibly have upon him.
+Many a man who has made an unsuitable marriage
+with a woman with whom he had no real companionship;
+many a man who has outgrown the woman
+he married in his youth, is kept faithful to her by
+the knowledge of her devotion to him. It takes a
+brute to hurt the one who worships you, or to leave
+the one whose whole life is bound up in you.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is there any charm of mind or person that
+appeals to a man so much as just the certainty of
+a wife’s love and the sure knowledge that if all the
+world turned against him, there is one who would
+still be standing shoulder to shoulder with him; some
+one who would go down to the gates of death with
+him, or wait outside of the prison gates for him;
+some one whom neither disease nor poverty nor disgrace
+would alienate from him. The coquettish
+woman who thinks to keep her husband’s affection
+for her at fever heat by keeping him uncertain of
+her has no such hold upon her man as has the wife
+whose husband’s heart doth safely trust in her, sure
+that whatever else fails him in life, her love will
+never fail.</p>
+
+<p>A wife need not be afraid to show her husband
+her love, because men are just as heart hungry as
+women are. They crave affection and appreciation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>
+just as much as women do, and they long just as
+much as women do to be petted and fussed over.</p>
+
+<p>No complaint is more common from women than
+that their husbands stop all love-making at the altar
+with a suddenness that jars the very marrow of
+their bones. They say that the men to whom they
+are married never seem to think that they long to
+be told that they are still loved and admired, and
+that they have made good as wives. They yearn for
+a kiss that is warm with passion, instead of a duty
+peck on the cheek that has about as much flavor to
+it as a cold batter cake.</p>
+
+<p>But, apparently, it never occurs to these wives
+who are starving for some sign of real living affection
+themselves that their husbands are also on the
+bread line, mutely begging for a stray crumb of
+love. They do not realize that a great big, husky,
+successful man could want to be chucked under the
+chin, and babied, and told that he was the most
+booful thing on earth, and that his wifeikins got
+down on her knees and thanked God every night
+because she was lucky enough to get him, and that
+every day, in every way, she loved him better and
+better.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there isn’t a man in the world that wouldn’t
+worship a wife who handed him that line of chatter,
+and who wouldn’t walk mighty straight and reverently
+before one who opened the doors of her heart
+and let him see that he was enshrined therein. No.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>
+No wife need be afraid of letting her husband know
+how much she worships him. For it is love that
+makes the world go round, and that greases the
+wheels of matrimony.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIV">XXXIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">QUEER THINGS ABOUT MARRIAGE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Did</span> you ever think how many queer things
+there are about marriage? To begin with,
+isn’t it queer that we permit boys and girls
+to get married at an age at which they are not permitted
+to make any other binding contract? The
+law appoints guardians to look after the property
+of minors, and prevent them from squandering it, or
+being cheated out of it by sharpers, but there is no
+legal safeguard to save foolish girls and boys from
+throwing away their life’s happiness on an ill-advised
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>At a time of life when we consider a lad’s judgment
+too immature for him to make a thousand-dollar
+investment, we assume that he is worldly wise
+enough to pick out a life mate. At an age when we
+think a girl’s taste too unformed and too hectic to
+select her own clothes, we let her choose a husband.</p>
+
+<p>Isn’t the casual attitude we take toward matrimony
+queer?</p>
+
+<p>Marriage is the most important act in our lives,
+the thing that not only makes or mars us, but that
+affects thousands of people yet to be. Compared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>
+with marriage, being born is a mere episode in our
+careers, and dying a trivial incident. Yet there is
+no other thing that we do to which we give as little
+intelligent, serious thought.</p>
+
+<p>If we were going into a business partnership to
+invest our entire fortune, we would think a long time
+before we committed ourselves. We would consider
+the proposition from every angle. We would look
+into its weak spots and try to form an honest opinion
+of its chances of success. And we would investigate
+the past record of the man we were proposing
+to go into business with, and find out everything
+about him.</p>
+
+<p>We would ascertain what sort of a life he had led,
+how honest and honorable he was, how much he was
+to be trusted, and what sort of a disposition he had,
+whether he was pleasant to get along with or not.
+Yet the worst harm that our business partner could
+do us would be to cheat us out of our money. He
+couldn’t break our hearts and make our lives miserable.
+If we didn’t like him, we could dissolve the
+partnership without any trouble or disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>But nine times out of ten those who enter into the
+marriage contract, which is the most binding contract
+of all, do not take the trouble to make even
+the slightest investigation about the one with whom
+he or she is making a life partnership. Every day
+we read of people who discover that they are married
+to bigamists. Every day some husband stumbles<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>
+into his wife’s skeleton closet, and finds that the
+woman whom he believed pure and innocent has a
+dark and sordid past. Every day some agonized
+mother looks at her deformed or idiotic babe, and
+sees that the sins of the father have been visited on
+her child.</p>
+
+<p>The man was handsome, and he danced well, and
+he had a dandy sport model car. The girl was
+pretty, and she had a cute trick of looking up
+through her lashes, or a baby stare, so they got
+married without bothering to find out a single thing
+about the kind of life each had led before they met.
+They wouldn’t have bought a house without having
+had an expert see that its title was clear and that
+there was no mortgage on it, but they will marry
+without finding out what sort of encumbrances are
+on the lives of their husbands and wives. They
+wouldn’t buy a horse or a dog without looking into
+its pedigree and finding out what sort of stock it
+comes from, and whether it is sound in wind and
+limb, but they will pass diseased blood on to their
+children with no thought of the sort of heredity
+with which they are cursing them.</p>
+
+<p>Isn’t it queer that men and women fail to consider
+the dispositions of those they marry? Yet
+that is the thing that people have to live with, and
+it is what makes marriage a success or a failure.
+It isn’t high and noble principles; it isn’t truth and
+honor and honesty that makes or mars a man’s or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>
+woman’s happiness in marriage. It is the temper
+of their husbands or wives. A man may be a model
+of all the virtues, and yet if he is stingy and grouchy
+and gloomy, his wife will be miserable with him. A
+woman may be as chaste as Cæsar’s wife, yet if she
+nags, her husband will rue the day he led her to
+the altar.</p>
+
+<p>All men and women know this, yet a girl will go
+along and marry a man who even before marriage
+gets the sulks over every little thing that goes
+wrong, with whom she has to always walk on eggs
+to avoid riling him, and who carries his small change
+in a purse with a snap lock. And a man will marry
+a thin, nervous, irritable girl, who is always getting
+peeved about everything, and who never can say a
+thing and let it rest. And they both wonder after
+marriage why marriage is a failure, and why they
+can’t get along together.</p>
+
+<p>Isn’t it queer that people don’t pick out the kind
+of husbands and wives that they want, and that will
+suit them?</p>
+
+<p>A man who is a student will marry a silly little
+girl who hasn’t two ideas in her head to rub together.
+In the days of courtship it was inevitable that he
+should take the measure of her brainlessness and find
+out that when he talked to her of books that he
+spoke of an unexplored world to her, and that when
+he discussed the things in which he was interested
+she yawned in his face. Nor could he help perceiving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>
+that her chatter was the chatter of a magpie,
+and the things in which she delighted were things
+that bored him stiff.</p>
+
+<p>His common sense shrieked to him that marriage
+between two people who had not one single idea, nor
+an ideal, nor a thought, nor a desire, in common was
+bound to be a failure. But the man, wise and sophisticated
+in other things, but clinging blindly to his
+superstitious belief in the potency of the marriage
+ceremony, refused to heed the warning.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, he was confident that just getting married
+would change a silly, ignorant girl into an intellectual
+woman who would be a fit companion to
+him; miraculously render one who had never even
+read a sixth best-seller familiar with the world’s
+best literature, and make her prefer to discuss
+world topics to gossip about the people next door.</p>
+
+<p>We wonder why poor men marry fashion-plates;
+why men who love to eat, marry girls who loathe the
+kitchen; why quiet, domestic men marry girls who
+live to dance and go to cabarets. They are all poor,
+blind heathen, trusting in the marriage ceremony to
+make an extravagant girl economical, a frivolous
+girl serious, an undomestic girl domestic.</p>
+
+<p>Isn’t it queer? Not only do we superstitiously
+believe in the power of the marriage ceremony to
+change other people, but we actually think it will
+change ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The philanderer believes that he will never cast a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>
+roaming eye at another woman as soon as he is
+married. The loafer believes that he will be filled
+full of pep and energy by the mere fact of having
+a wife to work for. The stingy, selfish man is confident
+that he will enjoy spending money on his
+family. The girl who has never thought of anything
+but dolling herself up and having a good time
+believes that as soon as she is married she won’t
+care any more for fine clothes or going about, and
+that she will be perfectly satisfied to stay at home
+and save her husband’s money and cook him good
+things to eat.</p>
+
+<p>But alas! the miracle of the marriage ceremony
+no more works on us than it does on those we marry.
+Long before the honeymoon has waned we make the
+discovery that somehow the mysterious something
+that was to change us didn’t take, and that we are
+the same old individuals, with the same old tastes
+and desires that we always had. Then to so many
+comes the cold, bitter knowledge that they are tied
+for life to one who is utterly uncongenial, to one
+who bores them and gets upon their nerves. And,
+queerest of all is it that no matter how unhappily
+people have been married, when death or divorce sets
+them free, they nearly all want to try matrimony
+over again!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXV">XXXV<br>
+<span class="fs70">HUSBANDS—THE LIVING CONUNDRUM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A woman</span> writes me that she has been married
+to a man for sixteen years, yet she
+has never got acquainted with him. She
+says he is good and kind, but indifferent to her. He
+never finds fault with her and never praises her.
+He spends his evenings at home by his own fireside,
+but a mummy would be just about as conversational.
+All of this has got the woman guessing, and she
+can’t figure out whether her husband still cares for
+her or not, or whether he regards his marriage as
+a success or a failure.</p>
+
+<p>Good gracious, sister, don’t imagine for an instant
+that you have anything unique in the way of
+a husband! All men are full of curious peculiarities,
+and no woman ever gets acquainted with one,
+no matter whether she has been married to him for
+sixteen years or sixty. For, as an old colored friend
+of mine says: “Husbands is the most undiscovered
+nation of people there is.”</p>
+
+<p>No woman ever understands, for instance, why it
+is that a man who was an ardent and impetuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>
+wooer turns into a husband with about as much sentiment
+and pep to him as a cold buckwheat cake, as
+soon as the marriage ceremony is said over him.
+Nor can she form any idea of why the man who was
+willing to risk his life to get her takes so little
+interest in her after he has got her. She cannot
+doubt that he loved her, because he gave great and
+indisputable proof of that by assuming her support
+for life. Nor can she see any reason for his change
+of attitude. She still carries the same line of bait
+with which she caught him. She still has the same
+eyes that he likened to violets drenched in dew, but
+he doesn’t notice them. She still has the same white
+hands that he used to hold by the hour, but if she
+wants anybody to hold them now she has to hunt up
+some man to whom she is not married. No woman
+can ever understand why a man doesn’t put forth
+the same effort to make his home a going concern
+as he does to make his business or profession a
+success.</p>
+
+<p>If every man tried to sell himself to his wife as
+he does to his employer, or a big customer, or a valuable
+client, there would be no disgruntled, dissatisfied
+married women in the world. If every man
+studied his wife’s peculiarities of disposition; if he
+played on her weaknesses as deftly and handled her
+as tactfully as he does a merchant who is about to
+place a big order, or a rich patient, every wife in
+the land would be eating out of her husband’s hand.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>
+If every man paid his wife a fair wage for her services,
+as he does his stenographers and clerks, it
+would take the heaviest curse off matrimony for
+millions of wives.</p>
+
+<p>But, altho to have a contented wife and a peaceful
+and happy home means more to a man than to
+make a million dollars, not one man in a hundred
+ever gives any real serious thought or makes any
+honest effort to make his marriage a success. He
+leaves the most important thing in his life to chance,
+and he wins out or loses, according to whether fortune
+is with him or not. Women never can understand
+why their husbands refuse to handle them
+diplomatically, when it would be money in their
+pockets to use the velvet glove instead of the strong-arm
+method.</p>
+
+<p>Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into
+doing anything, and doing without anything. He
+knows that if he hands her a few cheap compliments
+about what a wonderful manager she is and how she
+helps him, she will squeeze every nickel. Every man
+knows that if he tells his wife how beautiful and
+lovely she looks in her last year’s dress, she wouldn’t
+trade it off for the latest Paris importation. Every
+man knows that he can kiss his wife’s eyes shut until
+she will be blind as a bat, and that he has only to
+give her a warm smack on the lips to make her dumb
+as an oyster.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p>
+
+<p>And every wife knows that her husband knows
+these things about her, because she has furnished
+him with a complete diagram about how to work
+her. And she never knows whether to be mad at
+him or disgusted with him, because he would rather
+fight with her and pay for it in having to eat bad
+meals, and having his money wasted and buy her
+new frocks and limousines and pearls, than to take
+the trouble to flatter her a little and treat her the
+way she is begging to be treated.</p>
+
+<p>Most of all, women never can understand why
+their husbands are so stingy with words, which
+surely are among the cheapest commodities on
+earth. Above everything else, every wife yearns for
+words of love, for words of praise from her husband.
+Just to have her husband pet her, to have
+him say to her that she grows dearer and dearer to
+him every day, and that he thanks God for giving
+her to him, pays any woman for all the sacrifice, all
+the work, all the suffering that marriage brings her.
+It makes her heart sing with joy, and the lack of
+it fills her life with tears of despair.</p>
+
+<p>Every man knows this. Every man knows that
+he can make his wife happy with just a few words,
+and yet he withholds them. Even the men who
+really love their wives and appreciate all that their
+wives do for them refuse to give the starving souls
+the words that would be the bread of life to them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>
+No. No wife ever gets acquainted with her husband.
+Husbands always keep us guessing to the
+end of the chapter. Perhaps that is why we all
+want one of these living conundrums.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVI">XXXVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE POWER OF SUGGESTION</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Among</span> my acquaintances is a woman who has
+a pretty little flapper daughter. The girl is
+a good little girl, as playful and innocent as
+a kitten. But she bobs her hair, and paints her
+face, and rouges her lips, and likes to jazz, and joy-ride,
+and have a good time just as thousands of
+other girls of her age and class are doing. All
+this greatly outrages the mother, who tells her
+daughter that, in her day, decent girls didn’t paint
+their faces, or shimmy, and that they stayed at
+home evenings and read good books, instead of running
+around with japanned-haired boys. And then
+she winds up her preachment by accusing her daughter
+of doing things which she does not do, and
+prophesying that she will come to a bad end. Of
+course, it is mother love and mother anxiety that
+makes this woman keep continually before the girl’s
+eyes the fate of those who follow the road of
+pleasure. It never enters her head that she may
+be precipitating on her child the catastrophe she
+dreads, but that is precisely what she is doing.</p>
+
+<p>She is making the girl feel that she is sophisticated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>
+and worldly-wise—one of the wild, wild women.
+She is giving the flavor of forbidden fruit to what
+would otherwise be harmless little amusements. She
+is making the girl reckless, because she is making
+her believe that she is under suspicion and is being
+talked about. Worst of all, she is firmly implanting
+in the girl’s mind the idea that she is expected to
+go wrong.</p>
+
+<p>And if anything in the world will put the skids
+under a girl, it is for her own mother to be continually
+impressing upon her that she is a wrong ’un.</p>
+
+<p>When you observe the dealings of parents with
+their children the thing at which you wonder most
+is that fathers and mothers never seem to realize the
+power of suggestion. Yet it is one of the most
+potent forces in the world, and one that can be
+directed with almost uncanny results to the molding
+and shaping of the characters of the young. It is
+hardly too much to say that as the parents think,
+so are the children. It is the fixed idea the parents
+stamp indelibly on the plastic childish mind which
+determines the fate in life of the man or woman.</p>
+
+<p>You can, for instance, take a delicate child and
+literally “think” it into health or sickness. If the
+mother keeps the child forever reminded it can’t do
+what other children do because of its poor heart, it
+can’t eat this or that because of its bad digestion,
+and that it mustn’t be crossed because it is so nervous,—that
+child will grow up into a neurotic invalid.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>
+But if the mother impresses on it the thought that
+it is getting well, and is going to be strong and
+healthy, unless there is something radically organically
+wrong, it will overcome the weakness with
+which it was seemingly threatened.</p>
+
+<p>All of us have seen people actually bring upon
+themselves diseases they believed they had inherited.
+They had had it impressed on them from their infancy
+that they were bound to die of consumption
+because all the Smiths had tuberculosis. Or, that
+they were doomed to perish with cancer, because
+cancer was in the Jones family. Or, to have rheumatism
+because the Simkins were all rheumatic, and
+they died of what they believed to be inherited diseases
+that science has proved not to be inheritable.</p>
+
+<p>It is tragic to think how many parents have killed
+the children they loved by putting the death thought
+upon them, and by making them believe that they
+were doomed, and that there was no use in their
+trying to be strong and well. It is still more tragic
+to think of the millions of people who are failures
+in the world because their fathers and mothers have
+sapped their courage, and slain their initiative by
+implanting in their minds the conviction that they
+were dolts and had not the ability to succeed.</p>
+
+<p>Once establish the inferiority complex in a child’s
+mind, and it is done for. It accepts the belief that
+it has no ability to do things, and it attempts nothing.
+It makes no struggle to rise. It slumps into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>
+the humble position its parents have assigned it.
+This is why perpetual fault-finding with a child
+intensifies its faults. To nag Johnny continually
+about his awkwardness, makes him still more awkward.
+To be forever calling attention to Tom’s
+shyness, makes him shrink more and more out of
+sight. To fret at Bob’s dulness, makes him feel that
+there is no hope for a boy who isn’t quick and alert.
+Many men never have the courage to demand their
+just deserts and take the place to which they are
+entitled in business and society because they were
+made self-conscious in their childhood. They had
+it so impressed on their minds that they were blundering
+louts, and stupid fools, that they shrank
+within themselves, and never had the nerve to push
+their fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>And just as you can make a child a failure by
+holding the thought of its inferiority before it, you
+can do much to make it a success by holding the
+thought of achievement before it. We unconsciously
+strive to be what the people about us expect of us.
+If Jimmie knows that he has a reputation for beautiful
+manners, he will act as a gentleman. If Tom
+knows you expect him to make a mark at school or
+in business, he will try to make good. If Mary
+knows you do not think it possible for her to be anything
+but sweet and innocent, she is not likely to
+tarnish your ideal.</p>
+
+<p>The power of suggestion is so far reaching in its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>
+influence that fathers and mothers should be careful
+how they use it, and avoid implanting a weak
+thought, an evil thought, a thought of failure in
+their children’s minds as they would avoid giving
+them poison.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVII">XXXVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WOMAN’S MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITY</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">As</span> a sex women are highly altruistic. There
+is scarcely a movement in the world for the
+uplift of humanity or for ameliorating the
+sorrows of the poor and helpless that does not owe
+its existence to women. It is women who support
+the orphan asylums, the homes for old men and
+women, the reformatories, the houses for the blind,
+the places of refuge where the man just out of
+prison can go and gather himself together before
+starting out on a better life. It is women who nurse
+in hospitals, and who carry on mainly the work of
+the Red Cross and the fight against the great White
+Plague. Joan of Arc is the great feminine heroine.
+The women that other women envy most are not the
+great beauties and sirens of history, or the famous
+actors and writers, but the Florence Nightingales
+and Frances Willards who have been able to do
+some great service to their fellow creatures. And
+deep down in her secret heart, if every woman was
+granted her one great wish, it would be to be able
+to help her day and generation to make others happier,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>
+and to perform some miracle that would make
+life easier for all who come after her.</p>
+
+<p>Well, little as she realizes it, that power is possessed
+by every woman who has children. In her
+hands lies the remedy for the greatest sorrow that
+tears at the hearts of men and women. She can
+wipe away half of the tears of the world. She has
+the magic that can change innumerable lives from
+misery to joy. For the greatest trouble in the
+world is domestic trouble. The bitterest disappointment
+is a marriage that is a failure. There
+is no place of torment so hard to endure as a home
+of bickering and strife. No enemy can stab you
+to the heart as does a cold, selfish, unkind husband
+or wife.</p>
+
+<p>It lies within the power of mothers to put an end
+to all this misery, to stop divorce and the breaking
+up of homes, and the orphaning of helpless little
+children. It is in their power to provide every man
+and woman with a good husband and wife, to make
+every home a prosperous and peaceful one, and to
+save other mothers from the agony of seeing their
+children mistreated by the men and women to whom
+they are married. There is no more appalling
+thought than that every woman could raise her
+children up to be good husbands and wives, and
+that she does not do it. On the contrary, nine times
+out of ten she brings up her sons and daughters to
+be exactly the kind of husbands and wives from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>
+whom she prays God on her knees to deliver her
+own precious darlings.</p>
+
+<p>Most likely the woman is herself the victim of
+another woman’s cruelty. Her own marriage has
+been wretched because her husband’s mother never
+taught him to treat women with any courtesy, or
+consideration, or chivalry. He was never brought
+up to consider a woman’s feelings, or even to extend
+to her common justice. As a result, his wife has
+had to walk on eggs to keep from rousing a demoniacal
+temper. She has had to wait on him hand
+and foot. She has had to wheedle every penny out
+of him, and never since her wedding day has her husband
+made one move to entertain or amuse her, or
+done anything to make her happy.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that a woman who had been through
+the arid desert of such a marriage would save some
+other poor girl from such a fate by raising up her
+son to be a good husband. You would think that
+she would teach him what a terrible crime it is to
+take a woman’s life into his hands and break it;
+that she would teach him to be gentle and tender
+to his wife; that she would impress upon him that
+a woman earns her share of the family income, and
+that it should be given to her outright instead of
+being doled out as alms.</p>
+
+<p>You would think that she would ground him, from
+his infancy up, in the knowledge of all the little
+things that make a marriage a failure or a success<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>
+to a woman—the little attentions, the little treats,
+the word of praise, the compliment on a new dress
+or hat, the little things that make a woman’s heart
+sing with joy, and that makes marriage worth while
+to her. The great majority of women, however,
+never even so much as think of training their sons
+to be good husbands. Nor do they train their
+daughters to be good wives. Very few mothers
+would be willing to see their sons marry the kind
+of girls their daughters are.</p>
+
+<p>Mother has raised her daughters up to be selfish
+and spoiled and lazy and extravagant, and she is
+ready to foist them without mercy on any poor
+young fellows who are taken with their pretty faces.
+But Heaven defend her own boys from marrying
+girls who have never considered any other human
+being in the world but themselves, and whose only
+law is their own pleasure! You even hear mothers
+boast that they have never taught their daughters
+how to cook, or sew, or keep house, yet the very
+foundation of domestic happiness and the prosperity
+of the family depend upon the wife being a
+thrifty manager and making a comfortable home.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do women instil into their daughters’ minds
+the truth about marriage—that it is an obligation
+that they take upon themselves, and that they have
+no right to throw it up and quit because it is full
+of hardships and self-sacrifice instead of being the
+joy-ride they thought it would be. Neither do mothers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>
+pass on to their daughters their own hardly
+won knowledge of how to get along with a husband,
+how to bear with him and forbear, how to jolly him
+and handle him with tact and diplomacy, yet that
+precious bit of information would save many a marriage.
+Believe me that the most important question
+that any mother can ask herself is this: “Am I raising
+up my son and daughter to bless or curse the
+woman and man who marry them?”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVIII">XXXVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">HOW TO BE A GOOD HUSBAND</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A young</span> man said to me the other day: “I
+am going to be married, and I earnestly
+and honestly desire to make my wife happy,
+but beyond a vague and rudimentary impression
+that I must not beat or starve her, I haven’t an
+idea of how to go about the good-husband job.
+What should a man do to keep a woman blessing
+her lucky stars that she married him, instead of
+wondering what on earth the fool-killer was doing
+that she survived her wedding day?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, son,” I replied, “your theoretical ground
+work for being a good husband is a sound foundation
+on which to build, tho refraining from beating
+your wife is not the matter of course thing
+that you seem to think it is. There will be plenty
+of times when you will want to do so, and bitterly
+regret that no perfect gentleman can lay his hands
+upon a woman save in the way of kindness, no matter
+how much she needs a thrashing or he yearns to
+give her one.</p>
+
+<p>“While as for giving a wife sustenance and raiment,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>
+believe me, that to be a good provider is one
+of the brightest jewels in the crown of a good husband.
+No matter what other charms and virtues a
+man may have, he is a poor makeshift of a husband
+if he cannot give his wife a comfortable living. And,
+on the other hand, no man is a total failure as a
+husband if he laps his wife in luxuries. Jewels, and
+motorcars, and fine houses, and fine clothes are a
+consolation prize that takes the curse off many a
+woman’s disappointment in marriage.</p>
+
+<p>“Having, then, accorded your wife considerate
+treatment and given her a good home, the next
+step in being a good husband is to play fair with
+her on the money question. Get off on the right
+foot there and you will save yourself endless bickerings
+and prevent her from feeling a bitterness
+toward you that will grow and grow until it will
+kill out all of her affection for you. The first disillusion
+that many a bride gets is when she finds out
+that the prince of her dreams is a tightwad, who
+haggles with her over the market money and who
+is so stingy that he never gives her a penny of her
+own. There isn’t a woman in the world who is
+enough of a worm of the dust not to resent having
+to ask her husband for the money she knows she
+earns as a housewife. So go fifty-fifty with your
+wife on the money proposition. Give her as big an
+allowance as you can afford and be decent enough
+not to ask her what she does with it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p>
+
+<p>“The next item in being a good husband is to be
+affectionate to your wife. Don’t expect her to take
+it for granted that you still love her because you
+haven’t applied for a divorce from her. You handed
+her a fine and convincing line of love talk while you
+were courting her, and there is no excuse for your
+cutting it off and becoming as dumb as an oyster
+just as soon as you’ve got her. No normal woman
+can live without love and be happy. It is just as
+necessary to her well-being as food and drink, and
+if she is deprived of it she suffers all of the agonies
+of soul starvation, which are worse than those of the
+body. When you marry a woman you isolate her
+from the love-making of other men, and so you are
+in honor bound to provide her with an ample supply
+of soft talk yourself.</p>
+
+<p>“Therefore, make it a rule of your life to give
+your wife at least one kiss every day that has in it
+some thrill of love and passion, and that isn’t flavored
+with ham and eggs like the perfunctory peck
+on the cheek or the back of the ear which is all
+most men hand their wives in the osculation line.
+And, for heaven’s sake, don’t neglect to pay your
+wife compliments. When she has on a new dress tell
+her how pretty she looks and how becoming it is,
+instead of grunting or demanding to know how much
+it costs. If you have eyes enough to see other
+women’s pretty clothes and intelligence enough to
+say the right things about them, why not about your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>
+wife’s, when it will please her to death and make
+her think what a wonderful man she has married?</p>
+
+<p>“The next point in being a good husband consists
+in doing something actively to make your wife happy
+and showing a human interest in her. Many men
+think they have done their whole duty as husbands
+when they furnish their wives with food and shelter
+and plenty of money. I have heard men excuse
+themselves for never remembering an anniversary or
+giving their wives a little present by saying that
+they didn’t know what Mary or Sally wanted, and
+that they had charge accounts at the best jewelers
+and department stores and could buy themselves
+whatever they wanted.</p>
+
+<p>“That kind of thing doesn’t make a woman
+happy. There isn’t a wife in the world who
+wouldn’t get more thrill out of a dollar string of
+blue beads that her husband bought because they
+matched her eyes than she would out of a pearl
+necklace that she bought herself on her wedding
+anniversary because her husband had forgotten
+they were ever married. It is the personal touch
+that counts with women. The sentiment. The
+knowledge that her husband is concerned about her,
+that he notices when she is tired, that he appreciates
+all that she does, that he tries to make her
+happy and wants to give her every pleasure that
+he can.</p>
+
+<p>“If you want to be a good husband, son, remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>
+to do the little things, and the big things will
+do themselves. Be affectionate, be kind, be appreciative,
+jolly her instead of finding fault with her.
+Be liberal in the use of flattery and take her to some
+place of amusement at least once a week, and she
+will thank God on her knees for having given you to
+her for a husband.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIX">XXXIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">GIVING CHILDREN ADVANTAGES</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Among</span> my acquaintances is a woman who is
+always bemoaning the fact that she cannot
+give her children “advantages.” She sheds
+barrels of tears over their not having the “advantages”
+that the children of the rich have. She beats
+upon her breast and laments that she cannot send
+her boys to college, and give them high-powered
+motorcars, and when she thinks of not being able
+to dress her daughters like fashion plates and send
+them off to summer and winter resorts, she melts
+down into a perfect pulp of self-pity. After listening
+to this wail for a number of years, I grew exasperated,
+and said to her:</p>
+
+<p>“What are the advantages that you cannot give
+your children? Let us sit down and consider them
+dispassionately, and see if your children really are
+so unfortunate, and so handicapped in life as you
+think they are. Let us begin with your not being
+able to send your boys off to college. I grant you
+that we would all like to give our children every
+possible opportunity to acquire a good education.
+But not all knowledge comes put up in school-book<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>
+packages. Furthermore, the degree a man takes
+who graduates from the University of Hard Knocks
+has a lot of practical, available information, and a
+working knowledge of life that is worth a bushel of
+M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s, and that it will take the college
+graduate ten or fifteen years to acquire. Many of
+the best-informed, best-read men that I know never
+saw the inside of a college. In these days of cheap
+books, and magazines, and newspapers, if a man
+wants an education he will get it.</p>
+
+<p>“Nor is the lack of a college education any bar
+to success. The men who are running things in
+America to-day spent their formative years, from
+18 to 24, in learning about mines, and railroads,
+and stores, and banking, instead of being grounded
+in Greek and Latin. And they are hiring college
+graduates to work for them. Moreover, while you
+can lead a boy to the Pierian spring, you cannot
+make him drink from it, and you know well enough
+that the great majority of boys who are sent off to
+college idle away their time, and come back with
+nothing but a college yell, the latest thing in Klassy
+Kut Kollege Klothes, and a maddening air of superiority.
+So comfort yourself with the knowledge
+that if your son has it in him to take an education
+he will get it. If he yearns for culture he will
+acquire it, but if he is just a boy who has good
+hard horse sense, and is not intellectual, the sooner
+he gets to work after his high-school days the better<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>
+for him. Of course, mother-like, you want your
+children to have everything that multimillionaires
+have, but in your heart you must know that money
+is a curse to a boy instead of a blessing. To begin
+with, wealth paralyzes ambition. We are all poor,
+weak creatures who take the line of least resistance,
+and when we don’t have to do things we become
+slackers. We have to have necessity to spur us on
+to achievement.</p>
+
+<p>“Call over the roll of the rich men of to-day, of
+the men who sit in high places, from the President
+down, of the men who are famous inventors, and
+writers, and artists. They were almost all poor
+boys. There is scarcely the name of a millionaire’s
+son in the whole list. And riches lead a boy into
+temptation from which the poor boy is safe. The
+boy who has to work for his daily bread has his mind
+and his hands occupied. He has something interesting
+and exciting always to do. The idle rich boy
+must make his own diversions, and find some way of
+killing time, and he does it only too often by the
+booze and the gambling route, and in the company
+of wild women. For adventuresses and grafters
+fasten themselves like leeches on the man with a fat
+pocketbook. There is nothing like lacking the price
+as a first aid to virtue.</p>
+
+<p>“As for not being able to give your girls advantages,
+do you really think it is any advantage to a
+girl to be brought up to be nothing but a fashion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>
+plate, to have no duties and responsibilities, to have
+no object in life except amusing herself and to be
+taught merely to be a waster and a spender? Do
+you think that the woman who has a dozen homes
+in this country and Europe, between which she vibrates
+with no more local attachments than a transient
+guest has in a hotel, gets the pleasure out of
+them that the woman does out of her little bungalow,
+whose every plank has been paid for by some sacrifice
+and where every chair and plate is the result of
+weeks of saving and planning? Do you think the
+girl who buys herself a European title is as happy
+with the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">roué</i> husband she has purchased as the girl
+who marries some clean, honest young chap she loves
+and works up with him to prosperity? Do you think
+that the woman who bears children and then turns
+them over to nurses and governesses gets the benediction
+out of motherhood that the woman does who
+cradles her children on her breast and rears them
+up at her knee?</p>
+
+<p>“You lament that you cannot give your daughters
+the chance to make fine marriages. Why, the working
+girl has ten times as good chance to make a good
+marriage as the society girl has, because she is
+thrown with more men. She works side by side with
+the go-getters and the coming men, and she has the
+pick of them all. So,” I said to my lachrymose
+friend, “stop whining because you aren’t rich and
+can’t give your children ‘advantages.’ You are giving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>
+them the necessity of standing on their own feet
+and fighting their own battles, of developing all that
+is best in them, and that is the greatest advantage
+that you could possibly give them.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XL">XL<br>
+<span class="fs70">SELL YOURSELF TO YOUR CHILDREN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Did</span> you ever contemplate trying to “sell”
+your children, as the advertising experts
+say, the things you wish them to be and
+do? Did you ever try selling them yourself? Of
+course, the old idea is that the proper way to rear
+children is by forcing on them a system of do’s and
+don’ts. We tell our children that they must do this,
+and they mustn’t do that. We try to coerce them
+along the straight and narrow road because that
+is the proper path for them to travel, but we never
+take the trouble to artfully entice them into it and
+make them think that they have chosen it of their
+own free wills.</p>
+
+<p>We want our children to love us, to admire us, to
+consider us their best friends; but we expect them
+to do this because we believe it the duty of children
+to honor their parents. Not ten fathers and mothers
+in a thousand ever deliberately try to make
+themselves attractive to their children or win their
+confidence. Perhaps this is why there are so many
+boys and girls hurtling down the broad highway to
+destruction; why parental influence amounts to so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>
+little, and why the average child feels that it has
+less in common with its own father and mother than
+it has with any other man and woman it knows.</p>
+
+<p>We have just begun to realize that propaganda
+is one of the greatest and most insidious forces on
+earth. We have seen it lift men up to the skies and
+make gods of them, then turn and pull them down,
+and trample them into the dust. We have seen it
+exalt a nation into sainthood and turn it into a
+howling mob, crying for blood. And if it can thus
+sway and move grown-up people, what a weapon it
+is to use upon the plastic mind of a child! This
+being the case, why should we not “sell” our children
+the ideals we wish them to have? Why should we
+not feed them on the right propaganda from their
+cradle up? Why should we not advertise the good
+things of life until we make them so alluring that
+the child will want them?</p>
+
+<p>Why should we not sell righteousness to our children?
+It is one thing to preach and nag at them
+about drink, and gambling, and associating with
+bad men and women until you bore them to tears
+and make them wonder what is the fascination of the
+evil that they are so warned against. And it is
+another thing to make clean living the symbol of
+health, and strength, and length of days; the respect
+of one’s fellow men and, above all, the thing that sets
+one right with one’s own soul.</p>
+
+<p>Why not sell our children education? We scourge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>
+them to school, which most of them regard as a
+place of penance, and where, dull and bored, they
+sit in stolid indifference, while the dull and bored
+teachers go through the perfunctory routine of
+hearing them recite lessons in which they do not
+pretend to take the slightest interest. But suppose
+we could really sell these children the idea of education?
+Suppose we could get them as interested in
+history as they are in stories of adventure? Suppose
+we could make them see that spelling and arithmetic
+are not tasks; that they are the tools with
+which they will work when they get their first jobs
+as stenographers and bookkeepers, and that the
+better they spell and the quicker they are at figures
+the bigger their pay envelopes will be! Suppose we
+could make them see that knowledge is power, and
+that whether they stay at the foot of the ladder or
+climb to the top is going to depend on how well
+their brains are trained! Why, if we could make
+children see the advantages of an education we would
+not have to force them to go to school. They would
+be eager and anxious to go.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose we sold our children good manners. We
+are always correcting Johnny at the table about the
+way he eats, and he is so used to our don’ts about
+walking in front of people and keeping his hat on
+that he has long since ceased to listen when we speak.
+But suppose, from his earliest infancy, Johnny had
+heard boors ridiculed, and knife swallowers, and cup<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>
+cuddlers, and audible soup-eaters held up to scorn
+as figures of fun. Do you not know that Johnny
+would as soon think of committing murder as one of
+these offenses? And suppose Johnny has had it impressed
+on him by precept and example that good
+manners are a letter of credit that is honored the
+world over; that they will take you farther than
+anything else on earth. Don’t you know that
+Johnny would be incapable of loutishness, because
+good manners had simply been bred into him?</p>
+
+<p>Why should we not sell our children industry and
+thrift? Propaganda again. You can make work
+the most thrilling of all games. You can make a
+child feel that his job is of great importance. You
+can form in childhood an unbreakable habit of industry.
+You can teach the child how to deny itself
+little things in order to save the money for big
+things. You can make it feel the independence of
+having its own little bank account. You can set a
+goal before it and light the fires of ambition in its
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, why not sell yourself to your children?
+Why not make as much effort to ingratiate yourself
+with your children as you would with a stranger?
+Why not try to impress your children with your
+ability, your wisdom, your up-to-dateness, as you
+would any man or woman with whom you are trying
+to do business? If parents could only convince their
+children that they are not back-numbers and incarnate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>
+killjoys it would do more than any other
+one thing to improve the family relationship. Believe
+me, it pays to advertise—especially with your
+children.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLI">XLI<br>
+<span class="fs70">TAKING HUSBANDS “AS IS”</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">I wish</span> that I could make every young girl who
+gets married a present of a handsomely framed
+motto to hang on the wall above the mirror of
+her dressing table, where she would be compelled to
+see it every time she put on or took off her complexion,
+or repaired the Cupid’s bow of her lips. On
+this motto in gorgeously illumined letters would be
+these sapient words of Grover Cleveland: “It is a
+condition and not a theory that confronts you.” I
+can think of no other advice in the world that would
+be such a lamp to guide the feet of any young
+woman who is starting to blunder down the rough
+road of matrimony, as this cold, hard, unimaginative
+assertion of a simple fact. It brushes away
+with one gesture of common sense all the dreams and
+romances and fairy tales of courtship, and leaves a
+woman facing the reality of matrimony, which is
+never as she thought it would be. It just is as it is.</p>
+
+<p>If women would only abandon their theories about
+what matrimony should be, and how husbands should
+act, and deal with them as they are, it would save
+floods of tears, innumerable broken hearts, hundreds<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
+of cases of nervous prostration, and put the
+divorce courts out of business. Furthermore, that
+women are mostly right in their contentions, and
+have logic and justice on their side, doesn’t alter
+this aspect of the situation at all. For instance,
+woman’s perpetual grievance against her husband is
+his indifference. She wails out that he inveigled her
+into matrimony under false pretenses because from
+the ardor with which he wooed her, he led her to
+believe and expect that he would be an eternal lover
+and would spend a large part of his time telling her
+how beautiful and wonderful she was, and how he
+adored her. Instead of making good on this antenuptial
+propaganda, however, he stopped all of his
+love-making at the altar with a suddenness that
+jarred her wisdom teeth loose, and in place of being
+a ladylove, she finds herself merely a household
+convenience.</p>
+
+<p>Millions of women make themselves miserable because
+their husbands never make love to them, never
+pay them a compliment, never give them any sign
+of appreciation, never take them to any place of
+amusement, never give any indication that they still
+care for them and want them to be happy. These
+suffering sisters could save themselves nearly all of
+their woe if they would just throw their rosy dreams
+of how a husband should treat a wife into the discard,
+and accept the truth that very few men are
+sentimentalists. Most of them feel like fools when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>
+they are love-making, and so they get the ordeal over
+with as quickly as possible. They consider that
+when a man marries a woman, and undertakes her
+board bill and shopping ticket, that he has given a
+proof of devotion strong enough to draw money on
+at the bank, and there is no use in saying anything
+more about it. Also they feel that the fact that
+they selected the women they did for wives showed
+that they admired them above all other women, so
+why harp on that string? And, of course, they want
+their wives to be happy. What else do they toil for
+except to doll their wives up, and give them cars and
+houses and trips to Palm Beach?</p>
+
+<p>So the wife may be very happy and contented
+who has philosophy enough to take her husband as
+he is, good, kind and generous, even if he is a
+dumb lover, apparently more interested in his business
+than he is in her. She realizes that he says it
+with checks instead of with flowery phrases, and
+that if she is starved emotionally she is sure of her
+daily roast beef and potatoes. Then there is the
+matter of adjustment between a man and a woman.
+Every bride dreams an impossible dream of a husband
+who is chilled steel to all the balance of the
+world, but putty in her hands. Experience blows
+this fair dream to the ends of the earth, and she finds
+that she can no more alter her husband’s habits and
+prejudices than she can the laws of the Medes and
+the Persians. He has his ways, and she can either<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>
+give in to them or fight over them. He has his set
+opinions, and she can sidestep them or fight with
+him about them.</p>
+
+<p>She can either use tact and diplomacy in handling
+him, or else be in a perpetual quarrel with him, and
+she protests that this isn’t fair or just. She says
+that it is as much his place to give in to her as it is
+hers to give in to him. That it is just as much his
+business to deal subtly with her, as it is her business
+to deal subtly with him. Of course, the woman is
+right, but being right doesn’t help her a bit in getting
+along with her husband. It is a condition and
+not a theory that confronts her. If any harmonious
+relations exist between her and her husband, she has
+to furnish the harmony. If there is any adapting,
+it is the wife who must do the adapting.</p>
+
+<p>Women likewise complain that it is unjust that
+they should have to do practically all of the work
+of making a happy home. They say that it is just
+as much a man’s business to be a little ray of sunshine
+in the home as it is a woman’s; that it is just
+as much up to a husband to wear the smile that
+won’t come off as it is the wife’s. They say that
+there is no more reason why they should read up on
+subjects that interest their husbands, so as to be
+able to hand out a good line of conversation, than
+why their husbands shouldn’t read up on fashion
+journals so as to be able to discuss intelligently with
+them the length of skirts and the latest hair bob.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>
+True. But again it is the condition and not the
+theory of matrimony that confronts them, and unless
+the wife makes the happy home it isn’t made.
+It is when women forget what matrimony should be,
+and deal with it as it is, that they make a success
+of it.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLII">XLII<br>
+<span class="fs70">BEING A GOOD WIFE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“I want</span> to be a good wife, the kind of a wife
+like that lady in the Bible whose price was
+above rubies,” said a little bride to me the
+other day. “What shall I do to be a real helpmeet
+to my husband?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my dear,” I replied, “there are three general
+counts on which every wife must make good in
+order to help her husband, and then the job becomes
+the work of an expert, and varies according to the
+temperament of the man. To begin with, every
+woman who is an asset instead of a total loss to her
+husband, must make him a comfortable home and
+feed him properly. When a man marries, he practically
+turns over his stomach and his nerves and
+his brains to his wife’s care, and she can keep him
+at the peak of efficiency by giving him a quiet, restful
+place to come to at night, and a good dinner to eat,
+or she can sabotage the whole works by throwing in
+quarrels and heavy biscuit and tough meat.</p>
+
+<p>“There is practically no limit to the amount of
+work a man can do whose wife takes care of him,
+and who has a happy home life. The men who break<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>
+down with nervous prostration are the men who,
+after the struggle and anxiety and worries of a
+business day, go home to strife and wrangles and
+recriminations and nagging and to food that would
+kill an ostrich. No nerves and no digestion will
+stand it. A breakfast of flabby cakes and muddy
+coffee, that make him take a dyspeptic and despairing
+view of things, and see the world through blue
+spectacles, has made many a man turn down a good
+proposition that would have carried him on to fame
+and fortune. A spat with his wife that left his
+nerves on edge, and his soul filled with bitterness,
+has made many a man quarrel with his partner and
+insult his best client or customer.</p>
+
+<p>“So, my dear, if you want to help your husband
+succeed, you must begin by making him a home
+wherein his tired body and frazzled nerves may
+refresh themselves, so that he may go forth with new
+strength to battle with the world. You must make
+him happy, for there is nothing that happy people
+may not achieve. The next item is to keep on cutting
+bait. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that
+because you have captured your man he will stay
+captive. It is a job that has to be done over again
+every morning.</p>
+
+<p>“You know the arts and wiles with which you
+lured him into matrimony. You recall the pretty
+dresses you wore, the glad, sweet smile with which
+you met him. The pleasure you showed you took in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>
+his society. A man doesn’t put on blinders when he
+gets married. He still has an eye out for a pretty
+woman in a gay frock, and he likes to feel that his
+wife still cares enough for him to want to make
+herself attractive to him and that his coming home
+is the big event of the day to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Item three in being a good wife is to be a loving
+wife. Women are always talking about being heart-hungry
+and seem to think that it is an exclusively
+feminine complaint, but there are just as many men
+starving for affection as there are women. Don’t
+expect your husband to take it for granted that
+you still love him because you haven’t applied for
+a divorce. Tell him so. Give him a kiss now and
+then that isn’t just a peck on the cheek. But love
+with discretion. Don’t smother your husband with
+affection. Don’t surfeit him on it. Keep your love
+as a sweetener for matrimony. Don’t make it the
+whole diet. Remember that the most-loved husband
+in the world said: ‘Feed me with apples, stay me with
+flagons, for I am SICK of love.’</p>
+
+<p>“The fourth item in being a good wife is not to
+expect the impossible of your husband. Don’t demand
+that he be a demigod. Accept him as a poor,
+faulty human being, even as you are. Don’t have
+hysterics every time he topples off of the pedestal
+on which you have placed him. Help him up, dust
+him off and give him a seat beside you. Humor him
+in his funny little ways. Sidestep his little prejudices.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>
+Don’t argue with him when your opinions
+clash. Laugh at his blunders and sympathize with
+him when he makes mistakes, and he will make you
+his confidant and tell you the truth, which is the
+finest tribute that any man ever pays his wife.</p>
+
+<p>“Item five in being a good wife is to be appreciative.
+When the average man gets married he sells
+himself into bondage to his family. The remainder
+of his life he spends toiling to keep his wife and
+children soft and safe. And whether all this work
+and sacrifice is worth the price and is a glorious
+reward depends altogether on his wife’s attitude. If
+she takes it as nothing but her due, it is slavery.
+But if she lets him see every day in every way that
+she thinks that he is the finest and noblest man that
+ever lived, and that no be-medaled warrior has anything
+on him in heroism, it makes it all worth while
+and causes him to feel that being a husband and
+father is the finest career on earth.</p>
+
+<p>“Item six in being a good wife is to keep yourself
+good-natured. Tho you have all other virtues, yet
+are a high-tempered virago or a nagger, you will
+be a failure as a wife and your husband will curse
+the day he married you.</p>
+
+<p>“Item seven is to be a good sport. To take the
+bad with the good of matrimony without whining.
+Not to welch on your part of the work and sacrifices.
+To be willing to go where your husband’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>
+fortunes call him. To fight the battle with him
+shoulder to shoulder and never to give up the ship.</p>
+
+<p>“The next way to help your husband is by
+keeping yourself cheerful and optimistic. Nothing
+breaks down a man’s morale so quickly as having a
+wife who is whining and complaining, who reproaches
+him with not making as much money as other men
+do, and who lets him see that she does not believe
+in him. Now we can only do the things we think we
+can do, and when we kill a man’s faith in himself we
+have slain his ability to succeed. Ninety-nine husbands
+out of a hundred live up to their wives’ expectations
+of them. If their wives are always knocking
+them and discouraging them and wet-blanketing
+their every plan and prophesying failure, they fail.
+But if their wives are cheerful and optimistic; if
+they encourage them; if they believe in them, and
+make them believe in themselves, they succeed. They
+simply have to make good because their wives expect
+it. Most wives write their husbands’ price tags.
+Price yours high, and your husband will deliver the
+goods.</p>
+
+<p>“The next point in being a good wife is for the
+wife deliberately to make herself her husband’s best
+friend. That means that you must interest yourself
+in whatever interests him. First and foremost, you
+must take an interest in his business. Practically
+all men like to talk shop, but they can’t do it to
+women who yawn in their faces and who never take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>
+the trouble to learn the technique of the business
+out of which they get their living. A woman can
+help her husband not only by taking an interest in
+his business, but by making friends for him. Many
+a man is advertised into success by his charming
+wife, and many a man is bankrupted by his disagreeable
+and ill-mannered spouse. A woman can help
+her husband by using a little common sense in her
+attitude toward his business, and by being willing to
+make the sacrifices necessary to his success.</p>
+
+<p>“The woman who always speaks of her husband’s
+office as ‘that old office,’ and who resents his interest
+in his business and the time he devotes to it; the
+woman who will not let her husband leave a poor
+job with no future to it, to take a better one in
+which he could make his fortune, because it would
+take her away from mother and the girls and Main
+Street; the doctors’ and dentists’ wives who are
+jealous of their husbands’ patients, and the lawyer’s
+wife who blabs, are all first aids to their husbands’
+failure. Only a man of superhuman talent
+can succeed against the handicap of such a wife.</p>
+
+<p>“Then come the two specific ways in which a wife
+can help her husband, and which depend on the
+individual man. Some men have talent, but lack
+backbone. They are brilliant but weak. They get
+easily discouraged and need to be bucked up and
+flattered and admired continually. They are prone
+to give up, and they need a wife who will hold them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>
+to their purpose when they falter and waver. A
+wife can help this type of man best by being a little
+hard and very ambitious, by bracing him up with
+her own strength and literally pushing him on to
+success. The clinging vine, helpless sort of women
+bring out the best that is in other men. If their
+wives could stand on their own feet, their husbands
+would let them do it, but because their wives can do
+nothing but hang around their necks, they feel that
+they must fight to the death for them.</p>
+
+<p>“This is the reason that for the wife to be thrifty
+and saving is not always the best way to help a
+man. Because many a man has had to hustle to
+meet the demands of an extravagant wife he has
+made the effort that turned him into a millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>“But mostly, my dear, if you want to help your
+husband, just love him enough. Perhaps that is
+the best way of all.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLIII">XLIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">INVALIDISM A GRAFT</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Do</span> you ever think that it is dishonest to be
+sick when you might be well? It is just
+plain stealing. And it is the most despicable
+form of petty larceny, because it is robbing
+those who love you, and trust you and who are
+defenseless against you. They cannot lock up their
+sympathies, their peace of mind, their personal
+service, their money, safely away from your pilfering.
+Of course, there are many people who are
+really ill. Through no fault of their own, they are
+smitten by some terrible disease, and they deserve
+all that we can give of pity and help as they go
+stumbling down the agonized way to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>These words are not for them, but for that multitude
+of men and women with whom sickness is merely
+a graft, a camouflage for selfishness, and a blanket
+excuse with which they cover up all their sins of
+omission and commission, and that furnishes them
+a perfect alibi for doing everything they want to
+do, and leaving undone those things which they do
+not wish to do.</p>
+
+<p>Ninety per cent of all the sickness in the world is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>
+voluntary, or at least comes through contributory
+negligence. People are sick because they are not
+willing to make the sacrifices to keep well.</p>
+
+<p>And curiously enough they justify themselves by
+claiming that their own health is a personal matter.
+“If I make myself sick, I am the one who has to
+suffer,” they say. If this were true, far be it from
+the rest of us to interfere with their pleasures.
+But it isn’t true. No man or woman is sick to himself
+or herself alone. We have to listen to their
+groans. We have to minister to them. We have
+to do their work. We have to pay their doctor’s
+bills. We have to put up with their irritability and
+unreason because sickness is supposed to give people
+<em>carte blanche</em> to do and say all the things that well
+people do not dare to do. When ill health is an act
+of God, as shipping manifests say, and therefore
+beyond our control, it is one thing. When it is the
+result of weak self-indulgence it is another thing.
+Our sympathies and our assistance go out to the
+victim of tuberculosis or cancer, but we have nothing
+but contempt for the glutton who keeps himself
+sick from overeating.</p>
+
+<p>In every business house where women are employed
+there is such a large percentage of them absent
+from work on account of sickness, especially during
+the winter, that the question is often raised whether
+the delicate feminine constitution can stand the
+strain of commercial life. Stuff and nonsense! It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>
+isn’t the work that is hurting the girls. It is the
+way they dress and live.</p>
+
+<p>They feel that they have a perfect right to risk
+bad colds and pneumonia by coming to work on
+rainy, sloppy, sleety days in paper-soled satin
+pumps and chiffon stockings, and with not enough
+clothes on to keep an icicle warm. They consider it
+their own affair if they prefer to spend their money
+on an imported hat instead of on nourishing food.
+They think if they come to the office with a nervous
+headache that makes them blind and stupid with
+pain, and was brought on by too many nights of
+successive jazzing, it is a matter between them and
+the aspirin bottle alone. But it isn’t. They are not
+giving their employers a square deal. They are not
+giving them the services they pay for. They are
+upsetting the routine of the office, and laying the
+burden of their work on the shoulders of other
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the invalid wives you know! Dozens of
+them who have brought nervous prostration on
+themselves by overwork, or too many clubs and
+causes, or too much society. Don’t we all know
+women who go on orgies of housecleaning, or dressmaking,
+though they know perfectly well that every
+such debauch is going to end up in a spell of sickness
+which will call for doctors and trained nurses?
+Don’t we know women who wear themselves to tatters
+over church fairs and club campaigns? Don’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>
+we know women who play bridge every day until
+they are so nervous that they become unbearable at
+home and their husbands have to send them off to
+sanatoriums to get a little peace and rest themselves?
+We do.</p>
+
+<p>We marvel that these women never stop to consider
+how they are defrauding their families. They
+never consider what a wickedly dishonest thing it is
+to deprive a husband and children of a healthy,
+strong wife and mother, and give them a neurotic,
+irritable, cross, nerve-wrecked creature who makes
+the home about as cheerful as a grave-yard, and in
+which they have always to walk softly and speak in
+whispers for fear of disturbing the lady who has
+just gone to bed with a neuralgia headache.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is the large army of women who enjoy
+poor health, who are professional invalids for the
+simple reason that they are too lazy and indolent
+to make the effort to be well. They are quitters
+who literally take life lying down. They cultivate
+small ailments. They acquire the sanatorium habit,
+and they expect to be pitied and babied instead of
+being ostracized as dishonest grafters who snatch
+the very bread out of the mouths of their families
+to pay their unnecessary doctor’s bills. We all
+know dozens of these women who suffer from imaginary
+complaints, and we have seen many of them
+cured by their husband’s death, when they had to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>
+quit being sick, and go to work and support themselves.</p>
+
+<p>That is why I say that it is dishonest to be sick
+when you might be well.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLIV">XLIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">SELFISHNESS MADE TO ORDER</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“My</span> daughter is so selfish toward me,” wailed
+a mother to me the other day, “she never
+considers my comfort or happiness in any
+way whatever. Since the day she was born I have
+never had a thought except for her. I have given
+her the best of everything. I have worn old clothes
+in order that she might have fine new ones. I have
+done without the things I wanted that she might
+indulge her every desire. I have gone to the places
+that she wished to go to, instead of the places where
+I wished to go. I have cooked and sewed and
+waited upon her like a slave, but instead of appreciating
+all that I have done for her she takes it as
+a matter of course. She thinks any old cast-off is
+good enough for mother and never dreams of doing
+anything she doesn’t want to do for my pleasure.
+And that is my reward for all the sacrifices I have
+made for her!”</p>
+
+<p>“Say rather that, as the result of all the sacrifices
+that you have made for your daughter,” I replied,
+“your girl is just exactly what you have made her.
+You have put in twenty-two years of conscientious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>
+work in erecting a monument of selfishness, and you
+have no right to complain. You wouldn’t build a
+house of mud and garbage cans and expect it to be
+a white marble palace. How, then, can you expect
+to build up a child’s character with all the meanest
+characteristics of human nature and expect it to be
+fine and noble? Impossible. And that is the sort
+of miracle that you parents expect from your children
+when you demand that they shall be something
+totally different from the thing into which you have
+made them.</p>
+
+<p>“When your daughter was born, she was as plastic
+as clay in your hands. It was your privilege
+to mold her into any shape you pleased. You could
+have taught her to be unselfish, to be considerate, to
+think of other people, to love and honor and respect
+you. Instead of that, from her first conscious moment,
+you taught her to despise you, to think you
+of no account and not worth considering. You
+taught her to think only of herself, of her own
+pleasures and desires, and to get what she wanted
+at any cost to others. Now you whine because your
+teaching has borne fruit. You are unjust and unreasonable.
+What we sow, we reap inevitably. If
+you make yourself a doormat before your children,
+they will walk over you and kick you about, because
+they naturally think that you know where you belong
+in the household and have taken your proper
+place.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span></p>
+
+<p>“They would just as naturally have looked up to
+you if you had placed yourself on a pedestal above
+them and demanded to be worshiped. Children
+don’t reason about their parents. They just accept
+them as they are and hold them cheap, or dear,
+according to the way the mother and father value
+themselves. I have no tears to shed over the sorrows
+of mothers who have selfish and ungrateful
+daughters, because every time it is the mother’s own
+fault. She is to blame, not the girl.</p>
+
+<p>“If she had spent part of the clothes money on
+getting herself some pretty frocks, instead of lavishing
+it all on daughter, daughter would be proud
+of mother instead of being ashamed of her. If she
+had made daughter help with the housework and the
+sewing, instead of slaving over the cookstove and
+the sewing machine so that daughter might go free,
+daughter would think about saving mother and
+doing things for her. If she had asserted her rights
+to her own personal tastes and pleasures, instead
+of letting daughter’s tastes and pleasures rule the
+household, daughter would show her some consideration
+and remember mother’s likes and dislikes, and
+cater to them. There are mothers who are queens
+in their families, just as there are mothers who are
+nothing but the maid-of-all-work in their homes, and
+it rests with every mother to decide which she will
+be. It is the queen mothers who are loved and appreciated,
+and who have dutiful, unselfish children.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>
+The drudge mother gets only the wages of the
+drudge from her children.</p>
+
+<p>“In reality, the mother who rears her children up
+to be monsters of selfishness has no right to expect
+appreciation and gratitude from them because she
+has done them as ill a turn as one human being can
+do another. She has warped their characters. She
+has developed in them traits that mar their happiness
+and are a handicap to success. She has made
+them egotists, and they are never satisfied and continually
+at variance with those about them. In particular
+is selfishness a blight upon a woman’s life,
+for the selfish woman finds it almost impossible to
+make the sacrifices that wifehood and motherhood
+demand of her. One of the main reasons why divorce
+is so prevalent is because when so many selfish
+girls find that they can’t treat their husbands as
+they did their mothers, they throw up their hands
+and quit.</p>
+
+<p>“And so,” I said to the mother of the selfish
+daughter, “you are unfair to your daughter. Don’t
+blame her for being what you made her. What else
+could you expect?”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLV">XLV<br>
+<span class="fs70">SELF-CONTROL</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">If</span> I were to go to a mother who was cradling her
+babe on her breast, and tell her that I knew a
+magic formula by which she could insure power,
+and prosperity, and happiness to her child, she
+would impoverish herself to purchase this knowledge
+from me, and fall on her knees and bless me for
+having given it to her.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I know just such a bit of white magic. In
+her secret soul every mother herself knows it, but
+ninety-nine times out of a hundred she is either too
+weak or too lazy to use it.</p>
+
+<p>This charm that would have changed all life for
+innumerable people; that would have kept men out
+of prisons, and women out of brothels; that would
+have turned paupers into rich men; made the unsuccessful
+successful and stopped the wheels of the
+divorce court—consists simply in teaching children
+self-control.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every misfortune under which humanity
+suffers goes straight back to that. There is hardly
+a derelict in the world who cannot say: “I would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>
+not be what I am if my mother had taught me to
+control myself.”</p>
+
+<p>For it is lack of self-control that is at the bottom
+of most of our sins of omission and commission.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the murderer going to the death chair.
+Not once in a thousand times is he a cold-blooded
+murderer; but he was a high-tempered child whose
+mother never taught him to control himself. There
+came a day when something irritated him more than
+usual and, aflame with anger, he took a fellow
+creature’s life. It is the supreme manifestation of
+the same spirit that made him kick the chair against
+which he stumbled as a child and beat with impotent
+little fists all who thwarted him.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the drunkard wallowing in the gutter.
+He is there because his mother never taught him to
+control his appetites. He is the logical outgrowth
+of the greedy little boy who was permitted to gorge
+himself on cake and candy until it made him ill.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the poor, shabby, out-at-elbows man who
+has drifted from job to job all his life, and has
+never been able to make a decent support for himself
+and his family. He is his mother’s handiwork.
+She put the curse of incompetence on him when she
+let him give up every undertaking the moment he
+struck the hard sledding in it.</p>
+
+<p>He changed from one school to another because
+the lessons were too difficult, or the teacher was too
+strict. When he started to work, he left one place<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>
+because the hours were too long, another because his
+boss was too exacting. He tried a dozen different
+occupations that he left because he found they had
+unpleasant features and involved doing uncongenial
+tasks. He is a down-and-outer because his mother
+never taught him the self-control that makes a man
+set his teeth and go through with the business to
+which he has put his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the girls who go astray. Not one of “the
+sorrowful sisterhood” as the Japanese pitifully call
+them, but who is what she is because her mother did
+not teach her self-control. Did the girl sin because
+she was so weak and so in love with some vicious
+libertine that she listened to her heart instead of
+her head? Her mother could have saved her from
+a fate worse than death if she had taught her to
+control her emotions, instead of being ruled by them.</p>
+
+<p>Did the girl sell her soul for fine clothes, and
+good times? Again the mother’s fault for not teaching
+the girl self-control, and to do without the
+things that she could not honestly get.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the poor old people who are dependent
+on their children, or the grudging charity of relatives
+and friends. In how many cases is their unhappy
+fate simply the result of their lack of self-control!
+They have had their chance of fortune.
+As long as the man was able to work he made plenty
+of money, and they lived luxuriously, but they spent
+everything as they went along. They laid up nothing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>
+for their rainy day, and when it came, it found
+them paupers and parasites. The difference between
+dependence and independence, between comfort and
+misery in your old age depends upon how much
+self-control you have had in your youth.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the ever increasing number of divorces.
+Look at the forlorn half-orphan children, and
+broken up homes. Look at the unhappy married
+couples you know. What is the real cause of all
+this domestic trouble? Merely that mothers do not
+teach their children self-control. They raise up
+spoiled, selfish daughters who never consider a thing
+in life but their own pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>They raised up spoiled, selfish sons who have
+never considered another human being but themselves.
+These two, with undisciplined wills, unrestrained
+tempers, undirected impulses, marry each
+other, and they fight like cats and dogs. Observation
+shows that either a husband or a wife who controls
+himself or herself can save almost any marriage,
+and it takes no prophet to foretell that mothers
+could insure their children’s domestic happiness
+by teaching them iron bound self-control.</p>
+
+<p>You can teach a baby three weeks old self-control
+by refusing to give it the thing it howls for. Say
+to the toddler that falls and bumps its nose, “Mother’s
+brave boy doesn’t cry,” and it will bite back the
+sobs. It will yell the roof off if you pity it. A
+child of three will be obedient, cheerful, respectful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>
+of the rights of others, or he will be a little demon,
+according to the way his mother has brought him up.</p>
+
+<p>If she has taught him self-control, she has given
+him the magic that works all the miracles of life,
+and if she hasn’t, she has done him the greatest
+wrong that any human being can possibly do to
+another human being.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLVI">XLVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">OLD FATHERS AND NEW DAUGHTERS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“O dear</span> Miss Dix,” wails a little flapper,
+“won’t you please help me? Won’t you
+please try to make my father understand
+that I must do as people do now, instead of doing
+the way that he did when he was young? I’ve got
+the best daddy in the world, and I love him with all
+my heart; but he is ruining my life trying to make
+me the sort of girl that he says mother was. And
+I’m not mother. I am myself, and I don’t live thirty
+years ago. I live now, and I have to be a model girl
+of now or else a back-number at whom nobody will
+look and whom nobody wants. Father says he is an
+old-fashioned father, and he is trying to make me
+an old-fashioned girl. I never have any up-to-the-minute
+clothes because mother didn’t wear short
+skirts and no corsets and bob her hair. I can’t go
+joy-riding with a crowd because they didn’t have
+automobiles when father was young. I have to be
+home at 11 o’clock when I go out in the evening
+because he says that he never stayed out late when
+he was young.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I can’t dance because father didn’t jazz and he
+doesn’t think the modern dances respectable. He
+won’t let me read any of the six best sellers because
+he doesn’t approve of modern literature, and he
+makes me read old-fashioned books that I almost
+yawn my head off over. And he just simply loathes
+all the boys who come to see me. Calls them sapheads,
+and he wonders why I want to waste my time
+talking nonsense with little jellybeans such as they
+are. He says it is just appalling to see how youth
+has deteriorated since his day, and that when he was
+young the boys and girls were all serious-minded
+young people, who cared only for rational amusements,
+and that instead of chasing around to cabarets
+they spent the evening at home in intelligent
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose we young ones are a poor lot compared
+to what our parents were; but such as we are,
+we are. In Rome you have to do as the Romans do
+or else you get left. I want to play with the other
+girls and boys, but I can’t unless I play the way
+they do. My father is always talking about home
+being woman’s proper sphere, and wifehood and
+motherhood being a woman’s noblest career. But
+how am I to get married if I am never permitted to
+have any dates with boys? You might just as well
+lock a girl up in a stone cell and throw away the
+key as not to let her do what the other girls are
+doing. There are too many pretty girls, with lots<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>
+of fun and pep in them, that the boys can run
+around with, for them to take the trouble to hunt
+up one that is laid up on the shelf and labeled ‘old-fashioned.’
+And when I tell my father this he gets
+angry and I cry, and I don’t know what to do because
+I don’t want to disobey him and I don’t want
+to waste my youth sticking around at home and
+having no pleasure.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas, my dear,” I said, “your father is trying
+to foist his ideals on you, just as his father tried
+to foist his ideals on him. Each generation tries to
+do it and each makes dark prophecies about what
+the present generation is coming to. Your grandfather
+thought bustles just as dreadful as your
+father thinks rolled stockings are. Your grandfather
+disapproved of side-bar buggies just as much
+as your father does of automobiles. Your grandfather
+considered the waltz just as indecent as your
+father does shimmying. Your grandfather thought
+your father should only read Shakespeare and Richardson,
+and considered Dickens frivolous, just as
+your father thinks you ought to read Dickens instead
+of ‘The Sheik.’ And your grandfather told
+your father how superior the young men of his day
+were, and how they spent their time in improving
+their minds and always went to bed with the chickens,
+and how they doted on intellectual conversation,
+just as his father told him and great-great-great-great-grandfather
+told his son.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p>
+
+<p>“And it is all stuff and nonsense. Not a word of
+it has ever been true. Each succeeding generation
+of young people have been pleasure-loving and
+laughter-loving and foolish, and have danced and
+played and skylarked. And all the difference is
+that their games have taken on different phases in
+different ages. It is a pity that fathers and mothers
+cannot remember this. If they did and would look
+on with sympathy and understanding, they could
+keep close enough to their children to know what
+they are doing and to stretch out a hand and hold
+them steady when they start to go wild, and to
+snatch them back when they get too near to the
+edge of the pit. For youth will be served. Youth
+must have its fling. High spirits must find a vent.
+Suppress these with the heavy hand of authority and
+something blows up.</p>
+
+<p>“Lock a girl in her room, and she will climb out
+of the window. Forbid her to see boys at home, and
+she will meet them on the street. Refuse to let her
+go to nice dances, and she will slip away to low
+dance halls. The wildest and most reckless girls
+are invariably those with the strictest parents. The
+young people of to-day live in the world of to-day
+and must do as they do to-day. Parents must recognize
+that and deal with them on that platform if
+they wish to do their duty by their children.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLVII">XLVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">LOSING A WIFE’S LOVE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">One</span> of the most curious superstitions in the
+world is the childlike belief that men have
+in the indestructibility of women’s love.
+They visualize the feminine heart as a sort of perpetual-motion
+machine that, once they press the
+button and set it to work, goes on automatically
+pumping up affection for them as long as they
+live, and they think that nothing they do or say
+ever interferes with its functioning. In a word, they
+believe that if a man wins a woman’s love it is his
+for keeps. He can’t lose it or mislay it. The poor
+thing has no choice but to go on adoring him to the
+end, because she is built that way. It is a comfortable
+and consoling theory, and men take liberties
+with it, but the trouble is that it isn’t true. In
+reality, women are just as fickle as men are, and
+just as few women as men are capable of a deep and
+abiding love. Women’s fancies are just as unstable
+as men’s. They are just as much lured by a handsome
+face and fall as easily for a smooth line of
+soft talk. And there are just as many wives who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>
+get tired of their husbands as there are husbands
+who are weary of their wives.</p>
+
+<p>The only difference between the sexes in the matter
+is that women face the situation, while men shut
+their eyes to it and refuse to recognize that it exists.
+Every woman knows that because a man was in love
+with her when he married her is no indication that
+he is going to remain in love with her to the end of
+the chapter. She knows that if she keeps her husband’s
+affection she has to be up and doing, and on
+the job. That is why there are millions of women
+undergoing all the agonies of slow starvation trying
+to maintain a girlish figure; why millions are boiled
+alive and thumped and scalped in beauty parlors,
+and why the nation spends more a year for face
+paint than it does for house paint, and why, wherever
+we go, we see fat, middle-aged, bread-and-butter
+wives attempting to look like flappers and acquire
+the technique of the vamp in order to keep their
+husbands nailed to their own firesides.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently, however, it never occurs to a man
+that there is the slightest necessity to make any
+effort to keep his wife fascinated and to prevent her
+eyes from roaming around in search of a sheik. He
+may be bay-windowed and bald, but if he reduces it
+is only on his doctor’s orders, and not because he
+wants to look boyish to his wife. And he never buys
+a toupee until after he becomes a widower and begins
+to take notice again. The idea that his wife<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>
+might cease to love him actually never crosses the
+average man’s mind. He is convinced that she
+couldn’t do it. It is some peculiarity of the feminine
+constitution that makes a woman go on loving
+what has become unlovable. Now, with a man it is
+different, of course. He realizes that he couldn’t
+stay very long in love with a woman who was
+slouchy, and sloppy, and untidy looking, who came
+to breakfast in a dirty kimono and run down at the
+heel slippers. Nor would he take much interest in
+kissing a cheek smeared with cold cream.</p>
+
+<p>But he doesn’t see why his wife shouldn’t still
+regard him as a romantic figure when he goes around
+in a soiled shirt and a rumpled collar, with grease
+spots on his coat and trousers that bag at the knees,
+and offers to her lips a countenance with a two days’
+stubble of beard on it.</p>
+
+<p>A man knows well enough that, as far as he is
+concerned, the only way to keep the love fires burning
+is to keep piling the fuel on it and pouring over
+it the oil of flattery and praise. But he thinks that
+you don’t have to put any more fuel on the fire of a
+woman’s heart, because it is a flame that miraculously
+replenishes itself. So after he marries he
+never bothers to show her any attention, or to pay
+her any compliments, or to tell her that he loves her,
+or give any indication that he regards her as anything
+but a piece of useful household furniture. If
+any woman ever treated him that way his affection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>
+would mighty soon starve to death, but he never has
+the slightest apprehension that his wife’s love will
+perish on the same meager rations.</p>
+
+<p>There are men who abuse their wives, who swear
+at them, and curse them, and speak to them as if
+they were dogs. There are men whose wives live
+in trembling fear of their tempers. There are men
+who are stingy and who do not give to their wives,
+who spend their lives slaving for them, the poorest
+wage of an ill-paid servant. Yet these men go on
+believing that their wives still love them because they
+loved them in the days of courtship, when they were
+handsome, gallant, and neat, and attractive, and
+loving, and flattering, and generous, and considerate
+swains.</p>
+
+<p>Such men befool themselves by thinking that they
+cannot kill a woman’s love. Never was there a
+greater mistake. A woman’s love is as delicate and
+as fragile a thing as a flower that you can crush with
+a finger. And it takes never-ending skill, and care,
+and cherishing to keep it alive. You can kill it with
+disgust. You can kill it with unkindness. You can
+kill it with injustice. You can kill it with neglect,
+and it would surprise many a man who still believes
+that his wife loves him in spite of the way he has
+treated her, in spite of his indifference to her, to
+know that her love for him has been dead so long
+that she has almost forgotten that she ever cared
+for him at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span></p>
+
+<p>So I warn you, Mr. Man, not to put any faith in
+the theory that you can’t kill a woman’s love.
+Women are like men; they only love the lovable.
+And if you wish to retain your wife’s affections,
+you have got to continue after marriage the same
+tactics you used in winning her.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLVIII">XLVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE LURE OF THE MARRIED MAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A man</span> wants to know why married men have
+such a fascination for girls, and wherein
+a benedict’s wooing differs from that of a
+bachelor. The first part of this double-barreled
+question was answered by Eve in the Garden of
+Eden, and every girl takes after her greatest grandmother.
+Married men are forbidden fruit, and that
+alone whets the appetite of the foolish little Evelyns
+for them, and makes them seem the prize pippins of
+the whole matrimonial orchard. The thing that a
+woman cannot have, that she has no right to have,
+and especially the thing that some other woman possesses,
+is always the thing that she wants most. If
+you have ever watched women fight over a commonplace
+and unattractive article on a bargain table,
+where each was determined to have it just because
+the others desired it, you have the psychological explanation
+of why a girl falls for a married man that
+she wouldn’t look at if he were single.</p>
+
+<p>Also, women are the adventurous sex. They love
+to play with danger as a child plays with fire, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>
+a large part of the lure of the married man consists
+in the fact that a girl knows that when she has an
+affair with one, she is risking every shred of her
+reputation, and gambling with her happiness, and
+that any minute she may be cited as a corespondent,
+and dragged into the slime of the divorce courts.</p>
+
+<p>Also, the average girl is simply slopping over
+with romance, and somehow she gets more kick out
+of being wooed under the rose than she does in an
+above board, honest-to-God courtship. There is
+something about the secrecy of a love intrigue with
+a married man, about the surreptitious letters,
+about the stolen rendezvous, that thrills her to the
+core of her being. It makes her feel so desperately
+wicked, like one of the grand passion heroines of
+her favorite novels, who cried “All for love, and the
+world well lost” as she chucked her bonnet over the
+windmill.</p>
+
+<p>It is because the married man is the only man in
+the world who is out of her reach, and whom she has
+no right to try to grab; it is because some other
+woman has set her seal of approval on him by marrying
+him; it is because an illicit love episode is a
+streak of lurid romance in her drab days, that the
+little Totties and Flossies are able to see the hero
+of their girlish dreams in the fat, bald-headed, middle-aged
+men for whom they work, and the Mauds
+and Gwendolyns imagine that they have found their
+affinities in some ordinary commonplace married<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>
+man, who would bore them to tears if his wedding
+ring had not given him a fictitious value in their
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Add to this, vanity and cruelty. In the man
+hunt, women look on the married man as big game,
+and when they bring one down they feel as if they
+had captured an elephant instead of having shot a
+tame rabbit. There are girls who boast of their conquests
+among married men, and who have so little
+heart that they delight in watching the agonies of
+jealousy that they inflict on the poor defenseless
+wife. Many young women are likewise gold-diggers,
+and these virtually confine their attentions to married
+men, as wealthy bachelors are few and well-to-do
+middle-aged married men are plentiful and easy.</p>
+
+<p>Why the married man who starts out as a
+Lothario is an easy winner of feminine hearts is
+perfectly obvious. To begin with, he has the same
+advantage that the widower has over the single man.
+He is a professional, so to speak, instead of an
+amateur lover. He has the education in women
+that only marriage can give a man, for he has had
+a wife and, like the wise man of Kipling’s poem, he
+“learned about women from her.” He has found
+out that all women are so hungry for love that they
+will swallow any soft talk without examining its
+quality. He has found out that you can jolly a
+woman into anything. He has found out that
+women melt down into a mush that you can do with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>
+as you will, under a little understanding and sympathy.
+He has found out that if you remember an
+anniversary, and a woman’s taste in two or three
+things, she will believe it an absolute proof of undying
+devotion.</p>
+
+<p>The married man knows that there is one sure
+short cut to virtually every woman’s heart. It is
+pity. And so he begins his love-making by telling
+the girl that his wife does not understand him, that
+she is not his real soul-mate, that they have nothing
+in common, and that his home is bleak, and barren,
+and unhappy. Generally he accuses his wife of being
+a human iceberg, while he is a perfect geyser of love
+and tenderness. And then he moans: “Oh, why did
+we not meet in time?” And the poor little idiot of
+a girl undertakes the consolation rôle.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, all of this effective love play is more
+or less impossible to the bachelor. He lacks the technique
+of the married man. He cannot appeal to a
+woman’s sympathies, or pose before her in the rôle
+of a martyr. He can only make love in the commonplace
+old way, and it cramps his style. But
+the real reason that the married man is a devil
+among women is just the same old reason that made
+Eve listen to the serpent.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XLIX">XLIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">FORGET IT</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Every</span> day some girl writes me that she is
+young, quite as pretty as the other girls
+about her, that she dresses as well, and
+makes as good an appearance as they do, and
+strives to please, but that no man ever pays her
+the slightest attention, or asks her to step out with
+him of an evening. Then this girl goes on to say
+that she is a business girl, but she doesn’t make a
+very good salary, and she is discouraged, and blue,
+and wants to know what to do.</p>
+
+<p>My advice to a girl in this situation—and there
+are millions of her—is to forget men. Give up the
+struggle to attract them. Quit trying to catch one.
+Renounce romance. Throw away all thoughts of
+marriage. Just accept the fact that nature did not
+put you in the vamp class, and play your game of
+life from that angle.</p>
+
+<p>This counsel will be a bitter pill for the girl to
+swallow, but she will find it good medicine that will
+work a speedy and permanent cure, if she will try
+it on herself. Why certain women are magnets that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>
+draw every man they meet to them, and why nothing
+in trousers except upon compulsion ever goes
+near other women just as good looking, just as
+charming in every way, is one of the mysteries nobody
+has ever solved. Nor has anyone ever been
+able to suggest a remedy for this state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>The fast steamship, the lightning express, the
+aeroplane, have annihilated distance, but human ingenuity
+has failed to invent any device to make a
+boy go to see the girl next door if he doesn’t want
+to go. Science has torn its secrets from the earth,
+but it cannot find out what quality it is in woman
+that attracts men. It has invented chemicals that
+work magic in the physical world, but it has never
+discovered a reliable love philter.</p>
+
+<p>So that’s that. And it is a wise girl who has the
+courage to look herself in the face, and see whether
+she has the “come hither” look in her eye, and if
+she hasn’t, to recognize the fact, and devote herself
+to a more promising occupation than chasing men,
+who, in the end, always make their getaway, unless
+they desire to be caught.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I would urge the girl who does not
+make a spontaneous hit with men, to quit wasting
+her time and her energies in the vain attempt to
+decoy them into noticing her, and to put all that lost
+motion and force into her work, where she will get
+better results.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me, if the girl who does not attract men,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>
+tried as hard to sell herself to her job as she does
+to sell herself socially, she would not have to complain
+long of holding a small position. She would
+be a highly paid secretary, or buyer, or department
+manager.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl who does not attract men, studied her
+employer’s moods and tenses as earnestly as she
+does those of some little jellybean, and if she was as
+anxious to please her employer as she is to please
+the jazz hounds and cakeaters she meets, she would
+find herself one of the valued employees who are
+always spoken of reverentially as “our Miss So-and so.”</p>
+
+<p>If the girl who never has a date would put in
+one hundredth part of the intensive study on her
+work that she gives to the technique of the popular
+girl, and to trying to find out something about the
+psychology of customers or the history of the goods
+she handles, or the details of the business she is
+employed in, she would have employers fighting over
+her.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, if the girl who is not popular with
+men would concentrate her thoughts, her interests,
+and her ambitions, on getting ahead in the occupation
+she has chosen, instead of wasting her time and
+energies in a fruitless attempt to charm men, she
+would be a success instead of a failure; she would
+be happy instead of miserable.</p>
+
+<p>As it is now she falls between the stools. She is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>
+a poor makeshift in her job, who gets nowhere,
+because her one desire, her one ambition, her one
+aim in life is to attract men and catch a husband,
+and she is miserable, and discouraged, and bitter,
+and disgruntled, because she is balked in that attempt.
+And she is a siren without allure who never
+arrives at the altar, so she fails both as a business
+woman, and in her effort to catch a husband.</p>
+
+<p>This is a great pity, because while love and marriage
+are highly desirable blessings to come into a
+woman’s life, they are not the whole of life. The
+world is full of such a lot of things besides sentiment.
+There is independence, the freedom to come
+and go as one pleases. There is the exhilarating
+sport of climbing up the ladder of success, which
+has a million thrills for every round. There is the
+solid satisfaction of achievement. There is the good
+job that keeps one on one’s tiptoes so that one never
+has a dull moment. There is the happiness that
+comes of being employed in constructive work.
+There is one’s own home, with one’s own pots, and
+pans, and doilies, if one wants them.</p>
+
+<p>Take it from me, girls, the woman who espouses
+a career does not get the worst husband there is.
+She has a life companion from whom she never has
+to wheedle the pennies. She never has to listen to
+any back talk or criticisms. She is never afraid of
+this companion getting tired and running off after
+flappers. It is only the lucky women, who make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>
+exceptional marriages, who are as well off as the
+business girls who do not marry.</p>
+
+<p>Furthermore, there is this comfort to be given
+the girl who quits trying to attract men, and gets
+busy with her job. Men are contrary creatures.
+Pursue them, and they flee from you. Lay traps,
+and they walk wide of them. But let them alone,
+indicate that you are indifferent to them; that you
+are concerned with your own affairs in which they
+have no part; let them realize that you can get on
+quite well without them, and it piques their interest.
+They come flocking around of their own accord to
+see what manner of woman you are.</p>
+
+<p>Also the girl who makes something of herself, and
+who rises high in her profession is thrown with the
+men at the top, the men of brains, and they are
+often attracted to her while the silly little boys with
+whom she used to play about were not.</p>
+
+<p>So I say again to the girls who are not attractive
+to men, stop wasting your time in the useless attempt
+to vamp men. Put your heart and your soul
+into your job. Work is the consolation prize God
+gives us when we miss getting the thing we wanted
+most.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="L">L<br>
+<span class="fs70">LOST LOVE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Many</span> women ask me how they can regain
+the love of some man which they have lost.
+Sometimes, a girl tells me, weeping, of a
+once ardent lover who has become cold and neglectful,
+who no longer comes to see her, and she wants
+to know how to bring him back, and make him once
+more crazy about her.</p>
+
+<p>Oftenest, however, it is a wife who seeks desperately
+for some magic whereby she can light again
+the love fires in the heart of a husband who has
+ceased to care for her, who is tired of her, and who
+does not even take the trouble to hide from her the
+fact that he regards her as a burden, of which he
+would rid himself if he could.</p>
+
+<p>It is the tragedy of these women that they are
+doomed to love men after the men no longer love
+them. Not even neglect, and insult, and faithlessness,
+kill their affection for those on whom they have
+set their foolish, doglike hearts. So they cling with
+desperate hands to the men who are trying to break
+away from them, hoping against hope, praying some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>
+miracle will happen that will give them back their
+lost love.</p>
+
+<p>But their prayers are never answered. The
+miracle never happens. No sorcerer can teach a
+woman how to weave a spell a second time about
+a man. The love potions that the credulous buy
+from fortune tellers, never work, and though a
+woman conjure never so deftly, she cannot bring
+back the heart that has slipped out of her keeping.</p>
+
+<p>For of all dead things, nothing is so dead as dead
+love. No power can breathe into it again the breath
+of life, and make it a vital thing once more.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know why we love. We do not know
+why some particular man or woman makes a peculiar
+appeal that makes us prefer him or her to all
+the other men and women in the world. We do not
+know why the touch of certain hands thrill us; why
+the quirk of a smile, or the look in an eye, draws us;
+why we have a sense of comradeship with certain
+individuals; why some man or woman fascinates us;
+or why we desire one man or woman more than
+another, who may be better looking, more intelligent,
+more worthy in every way.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do we any more know why we cease to love
+than we know why we love. We do not know why
+the touch of the hand that has thrilled us ceases to
+thrill; nor why the charm that was once so potent
+vanishes into thin air, nor why the fascination flees,
+and the one who once held us enthralled becomes a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>
+bore who wearies us to tears. It just happens, and
+we are as helpless before one situation as before
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>There are not many men who are cruel enough to
+find sport in breaking a woman’s heart, and who deliberately
+win a girl’s love, and play with it, and
+fling it away. There are not many husbands who
+would not remain their wives’ eternal lovers, if it
+was in their power to control their affections. That
+was their romantic dream when they married. That
+way their happiness lay, and they would have kept
+their romance had it been a matter of their own
+volition.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the disillusion came. The glory
+and the circling wings departed. Somehow their
+wives lost their allure for them, and strive as they
+might, they could not see them again with the eyes
+of a lover, or bring back their charm. Many a
+man would be just as glad to fall in love again
+with his wife as she would be to have him fall in love
+with her once more, but he cannot do it. You cannot
+fan dead ashes into a flame.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps if wives realized how impossible it is to
+resurrect a dead love, they would guard the living
+love more carefully, and run fewer risks of killing it.
+They would not take the chance of disillusioning
+their husbands by going about sloppy and slovenly
+at home, and thus presenting a fatal contrast to the
+trimly dressed women in their offices, and the beautified<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>
+ladies they meet in society. They would reflect
+that no man would have much appetite for domestic
+kisses when flavored with cold cream, and that if
+a wife wishes to be regarded as a ladylove, she must
+look the part instead of resembling a sack of potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>And they would see to it that love is not assassinated
+on their hearthstones by ceaseless, senseless
+quarrels, by whining, and complaining, and nagging,
+and petty tyrannies. Nor would they permit love
+to die of that commonest and most deadly ailment,
+boredom. For if a woman can interest her husband
+enough before marriage to make him pick her out
+from all the rest of the world for his life partner,
+she can interest him enough to hold him until the
+end of the chapter if she is willing to take the trouble
+and perform the labor necessary to do so.</p>
+
+<p>If, though, a woman, through carelessness or
+ignorance, has lost the love of the man she loves,
+there is absolutely no way in which she can win it
+back. Through duty or a sense of honor she may
+hold his body, but his soul has gone from her forever,
+and she is wise if she accepts the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>If she is a girl, she should let the sweetheart who
+is tired of her go, instead of trying to hold him.
+Some other man she may make love her, but not the
+old one for whom she has lost her charm.</p>
+
+<p>If she is a married woman whose husband has
+ceased to love her, let her agonize no more over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>
+impossible task of reviving his passion for her. Let
+her fill her life with other interests and thank God
+that there are so many other pleasant things in
+the world besides love.</p>
+
+<p>For of this she may rest assured. There is no
+reviving of dead love. When once we have lost our
+taste for a person everything is over. It is finished,
+as the French say.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LI">LI<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE SHOW WEDDING</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> Turks have passed a law prohibiting
+elaborate and costly marriage ceremonials,
+and forbidding the giving of expensive wedding
+presents. What a pity that we cannot have
+such an edict issued in this country! For there is
+no other one thing that would do more to allay
+heartburnings and jealousies, prevent nervous prostration
+and bankruptcy, and promote peace and
+thrift than to officially “can” the show wedding.</p>
+
+<p>In all fairness, we must admit that the display
+wedding is a feminine vice. No man, probably, ever
+really yearned to make a public exhibition of himself
+as he was being led as a lamb to the slaughter.
+But by the time she is ten years old the average
+girl has begun planning her wedding and deciding
+whether she will have a big church affair, with ushers
+and flower girls and ring-bearers and maids and
+matrons of honor and bridesmaids and a white satin
+dress and a real lace veil, and all the other flubdubs,
+or whether she will be married at home under
+a floral canopy, with an admiring audience fenced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>
+off from her by white ribbons. And to realize this
+ten-minute splurge she is ready to ruthlessly ruin
+her family and half kill herself. If she doesn’t get
+it, she goes through life feeling that she has missed
+her big moment. It is from this silly, dopey daydream
+that women should be rescued by law, since
+few of them have the common sense and good taste
+to put it aside themselves.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, it would do away with the disgraceful,
+barefaced holdups that precede weddings.
+These are camouflaged under the appropriate name
+of “showers,” for they cause every friend of an engaged
+girl to shed salt and bitter tears at the realization
+of how much they will be mulcted for in
+silk-stocking showers, and handkerchief showers, and
+towel showers, and kitchen showers, and all the
+other showers that go to make up a bridal deluge.
+It would also prevent that sinking feeling at the pit
+of the stomach with which we are attacked at sight
+of a large, thick white envelope in the mail. We
+know that it means a “stand-and-deliver” present,
+which somehow always comes just at a time when
+the rent is overdue, or a doctor bill has to be paid,
+or we had saved up a little money by pinching
+economies to buy a new hat or suit.</p>
+
+<p>It isn’t that we are stingy or mean, or that we begrudge
+a gift to a friend. It is only that we would
+like to give when we can do so freely, and enjoy the
+giving, instead of having to give at a time when it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>
+is actually dishonest to bestow a present. Why, I
+have known people who had to put off needed dental
+work or taking a sick child to the country when
+three or four wedding presents fell together. The
+wedding gift was a debt of honor. “They sent us
+a set of salad forks.” “She gave us a clock when
+we were married,” and it had to be returned in
+kind. The abolition of the show wedding would
+prolong the days of many a poor, old, hard-worked
+father, whose daughter’s trousseau is the straw that
+breaks the camel’s back.</p>
+
+<p>It is not because she needs them, or has any use
+for them, that Sally Ann, who is a poor girl marrying
+a poor young man, has to have piles of orchid
+chiffon undergarments, hand-embroidered and belaced
+and beribboned. It is because they are to be
+displayed to her catty friends, who will finger them,
+and appraise them, and criticize them, and then go
+home wondering how her father is ever going to pay
+for them. If her lingerie were not Exhibit A at the
+wedding Sally Ann would go along and provide herself
+with a reasonable amount of underwear that
+would stand wear and washing, and not run papa
+into debt.</p>
+
+<p>But Sally Ann has to have her show wedding.
+She has to trail up the church aisle in her white
+satin and her tulle veil, and all the rest of it. And
+by the time father has paid for the church and the
+flowers, and the bridesmaid’s presents, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>
+reception, and the automobiles, he has had to borrow
+money at the bank and has saddled himself with a
+debt that bends his back a little more, and puts new
+lines in his face, and adds to his burden in work and
+worry, which was already more than he could bear.
+And it has all been for a few minutes’ flaunting of
+herself in the face of an audience of people who
+smiled and nudged each other, and said: “Did you
+ever see her look so homely? Brides always look
+their worst.” “Wonder what he ever saw in her to
+make him pick her out.” “Is that the bridegroom?
+Looks like a scared rabbit.” “How on earth do you
+suppose her father will ever pay for this? Everybody
+knows he can’t afford it,” and so on, and so on.
+Just what everybody says at a wedding.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, the abolition of the show wedding and
+the saving of the foolish expenditure it involved
+would enable many a young couple to set up housekeeping
+out of debt; and, best of all, they would
+begin life simply and honestly, and with the admiration
+and gratitude of all who know them. Getting
+married is the crucial act in a man’s and woman’s
+life. It is the most awful and solemn thing they
+ever do. And why they want to have a thousand
+curious eyes peering at them when they take the
+step that is going to plunge them into hell or lift
+them into heaven passes comprehension. It would
+not be more incongruous to send out invitations to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>
+people to come and watch you die than it is to come
+and see you married.</p>
+
+<p>Wise that young couple who simply slip around
+to the parson and make their vows at the altar, with
+no one but God to look on.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LII">LII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WHEN YOUR CHILDREN ARE GLAD YOU DIE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Parents</span> seem to run to extremes. Of the
+common, or garden, variety of fathers and
+mothers there appears to be two types. One
+is the overindulgent, which lavishes too much money,
+too many fine clothes, too many motorcars on its
+offspring, and that brings up its children to be idle
+and worthless wasters and spenders. The other
+type of parent is the Spartan one that is as hard
+as nails, unsympathetic, close-fisted; that denies its
+children every indulgence, and that holds to the
+theory that the harder it makes life for the young
+the better it is for them. Both schools of thought
+are wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly, parents make a very great mistake
+when they sacrifice everything to their children and
+make doormats of themselves for their children to
+walk on. They weaken their sons and daughters by
+pampering them too much and by standing between
+them and the struggle that alone makes muscle of
+body and soul, and they do their children a cruel
+injustice by cultivating in them extravagant tastes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
+and habits that perhaps they cannot later on give
+them the money to gratify. Certainly it is an unedifying
+spectacle to behold, as we often do, a
+mother in patched, made-over clothes, while her
+daughters fare forth in the latest imported Parisian
+models, or a seedy father riding on the street car
+while son burns up the road in a speedy sports car
+and is decked out like Solomon in all his glory.</p>
+
+<p>Also we can but deplore the folly of parents who
+skimp, and slave, and deny themselves every comfort
+in order that their daughters can make a
+splurge in society, and that their sons may loaf
+through college courses, where they acquire nothing
+but a college yell and a contempt for their hump-shouldered
+old dads. We could weep when we see
+tired old women who are converted into unpaid
+nursemaids by their married daughters who are
+always coming in and dumping their babies down
+on mother when they want to go off on a trip or
+play bridge. And what tears we have left we could
+shed over the men whose sons are always getting
+into trouble and coming back to father for help
+when they know that they are robbing him of the
+pittance he has saved up for his old age.</p>
+
+<p>But between doing everything for your children
+and doing nothing at all for them is a long step,
+and the parents who do not help their children to
+get a start in life fail just as much in doing their
+duty to them as do the foolishly fond parents who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>
+kill their children’s initiative by swaddling them in
+cotton wool. Of course, necessity is a grim teacher.
+If you chuck a child into the water where it must
+sink or swim, it is pretty apt to strike out and keep
+afloat somehow. And it is true that a great many
+successful men and women are the children of parents
+who were so poor that they could do nothing
+for them, and that they fought their way to an
+education and battled their way to success against
+all sorts of hardships. But there is a great difference
+between the parents who cannot help their children
+and those who will not help their children,
+between the fathers and mothers who would give
+their heart’s blood to their children and those who
+will not give them a few dollars. And while the
+children may feel all love and reverence for the poor
+parents who were powerless to assist them, they can
+but feel bitter resentment toward the parents who
+stand callously by, watching their struggles without
+holding out a helping hand.</p>
+
+<p>A large number of parents have an idea that it
+does young people good to be deprived of pleasures,
+to be reared to no indulgences, to know hardships.
+And so even when they have plenty of money they
+deny their children pretty clothes and the advantages
+of education and travel, and when they get
+married they let them scuffle for themselves. They
+do not give the girl a dowry nor set the boy up
+in business.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span></p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that this is a cruel and an inhuman
+thing to do, and that it serves no purpose but to
+kill in the child’s breast every particle of affection
+it had for its father and mother. For it dooms the
+children to years of struggle and self-sacrifice,
+pinching economies and anxieties that it might so
+easily have escaped. And God knows that life is not
+so easy for any of us that we can afford to have any
+of the pleasure taken out of it.</p>
+
+<p>It also often shuts the door of opportunity for
+the child or puts off success for many weary years.
+The few thousands of dollars that father might
+have invested in the firm which would have raised
+Tom from being a clerk to a partner might have
+carried him on to fortune. If father would have
+financed the extra course of study in his profession
+for John, he would have achieved success and begun
+big money making years before he did. If father
+had given Mary an allowance big enough to hire
+servants, she would not have worked herself to death
+cooking, and washing, and baby tending. But
+father wouldn’t do it. He held on to every penny
+and let his children fight it out the best way they
+could. The daughter of such a man once said to me:</p>
+
+<p>“My father is dead and I have inherited a large
+fortune, but it has come to me too late to do me any
+real good. When I was a girl I never had any
+pretty clothes. I never had a nice home to invite
+my friends to. I never had any indulgences. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>
+never could even go with the people I was entitled
+to go with because I did not live in the style they
+did. I married a poor man and my father never
+helped us. I wore my youth out in housework that
+I was not strong enough to do. If he had given me
+$10,000 when I needed it, it would have done me
+more good than all that I have inherited does me
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>The moral of all of which is, do not sacrifice yourself
+to your children; do not impoverish yourself for
+them, but help than all you can while they are
+young and while they need it, if you do not wish
+them to be glad when you are dead and your will
+is read.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIII">LIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WHAT PRICE PLEASURE?</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Do</span> you ever ask yourself if you are not paying
+too high a price for many of the things
+in which you indulge yourself? So far as
+material things go, most of us are keen enough about
+seeing that we get our money’s worth. We do not
+pay a thousand dollars for a string of glass beads.
+We do not buy a battered flivver at Rolls Royce
+figures, nor will we stand being charged banquet
+prices for a corned beef and cabbage dinner.</p>
+
+<p>When it comes to spiritual values, however, we
+lose all sense of proportion. We become spendthrifts,
+who throw our priceless treasures away,
+and we literally sell our birthrights for a mess of
+pottage. One thinks of this particularly just now
+when one watches so many young persons making
+such bad and losing bargains with fate. There are
+the boys scarcely out of their teens who think it is
+such a sporting thing, so dashing, and that it shows
+that they are such men of the world to carry flasks
+on their hips and drink the vile poison that bootleggers
+sell. For the sake of the kick they get out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>
+of this and for a few minutes’ exhilaration, they are
+risking not only death itself, but what is far, far
+worse, blindness and imbecility and every sort of
+nervous ailment.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the pasty-faced, blear-eyed youths with
+shaking hands that you see all about you, their
+minds dulled, their energies paralyzed, their ambitions
+killed by drink; who are done with life before
+they have ever begun to live. What a price they
+have paid for booze! Can any boy look at a
+drunken sot, dirty, poor, despised, and think that
+the pleasure that he has got out of drink has paid
+for what it cost him?</p>
+
+<p>And the girls. The girls who are mad for gaiety,
+crazy for the admiration of men; the girls who go on
+drinking parties, who indulge in petting parties, who
+joy-ride until all hours of the night, who let men
+kiss and fondle them because that is the price that
+men demand for taking them out. How cheaply
+they sell themselves! Many a girl pays with shame
+and disgrace that follow her to the longest day she
+lives for a single wild party. They buy their fun
+high, these girls who exchange for it their self-respect,
+their modesty, their maidenly innocence and
+their good names.</p>
+
+<p>The family quarrel. That is a domestic luxury
+for which we have to pay so dearly that it is never
+worth the cost. Undoubtedly, when one is feeling
+cross, and irritable, and disgruntled, there is a certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>
+luxury in letting go all of one’s self-control,
+and turning one’s temper loose, and stabbing right
+and left with cruel words that wound like dagger
+thrusts. Also it salves one’s own conscience to lay
+the blame for everything that goes wrong on some
+one else. Therefore, many husbands and wives go
+on a daily orgy of nerves and temper. They vent
+their spleen against life on each other. They say
+to each other all the mean and hateful things that
+they are too politic to say to strangers.</p>
+
+<p>But the price they pay! It bankrupts them.
+For they kill each other’s love. They slay each
+other’s respect. They inevitably come to hate each
+other and to cherish secret grudges, born of insult
+and injustice. There is no peace nor tenderness in
+their homes and their marriages either end in divorce
+or become long drawn out misery. What a price to
+pay for the lack of a little self-control!</p>
+
+<p>Extravagance. The price of indulging yourself
+in your youth in the things that you cannot afford
+is poverty and dependence in your old age. The
+woman who cannot resist pretty clothes. The
+woman who is bitten by the society bug and who
+tries to keep up with people better off than she is.
+The man who belongs to lodges, when he can’t pay
+the rent collector. The man who buys an automobile
+and a radio on the instalment plan. They will
+pay, as sure as fate, for gratifying the desire of
+the moment by long years of bitter dependence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
+Twenty or thirty years from now they will be down
+and out, and they will either be in almshouses or the
+hangers on of relatives, who resent having to take
+care of Poor Uncle John or Cousin Susan. Or they
+will be burdens on their children, who are having all
+they can do to take care of their own families.</p>
+
+<p>The highest priced cars in the world are not the
+gold-plated, satin-lined jewel boxes made for millionaires.
+They are the cheap little cars bought by
+the people who cannot afford them and who have to
+go into debt for them.</p>
+
+<p>And there is the price the lazy pay for shiftlessness.
+And the price the mother pays who lets her
+children roam the streets while she plays bridge or
+goes to clubs. And the price the sarcastic pay who
+alienate a friend for the sake of making a witty
+speech. There are a thousand other little gratifications
+of a mood or inclination, the desire of a moment,
+that we pay for with tears, with loneliness,
+with failure, with our very heart’s blood. What a
+pity we don’t count the cost of things before we
+indulge ourselves in them!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIV">LIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE IDEAL MOTHER</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A woman</span> asks: “What qualities should the
+ideal mother possess?”</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, a mother should have
+love, and tenderness, and sympathy, and be willing
+to sacrifice herself for her children. These are the
+stock virtues of motherhood, and virtually all mothers
+possess them. But they alone do not make a
+woman a good mother. Often they do as much
+harm as good, for you can ruin a child by blind
+devotion. You can enfeeble it by too much tenderness.
+You can make it a selfish egotist and an overbearing
+brute by making yourself a doormat for it
+to walk over. So to love, tenderness, sympathy and
+unselfishness the ideal mother must add other qualities,
+and the most important of these is the ability
+to see her job as a whole and to realize that she is
+responsible for the finished goods that she turns out.</p>
+
+<p>Not many mothers have this vision; or, rather,
+they shut their eyes and refuse to see that the molding
+of their children’s characters, the settling of
+their destinies, is in their own hands. They let a
+high-tempered child grow up undisciplined and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
+without teaching it any self-control. They let a
+slothful, lazy one grow up without forming habits
+of industry. They never teach a self-indulgent,
+greedy child to curb its appetite. They spoil and
+pamper their children, and then they say that they
+“hope” their children will turn out all right!</p>
+
+<p>The ideal mother knows that you form children’s
+characters in the cradle, and so she does not trust
+to luck with her youngsters. She begins when they
+are babies to teach them self-control, and thrift, and
+industry, and all the principles of right living. The
+ideal mother must have a backbone. Unfortunately,
+most mothers permit their hearts to crowd out their
+spinal column until they have no more backbone
+than a fishing worm. This is why you hear women
+say despairingly that they can’t do a thing with
+their 10-year-old child.</p>
+
+<p>It takes nerve, and grit, and determination, and
+courage to fight self-willed youngsters, and mother
+is too soft to do it. So she gives in rather than
+listen to her baby’s howls of rage or go through the
+struggle of conquering a disobedient child. And
+the inevitable result is that her children have a contempt
+for her as a weakling, and ride roughshod
+over her, and become the outbreaking young hoodlums
+who fill our jails and brothels.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal mother is a human being. She doesn’t
+pose before her children as a plaster saint or an
+oracle on a pedestal. One of the reasons why children<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>
+do not confide in their parents is because the
+average father and mother pretend that they were
+such models of all the virtues when they were young
+that their children feel they have nothing in common
+with them and that they wouldn’t understand
+how a boy or girl feels who wants to do all sorts of
+foolish things.</p>
+
+<p>How can a girl tell her mother that a boy kissed
+her, if mother represents herself as Miss Prunes and
+Prisms, and says that when <em>she</em> was young girls
+never skylarked, and never went on joy-rides or to
+cabarets, or held hands in the movies, but spent a
+pleasant evening sitting up in the parlor in the
+presence of their elders discussing improving
+topics?</p>
+
+<p>It is the human mothers who can sympathize
+with their children’s desire for good times and help
+them to them; who will stretch a point to get a girl
+a new frock or a boy the fraternity pin he craves,
+who get well enough acquainted with their children
+to really help them and guard them.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal mother has a sense of proportion. She
+doesn’t see her ducklings as swans. Her love doesn’t
+blind her to her children’s faults and blemishes.
+Rather it sharpens her vision, so that she gets a
+line on them as they really are. Thereby she is
+enabled to help them make the most of such gifts
+as they have. She sees that Tom is brilliant but
+unstable and lacking in purpose, and she holds him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>
+to whatever he undertakes to do until she forms the
+habit of steadfastness in him. She sees that John
+is dull but a plodder, and she trains him for some
+occupation in which quickness of mind is not demanded
+and in which the prizes go to faithfulness
+and hard work. She sees that Mary is intelligent
+but homely, and lacking the charms that allure men,
+so she gives her some occupation by which she can
+make a good living for herself and which will fill her
+life with interest. And this sense of proportion
+keeps her from making her children ridiculous by
+bragging about them, and boring every one with
+whom she comes in contact with endless stories of
+what wonderful and marvelous creatures they are,
+and how, wherever they go, they are the cynosure
+of all eyes and the admiration of all beholders.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the ideal mother should have a sense of
+humor that will enable her to laugh instead of cry
+over many of her children’s peccadilloes and keep
+her from taking them too seriously. For the thing
+that ails young people is chiefly youth, and they will
+get over that if you will give them a little time. Because
+they are idle, irresponsible, pleasure-loving,
+dance-mad, girl and boy crazy is no reason for
+prophesying dismal things about them and wringing
+your hands in despair. It is a passing phase of life
+at which we elders may well grin, remembering the
+time when we also were young and foolish. An old
+woman who had raised up a remarkable family of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
+sons and daughters once gave me this as her recipe
+for bringing up children: “Kiss them when they are
+good. Spank them when they’re bad and teach them
+to obey you.” That is the whole of the law and the
+prophets.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LV">LV<br>
+<span class="fs70">HOW TO CATCH A WIFE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“You</span> are always telling girls how to catch husbands,”
+says a young man. “Why don’t
+you give us chaps a few tips about how to
+get wives?”</p>
+
+<p>Well, son, perhaps I unconsciously favor women
+because I belong to their lodge. Also, it is more
+difficult for a woman to catch a husband than it is
+for a man to get a wife, not only because women are
+more inclined to matrimony than men are, but because
+a woman’s pursuit of a man has to be stealthy
+and secret and under cover, with all of her tracks
+carefully hidden and her purposes veiled, whereas a
+man can go after a woman openly and aboveboard,
+with everybody looking on and applauding the chase.
+Therefore, the woman is more in need of any stray
+hints that may improve her technique than the man
+is. Still, far be it from me to withhold from my
+brothers any information I may have about the short
+cuts to the feminine heart. So to the really earnest
+seeker after knowledge on this subject I would say:</p>
+
+<p>First. Study your girl. Catalogue her. Find
+out to what type she belongs and adapt your tactics<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
+to the situation, for all women no more rise to the
+same line of courtship than all fish bite at the same
+bait. There are some feminine hearts that can only
+be taken by assault and battery and others that surrender
+to patient siege. There are women whose love
+is for sale to the highest bidder and others who
+bestow it in pity. There are women who like a
+business proposition and women who fall only for the
+romantic wooing. So there you are, and your success
+will depend upon your ability to psychoanalyze
+the particular woman and upon the skill with which
+you suggest to her that you are the great unsatisfied
+need of her soul.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl is of the clear-eyed, upstanding, competent
+business type, your best method of winning her
+is by the good, old, well-tried Platonic friendship
+method. She isn’t anxious to exchange a mahogany
+desk for a kitchen range nor to give up a good pay
+envelope and an easy job to toil for some man for
+nothing. Likewise, she has worked with men too
+long for her to see any rosy halo around the masculine
+brow, so she is pretty apt to shy off at any suggestion
+of marriage and balk at the thought of the
+altar. But life lacks savor to every woman without
+masculine society, and so this particular type of
+woman is especially allured by the idea of a beautiful
+and satisfying friendship with some man. And
+when a chap has got his toe that far into the door<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>
+to a woman’s heart it is his own fault if he does not
+open it all the way.</p>
+
+<p>Only there is this word of warning: Never pop
+the question to the business girl in the morning of a
+sunshiny day when she has on a new frock and a
+good hat and everything is going swimmingly at the
+office and she feels fit and fine and ready to buck the
+world. Instead, choose a rainy evening, when she is
+sitting alone at home, dejected and forlorn, when she
+is tired and the boss has been grumpy. Then the
+thing she wants most on earth is just a nice, strong
+masculine shoulder to cry on.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl you want is a flapper, your best ally
+is your bankbook. All you need to look good to her
+is to be a good spender and a fast worker. Hold
+not your hand and count not the cost of jewelry and
+trinketry and candy and flowers and cabarets and
+eats and joy-rides, and remember that the man with
+the longest purse wins. Some day she will jazz with
+you to the preacher, and you will live scrappily ever
+afterward.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl upon whom your affections are set is a
+demure little Puritan, make her your Mother Confessor.
+Confide to her all your sins, real and imaginary.
+Invent a dark past for her benefit. Make
+her believe that but for her Sacred Influence you
+would become an abandoned character and that she
+alone can lead you up to the higher life. All women
+have the reformation complex, and the better they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>
+are and the less they know of the world the harder
+they fall for the belief that a grown man’s character
+is like a piece of dough that they can mold into any
+shape they please. Once let a girl get the idea into
+her head that she is responsible for your soul, and
+she is yours for the taking.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl you want is one that you made mud pies
+with in childhood and went to school with, and who
+refuses to see you in a sentimental light, don’t be
+discouraged by her telling you that she will be a
+sister to you. Just keep right on strutting your
+Rachel-and-Jacob stuff. Mighty few women can
+resist that. Make yourself a habit with the girl.
+Make yourself necessary to her happiness and comfort
+by always paying her the little attentions that
+women like. Fetch and carry for her. Be the one
+person in the world she can always depend upon to
+make life pleasant and agreeable for her.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly drop her cold. Begin paying furious
+attentions to some woman she always accuses of
+being made up and older than she looks and an artful
+hussy, and it is a hundred-to-one bet that she will
+call you back and let you see that her feelings toward
+you were not at all what she had supposed they
+were. For when she thinks you are about to marry
+another woman she will wake up to the fact that life
+will be cinders, ashes and dust without you.</p>
+
+<p>If the girl you desire is one of the morbid sort who
+hangs between “I will” and “I won’t,” who is always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>
+vivisecting her heart and taking her emotional temperature,
+what you need to use is caveman methods.
+She is just dying to have you drag her to the altar
+by the hair of her head, and if you are half a man
+you will do it. Don’t ever ask that kind of a woman
+to marry you. Tell her you are going to marry her
+and that you have the license and the ring in your
+pocket and are on the way to the chapel with her, and
+you will give her a thrill that will last a lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>These are only a few of the many ways to win a
+wife. It is dead easy, and any man can do it who has
+gumption enough to work out a cross-word puzzle.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LVI">LVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">DANGEROUS GIRLS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Chief</span> among the women from whom a young
+man should pray his guardian angel to deliver
+him is the Hinting Girl. She is a gentle
+grafter who holds up every man she meets with a pair
+of innocent-looking blue eyes that bid him stand and
+deliver just as effectually and efficiently as if he
+were looking down the barrels of a couple of blue-nosed
+revolvers in the hands of a highway robber.
+You will find these cheerful workers, son, where you
+least expect them. The very highest society is filled
+with girls of undisputed position and unquestioned
+morals, who ruthlessly plunder every man they meet,
+and you will never encounter an individual more to
+be feared than these bandits of the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever wonder why one girl receives so many
+more presents than another, and why every man who
+passes lays some offering on her shrine? Take it
+from me, this is the result of science and not mere
+chance. Observe, closely, and you will see, when you
+call, that she steers the conversation artfully around
+to the latest play, and before you know it you have
+offered to take her to it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span></p>
+
+<p>Also, she has let you know that violets are her
+favorite flower, and the date of her birthday. Before
+Christmas she artlessly confides in you where
+there is the jeweled vanity, or the hand-painted fan,
+that she has set her heart upon, and she couldn’t
+shout it at you any plainer if she bawled it to you
+through a megaphone that she expects you to come
+across, and will think you a piker if you don’t.</p>
+
+<p>Beware the Hinting Girl, son. She is the woman
+who is accessory before the crime of half of the embezzlements
+of trusted clerks who go wrong, and who,
+if she got her deserts, would stand in the prisoners’
+dock by the side of the poor, weak, trembling boy
+who has stolen to buy her jewels or to give her a
+good time. And she makes the sort of wife whose husband
+rises up and sits down to a never-ending chant
+of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”</p>
+
+<p>Then there’s the Girl With a Past. Very often she
+has been more sinned against than sinning. Probably
+her morals are just as good as your own, son;
+but, even so, such marriages rarely turn out happily.
+For we have to face the naked fact that, while a man
+may love a woman well enough to forget and forgive
+her indiscretions, society, which is not in love with
+her, remembers them all. And it reminds her husband
+that it recalls them. The man who marries a
+Woman With a Past is pretty much in the same fix
+as the man who hires a reformed embezzler to be his
+cashier. He hopes he will run straight, but he keeps<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
+an eye on the cash box—a situation which doesn’t
+make for domestic felicity. Of course, there are
+women who reform and gather in their wild oats crops
+and ever after raise nothing but garden truck around
+their doorstep, but even while their husbands are
+devouring their domestic cabbages and onions there
+rarely comes a family spat in which they do not
+throw in their wives’ teeth the kind of farmers they
+have been. The truth is that it takes a big man and
+woman to defy the conventions. That is what makes
+it safest for those of us who are little people to play
+the game according to the rules laid down by Hoyle.
+And one of these rules is that women must keep their
+skirts clean. By and large it is a good rule, son,
+for it means the purity of race, the integrity of society
+and a lot of other things that keep this old world
+going.</p>
+
+<p>Then there’s the Weeping Girl. Whenever you
+meet with a gentle, sweet, soft, babyish-looking little
+girl, with a chin that trembles and big eyes that overflow
+with tears at the slightest provocation, and who
+can cry without her nose getting red, fly, son, fly.
+She will fasten herself upon you, and when you try
+to make a getaway she will cling to you and weep.
+And no man can behold unmoved a woman crying
+for him, because he is such a good thing. You will
+stop to wipe her eyes; and all will be over with you
+except the long, long years of rainy matrimony when
+you will have to deal with a wife who cannot be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>
+reasoned with or cajoled or coerced into doing anything
+she doesn’t want to do, because you will be so
+afraid of starting another freshet of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Then there’s the Domestic Girl, who baits her hook
+with angels’ food. You might go farther and do
+worse than marry the Domestic Girl, for while romance
+is transient one’s appetite remains, and after
+one’s illusions are gone it is a comfortable thing to
+have a good dinner to fall back upon. Still, one
+must confess, the Domestic Girl is apt to have only
+a bread-and-butter conversation, of which a man
+might tire in time; so, unless your stomach is developed
+in excess of your heart, walk warily when the
+Domestic Girl begins to inveigle you into little meals
+for two that she cooks for you under a pink-shaded
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, there is the girl who is just near you—the
+girl you work with, or who lives in the same boarding
+house with you, or who comes to visit your sister.
+Men who have escaped the dangers of all other women
+are the victims of propinquity which unites them to
+ladies they couldn’t otherwise have seen through a
+telescope. Somehow our very nearness to the people
+with whom we are thrown every day keeps us from
+getting a perspective on their faults and disabilities,
+and habit deceives us into thinking that they are more
+necessary to us than they are. And so we drift into
+the mismated marriages that keep the divorce courts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
+busy and the world salted down with the brine of
+our tears.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, if you perceive that Mamie, whom you
+thought vulgar at first, no longer gets on your
+nerves; if you observe that Sadie, who bored you
+when you first met her, is beginning to interest you
+with her chatter about what “he said” and “I said,”
+and you discover that you have quit being shocked
+by Carrie’s gum-chewing and Mabel’s grammar, then,
+son, pack your trunk and leave while the leaving is
+good. Otherwise, the Girl Next to You will get you
+sure.</p>
+
+<p>But why amplify the list? Some day a girl will
+tag you, and you will know you are “it,” and a million
+warnings could not save you from your fate.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LVII">LVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">WHEN A GIRL LOVES A MAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A youth</span> asks me how he can tell whether a
+girl loves him or not. Well, son, you can’t
+always tell. There are times when all signs
+fail, and there is no man so clever, so discerning, so
+sophisticated that a woman cannot fool him if she
+set her mind to doing so. For the many generations
+in which women were entirely subservient to men, and
+in which they had to get everything they had out of
+men, and in which all their pleasures and perquisites
+depended on their wheedling and cajoling men, have
+made them gifted liars and adept at befooling men.</p>
+
+<p>However, the modern girl, being able to make her
+own living, and stand upon her own feet, and therefore
+being to a large degree independent of men, has
+less need to simulate emotions which she does not
+feel, and so she has lost the fine technique of her
+mother and her grandmother and her great-great-great
+grandmother. Flirting has become a lost art,
+and the methods of the gold-digger are so crude and
+raw that any man who is taken in by one deserves
+all he gets. The average girl is almost brutally frank<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>
+about the state of her feelings. She hasn’t even
+subtlety enough about her to keep a man guessing.</p>
+
+<p>But there is, of course, a sort of no-man’s land
+that lies between liking and loving in which the girl
+wanders, herself as uncertain and bewildered as you
+are. And, I take it, it is across this dangerous terrain
+that you wish to be guided. Sally is dear and
+sweet to you. She apparently enjoys your society,
+and you never have any trouble in making dates with
+her. She is the best little pal ever. But what you
+want to know is whether she cares for you just as
+she does for half a dozen other chaps, or whether you
+are the ONLY ONE.</p>
+
+<p>First, Is she willing to sit at home of an evening
+with you or not? If she comes down with her hat
+on to receive you, or if she always wants to step out
+somewhere, you have not touched her heart. She
+regards you merely as a purveyor of good times, a
+theater ticket and a dancing partner, and any other
+youth who had the price would do as well. But
+things have got serious with her when she proposes
+to spend the evening at home under a pink-shaded
+lamp. That shows that she has begun to live a
+romance with more thrills to it than anything she
+can see depicted on the stage, and that she thinks
+that Valentino is a poor dub at love-making compared
+to you. Also it indicates that she desires to
+isolate you, to cut you out from the herd and put
+her brand upon you. Cupid is essentially a monopolist.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>
+Especially the Lady Cupid. The first thing that
+a woman does when she falls in love with a man is to
+try to shut him away from all other women. So
+long as a girl wants to go in crowds there is nothing
+doing with her in the love line. If she really cares for
+you, she will maneuver to get you off to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Next. Observe how a girl treats your pocketbook.
+If she gets everything out of you that she can; if,
+when you go out, she has to have a taxi to convey
+her three blocks, although she can walk ten miles
+around a department store without turning a hair;
+if she always suggests orchids when flowers are mentioned,
+and invariably picks out the most expensive
+places to dance and the highest-priced dishes on the
+menu, you may be certain that she has no serious intentions
+concerning you. You are merely the good
+thing that a merciful Providence has brought forward
+for her sustenance. But when a girl begins to
+talk economy to a boy; when she suggests going to
+the movies instead of to the theatre; when she orders
+a ham sandwich instead of a chicken breast and mushrooms
+under glass, it is an unmistakable sign that
+she is regarding his bankroll as her own and is commencing
+to save up for furniture for her future
+home.</p>
+
+<p>Next—and this is an acid test—talk to the girl
+about yourself and observe her reaction to it. Monologue
+along to her by the hour about what you are
+doing, about what you have done in the past and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>
+what you expect to do in the future. Tell her all
+about what you said to the boss and what the boss
+said to you. Explain to her all the details of the
+grocery business. Regale her with reminiscences of
+your childhood, when you were a fat little boy with
+green freckles on your hands.</p>
+
+<p>If she yawns in your face or if she listens with the
+expression of a martyr being nailed to the cross; if
+she gets up and walks around the room or turns on
+the radio or interrupts you to ask what you think of
+the President’s foreign policy, you may as well abandon
+hope. Her affection is merely gold plated, not
+the real thing. But if she laps up your talk about
+yourself and asks for more; if she begs you to repeat
+that darling story of how naughty you were to your
+nurse, and if she sits, goggle-eyed with excitement,
+on the edge of her chair while you relate how you
+sold a bill of goods to a hard customer, rest assured
+that her heart is yours for keeps. For there are only
+two women in the world, a man’s mother and the
+woman who is his wife or hopes to be his wife, who
+want to hear him talk about himself.</p>
+
+<p>Take note also of a girl’s attitude toward you.
+As long as she regards you as an intelligent, husky,
+able-bodied man, capable of taking care of yourself
+and with sense enough to come in out of the rain, her
+regard for you is merely platonic. But when a girl
+suddenly becomes anxious about the state of your
+health, when she worries over your getting your feet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>
+wet and is afraid you are not getting enough vitamines
+in your diet, when she warns you not to forget
+to put on your overcoat if it is cold and to look out
+for automobiles when you cross the street, then it
+is safe to begin pricing engagement rings.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, there are other signs of love, such as a
+girl developing an acute attack of domesticity and
+passing up the display of French frocks in a window
+for that of aluminum pots and pans, and especially
+when she begins dragging a man to church with
+her, which are not to be ignored. But when a maiden
+begins to mother a chap and indicates that her idea
+of spending a perfectly hilarious evening is just to
+be alone with him, listening to him talk about himself,
+she is his for the taking.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LVIII">LVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">MARRIAGE LESSONS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">What</span> has marriage taught you?</p>
+
+<p>“The chief thing that marriage has
+taught me,” said a man who has had forty
+years of experience in matrimony, “is that women are
+human beings. When a man acquires that piece of
+information it always gives him a bit of a jolt, for
+most men never really think of women as human beings
+at all. They think, according to their kind, of
+women as angels, above all earthly passions, with no
+nerves or tempers, or selfish cravings for pleasure
+and who find their joy in life in loving the unlovable
+and forgiving the unforgivable and being a sweet,
+gooey, sticky mass of gentleness and patience and
+unselfishness. Or they think of women as being baby
+dolls to be dressed up and played with and put on
+the shelf when they are tired of them. Or they think
+of women as pieces of household machinery—sort of
+automatic, self-starting cooks and carpet sweepers
+and washers and menders, who run on their own
+power and who don’t even have to be oiled up with a
+few lubricating words of praise now and then.</p>
+
+<p>“And so husbands treat their wives according to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>
+their conception of what women are, and that is
+why marriage is so often a failure and why there are
+so many divorces. Women don’t want to be regarded
+either as saints or toys or domestic conveniences.
+They want to be treated as human beings and have
+their husbands give them the same sort of a square
+deal a man gives his business partner.</p>
+
+<p>“About nine-tenths of the spats that married people
+have are over money. It gets on the husband’s
+nerves to have the woman eternally dunning him for
+money. It seems to him that before he gets his hat
+off in the evening she begins asking for a few dollars
+for this and for that. Then the bills come in, and
+they are always bigger than he expected, and he
+rows about it, and she thinks that he is stingy.</p>
+
+<p>“The trouble is that the man isn’t treating his
+wife like a rational human being. He is expecting
+her to be a miracle worker and run a house on air.
+He is humiliating her and making her feel that he is
+a tyrant by making her come like a beggar to him
+for every penny because he has got an idea that
+women don’t mind panhandling. Furthermore, he is
+expecting her to gauge her expenditures wisely, when
+she hasn’t the faintest idea of what her resources
+are.</p>
+
+<p>“I have found out that it saves friction over
+money to make my wife as liberal an allowance as I
+can. I have found out that if you will explain to a
+woman just exactly how the financial situation stands<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>
+in the family and why you can’t afford the thing she
+wants she will not only do without it gladly but cut
+down her expenses in other ways and help you to save.
+It is believing that their husbands are holding out on
+them and not splitting fifty-fifty with them that
+makes women reckless spenders.</p>
+
+<p>“And I have found that a man is a fool who lies
+to his wife. In the end she always catches up with
+him, and then she imagines things ten times worse
+than they were. If a man telephones his wife that
+he is going to stay downtown and meet a customer
+from Oshkosh and she learns that he really played
+poker with the boys she pictures a scene of wild debauchery
+and leaps to the conclusion that he is leading
+the double life and he never hears the last of it.
+But if he tells her just what he is going to do she is
+so flattered at being trusted and thought broadminded
+enough not to begrudge her husband an evening’s
+pleasure that she goes to bed and goes to
+sleep instead of waiting up for him with a curtain
+lecture sizzling in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Marriage has taught me that women think more
+of words than they do of deeds and that a woman
+would rather have her husband tell her that he loves
+her than to have him work his fingers to the bone for
+her and never make her a soft speech. As long as
+a husband tells his wife how beautiful she is and
+how he would like to deck her out in diamonds and
+sables she is perfectly content to do without them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span>
+and wear hand-me-downs. It is only when she thinks
+that he doesn’t care whether she has fine clothes or
+not that she gets peevish over not having the finery
+that other women have.</p>
+
+<p>“Marriage has taught me that in the family circle
+the hammer is a boomerang that returns and annihilates
+the hammerer. If you knock your wife’s cooking
+she says, ‘What’s the use of trying to please
+you?’ and makes no effort to improve; but if you
+praise her dinners she breaks her neck trying to
+make them better and better. If you criticize the
+size of the bills she revenges herself by buying something
+that really cost money; but if you tell her
+what a help she is to you and what a marvelous manager,
+she becomes a nickel-nurser.</p>
+
+<p>“If you find fault with her hat or her dress, you
+have to buy her a new one; but if you tell her how
+becoming her last year’s costume is and how it
+brings out her lines, she will wear it into shreds.
+Marriage has taught me that if you let your wife
+know that you admire her and appreciate her, that
+you are grateful to her for all that she does for you
+and that you try to do all in your power to make her
+happy, she will repay you a thousandfold and there
+is nothing she won’t do for you and no fault she
+won’t overlook in you.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIX">LIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE SUPERIOR BUSINESS WOMAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> other day a man killed his beautiful
+young wife because she was a better “business
+man” than he was and made more
+money. The woman loved her husband and was good
+to him. She was ambitious for him. She got him a
+job with the people for whom she worked and tried
+to push him along and help him in every way. But
+it simply was not in him to be the go-getter that she
+was. She was a success and he was a failure. And
+in the frenzy of morbid jealousy that this engendered
+in him, he slew her.</p>
+
+<p>Thus vividly do we have brought to our attention
+one of the new difficulties that the advent of women
+into the business world has injected into the already
+complicated matrimonial proposition. It makes the
+question of how the modern wife can best be a helpmeet
+to her husband one that takes a Solomon in
+petticoats to answer. In olden times the matter was
+perfectly simple. The woman who wanted to help
+her husband along had only to be a good and thrifty
+manager, to pare the potatoes thin enough and
+squeeze the nickels. She did her part in building up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>
+the family fortunes by saving. But, in many cases
+to-day, the old woman’s granddaughter is a crackerjack
+business woman who sees that she can help
+her husband more by earning than by scrimping, and
+that she can make more money in one year in business
+than she could save in ten years by doing her
+own housework and wearing shabby clothes. So, as
+long as she is working for their common good, the
+woman cannot understand why her husband shouldn’t
+be just as willing for her to help him by working in
+an office as in a kitchen, or why the wife who does
+brain labor isn’t as good a wife as the one who does
+manual labor.</p>
+
+<p>But the great majority of women who continue to
+follow any gainful pursuit after marriage find out
+that, while there is a new woman who looks at everything
+in life from a new angle, there is no new man.
+Women have changed in their relationship to man,
+but men stand pat just where Adam did when it
+comes to dealing with women.</p>
+
+<p>If you will notice, it is only women who prate
+about equality between the sexes. Men take no stock
+in any such heresy. When a man tells a woman that
+she is an angel and that he looks up to her and worships
+her, it is one of the lover’s perjuries at which
+Jove laughs. In reality he doesn’t mean a word of
+it. The very basic thing on which a man’s love for
+a woman is built is his sense of superiority to her.
+He wants to feel stronger than she is, wiser than she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>
+is, to be more successful than she is. She must look
+up to him, revere him, ask his opinion, be guided by
+his advice.</p>
+
+<p>That is why the clinging-vine type of woman is so
+appealing to men, and it is why intelligent, big-brained
+men so often marry morons and are happy
+and contented with them. Their silly little wives do
+not understand one word in five they say and are no
+companions to them, but they satisfy the masculine
+demand to dominate the woman. When the case is
+reversed, as it often is, and when the wife is the more
+intelligent, the stronger character—when the gray
+mare is the better horse and pulls most of the load—the
+marriage is invariably unhappy, and the husband
+almost invariably either openly or secretly hates his
+wife. His love for her is never strong enough to
+survive the hurt to his vanity. His sense of inferiority
+to her keeps his nerves raw, and if he is dependent
+upon her it turns his very soul to wormwood
+and gall. I have never known a woman who
+supported her husband who received any gratitude
+for it. He would eat her bread, but he did it as a
+snapping dog that bites the hand that feeds it.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing that fills a woman’s cup of happiness
+so full and overflowing as for her husband to
+achieve a notable success and be great and famous.
+She glories in being Mrs. Explorer or Mrs. Engineer
+or Mrs. Banker or Mrs. Author, and loves to shine
+in the reflected glory. But the deadliest insult you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>
+can offer any man is to speak of him as his wife’s
+husband and call him Mr. Mary Smith, although
+Mary may have written the book of the year or have
+performed some achievement that has made the world
+sit up and take notice of her.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps all of this is natural. Perhaps this cosmic
+urge that the male has to dominate the female is
+something instinctive for which he is not responsible.</p>
+
+<p>But it makes the woman’s course a hard one to
+steer, for, curiously enough, the weak man is often
+attracted to the strong woman, and there is something
+maternal in the strong woman that wants to
+mother the weak man and makes her feel that he only
+needs her to take care of him and boost him and show
+him the way to success.</p>
+
+<p>So the girl who is making a big salary marries the
+man who is making a small one, and she tries to supply
+for him the business sense he lacks and to galvanize
+him into a hustle of which he is incapable,
+and they live scrappily ever afterward. Yet there is
+nothing we can do about it as long as nature goes
+blundering along putting the brains and talents of
+merchants and bankers and trust presidents into a
+lot of women’s heads and making plenty of men who
+would have been wonderful housekeepers and done
+perfectly lovely embroidery work if only they hadn’t
+got the wrong sex.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LX">LX<br>
+<span class="fs70">NEW IDEALS FOR OLD</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> strangest thing in this age of strange
+things is the new relationship that is growing
+up between the sexes. So many of the
+ideals that have ruled us for centuries have been
+scrapped and swept into the discard that the boy
+and girl babies of to-day are virtually born into a
+new world where few of the conventions that ruled
+their parents survive. Take the matter of financial
+independence, for instance. Since the caveman days
+it has been held that the proper attitude of woman
+was one of dependence on her lord and master. The
+woman bore the children and kept the house, and the
+husband provided the wherewithal to support the
+family. When a woman had property her husband
+took possession of it on the day they were married.
+Virtually every lucrative occupation was barred to
+women. When a man and a woman went to any place
+of amusement the man would have been highly insulted
+if she had offered to pay any part of the cost
+of the entertainment. Man was the purse bearer,
+and his lordly gesture indicated that he had the
+checking account of Mr. Rockefeller and that woman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>
+was a dear little sweetie who was not to bother her
+poor little foolish head over the cost of anything.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the majority of women earn their living
+before they are married. Financial independence has
+become so necessary to their happiness that one of
+the potent sources of domestic discord is the inability
+of the woman who has had her own pay envelope to
+do without it and reconcile herself to taking whatever
+her husband gives her as recompense for her hard
+work as a poor man’s wife. Also husbands are coming
+more and more to begrudge spending money on
+their wives and are demanding oftener and oftener
+that the wage-earning girls they marry shall keep on
+with their jobs. Likewise, it is a common thing for
+the young women who go out with young men to
+places of amusement to pay their own way and go
+fifty-fifty on all expenses.</p>
+
+<p>This may be fair enough. Certainly, when men and
+women work side by side and the woman gets the
+same salary as the man there is no more reason why
+he should feed her and buy her theater tickets than
+why she should buy his. Perhaps it is only logical
+that when woman fought for and won financial independence
+she should have to pay the price of her
+victory. But what I am trying to show is that
+man’s attitude toward woman as regards money has
+changed. She has shown that she can make her own
+living and he lets her do it. Even fathers have now
+no such sense of responsibility about providing for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>
+their daughters as they used to have. Men no longer
+adopt the gallant “I’ll-pay-your-way” pose. They
+treat women about money as they would treat another
+man. Of course, the occupation of wifehood
+and motherhood is a strenuous one and is all that
+any woman can be expected to do properly, but it is
+becoming more and more evident that men are less
+willing to support their families and that in the
+future women are going to have to continue to be
+wage-earners even after they are married.</p>
+
+<p>Another curious shift of masculine thought is
+about feminine modesty. In the past, no matter what
+a man’s own life might have been, he demanded unsullied
+innocence in the woman he married. His
+ideal was the shrinking violet, the bud with the dew
+upon it. In these days there are few peaches with the
+down still left upon them. They have nearly all
+been manhandled. Girls display their bodies with
+an abandon that would have made the most hardened
+woman blush fifty years ago. Debutantes tell stories
+that would paralyze their grandmothers if they could
+hear them. Young women think no more of kissing
+every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes along and in
+indulging in petting parties and “necking,” than
+their mothers would have thought of shaking hands
+and holding a casual conversation. Girls excuse
+themselves for indulging in these dangerous and degrading
+practises by saying that unless they do they
+receive no attention from men. They speak the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>
+truth. Men may still theoretically admire what they
+call “the old-fashioned girl,” but they leave her to
+spend her evenings with her parents. Few men in
+these days can hope to marry a girl who has not been
+kissed and pawed over, and so it is obvious that men
+are changing their opinions about the desirability of
+modesty in women and establishing a single standard
+of conduct for both sexes. That is just, but it does
+not make for morality or the uplift of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Men and women both approach marriage in a different
+spirit. In the back of most young people’s
+heads as they march to the altar is the thought that
+if they don’t like it they won’t stick to it. It is an
+experiment, and they will try anything once, and if
+it doesn’t come up to what the novelists and poets
+have press-agented it to be they can always fly to
+the divorce court. That is one reason why marriage
+is so often a failure. Neither husband nor wife makes
+an honest effort to make a success of it. Of course,
+there are exceptions to all rules. There are husbands
+who gladly support their families; there are girls
+who have kept themselves unsullied and their lips
+virginal; there are men and women who still hold marriage
+a sacrament. But for the great majority of
+men and women there are new ideals and a new attitude
+toward each other. And whether these are
+better or worse than the old only time can tell.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXI">LXI<br>
+<span class="fs70">WHY DIVORCE IS COMMON</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">When</span> we hear about a couple getting a divorce
+on the grounds of incompatibility of
+temper we instinctively feel that it is too
+trivial a reason for breaking up a home and we condemn
+them as poor sports who did not have enough
+grit to carry on and make the best of their bargain.
+If it had been something big, now—drunkenness, the
+drug habit, infidelity—if the husband had been a
+brute who beat his wife, or the wife a virago, we
+could have sympathized with them. But just to get
+a divorce because they didn’t think alike on politics
+and religion and hadn’t the same taste in pie. Pooh!
+Quitters. A yellow streak. We’ve no pity for them.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when you come to think of it, is there really
+anything else in the whole wide world that comes so
+near to justifying divorce as incompatibility of temper?
+Is there any other such good reason for a man
+and woman parting and going their separate ways as
+the fact that they have not one thought or desire or
+interest in common? And is there any other torture
+comparable with having to live in intimate daily contact
+with a person who continually rubs your fur the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>
+wrong way, who gets on your nerves, who rasps your
+sensibilities and keeps you in a perpetual bad humor?
+It is a lot easier to forgive an occasional big fault
+than it is to put up with never-ending petty irritations.
+The big sinners at least take a day off from
+their vices now and then, but the little sinners who
+sin against our habits and ideals and conventions are
+always on the job. So when you think of this and
+consider the difficulties there are in the way of every
+man and woman who get married adjusting themselves
+to each other, you are not surprised that divorce
+is so common. You only wonder that it isn’t
+universal.</p>
+
+<p>Here are two persons of different sexes, doomed
+by nature to look at everything from different standpoints
+and to react differently to every situation.
+Back of them is a different heredity, often a different
+race. In their veins flow alien currents of blood.
+They have been brought up with different standards,
+in different schools of thought. Different habits have
+been bred in them. They worship different gods and
+at different altars and eat different dishes.</p>
+
+<p>What marvel that such a couple come to grief on
+the rocks of incompatibility of temper! The miracle
+of it is that any of them have the wit and wisdom to
+steer around it. But the terrible and pathetic thing
+about it is that in hundreds of these cases in which
+husbands and wives live a cat-and-dog life and make
+each other perfectly miserable, or else break their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>
+marriage vows, nobody is really to blame. Each is
+perfectly right from his or her standpoint, only they
+can’t agree. They can’t adjust themselves to each
+other. The woman who has been brought up in a
+happy-go-lucky household, where the only use any
+one saw for a dollar was to spend it as quickly as
+possible, where meals were movable feasts that were
+as likely to happen at one hour as another, is a thorn
+in the side of a husband who has been trained from
+his youth up to make a fetich of thrift, order and
+promptness.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the woman whose mother has
+brought her up to make a sacred rite of cleanliness
+and who scrubs the back of every kitchen shelf and
+regards a chair out of place or ashes on the rug as
+a high crime and misdemeanor, is fretted into nervous
+prostration by a husband who never can be taught
+to wipe his feet on the doormat or kept from mussing
+up the best sofa cushion.</p>
+
+<p>There are women who die of broken hearts, frozen
+to death by the coldness of their husbands. They
+have come from warm-hearted, demonstrative families.
+They have been accustomed to having a fuss
+made over them and to seeing their father’s loverlike
+attentions to their mother, and they think that
+their husbands do not love them, because they never
+tell them so. They cannot understand the dumb, repressed
+temperament that is utterly incapable of
+showing what it feels. Then there is the gay, pleasure-loving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>
+man who likes to dance and dine in restaurants
+and jazz; the good fellow whom everybody
+likes and who has holes in his pockets that no wife’s
+economy can ever sew up. What superhuman wisdom
+and patience it takes in a woman to keep from
+nagging him if she has been brought up in an austere
+family that frowned on all frivolous amusements and
+whose watchword was duty instead of good times!</p>
+
+<p>Then there is the eternal conflict over little trivial
+personal habits and ways, over things as small as
+cooking. Irvin Cobb said once that the Civil War
+was fought not over secession or slavery but over
+hot bread and cold bread. Certainly many thirty or
+forty-year family wars are waged over what strength
+the breakfast coffee shall be and the use of onions
+in the soup. And certainly it is no trivial matter for
+one accustomed to a sophisticated, highly cultured
+cuisine to have to insult your palate with plain, ignorant,
+boiled food because the partner of your
+bosom has had his or her early education in eating
+neglected. Probably no woman who has been reared
+in the belief that one’s good clothes should be kept
+for company and that any sort of old messy duds
+were good enough for home consumption can realize
+the disgust she inspires in her husband’s breast when
+she comes down to breakfast in a boudoir cap and a
+soiled kimono and no complexion if he is of the fastidious
+sort to whom slovenliness is a mortal sin.</p>
+
+<p>These little things—the niceties of life that one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>
+has been taught to observe and the other hasn’t, the
+order and thrift one has been bred to and the other
+hasn’t, the difference in point of view, in taste, in
+habit—make the inevitable friction between husbands
+and wives which is at the bottom of almost
+every divorce. And when you think how hard it is
+to give up our old opinions and ways of doing things,
+the wonder is that so many persons are able to do
+it and that so many couples do adjust themselves to
+each other and get along in reasonable peace and
+harmony.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXII">LXII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE CHILDREN PAY</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">No</span> disinterested outsider ever observes the
+spats in which so many husbands and wives
+continually engage without realizing that
+they quarrel because they enjoy doing so. It is an
+indoor sport out of which they get a morbid thrill.
+Domestic life has become dull and monotonous to
+them. They have nothing new and interesting to say
+to each other, and so one or the other starts something
+by making a remark that he or she knows is
+the fighting word that will inevitably precipitate a
+scrimmage. And then they go to it, hammer and
+tongs. It is their way of putting pep into a pepless
+day, for they know the danger they are running, and
+the very fact that they are risking their whole life’s
+happiness crisps their nerves, as going over the top
+did the soldiers in the war. Besides which they get a
+strange and savage joy out of stabbing with cruel
+words and in wounding and being wounded by the
+ones they love and who love them.</p>
+
+<p>It is because married couples love a fight for the
+fight’s sake that so many homes are nothing but a
+battlefield on which a perpetual warfare goes on.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>
+Otherwise the dove of peace would roost on the roof
+of many a household to which the black flag is now
+nailed. For it is folly to say that the average husband
+and wife who are forever engaged in an acrimonious
+debate over every trifle that comes up could
+not get along with each other if they desired to do
+so. They get along with other persons. They make
+allowance for the prejudices and faults of others.
+They permit other persons to differ from them on
+matters of opinion and taste. They sidestep other
+persons’ peculiarities. They control their tempers
+and their tongues when they are dealing with others.
+They are tactful and diplomatic in handling other
+persons. No doctor would ever have another patient,
+no merchant another customer, no man could hold his
+job if he was as irritable, as grouchy, as high tempered
+abroad as many a man is at home, and if he
+said the insulting things to other persons that he
+says to his wife. No woman would ever be invited to
+another bridge party or elected president of the sewing
+society if she were as much of a spitfire in public
+as many a woman is in private, and if she said the
+nasty things to others that she says to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the rules for keeping the peace are the same
+everywhere, and both men and women are familiar
+with them. Every man knows that there isn’t a
+woman living that he can’t make eat out of his hand
+by showing her a few attentions, a little tenderness
+and consideration and paying her a few compliments.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>
+Every woman knows that there isn’t a man
+that she can’t jolly along the way she wants him to
+go and who does not respond to judiciously applied
+salve. So when husbands and wives, who know perfectly
+well how to work each other without friction,
+deliberately and with malice aforethought rub each
+other the wrong way, it is obviously because they
+enjoy their daily dozen fracases and find fun in seeing
+the fur fly. If that were the end of it, we might well
+shrug our shoulders and, while wondering at their
+taste, leave them to take their pleasure as they saw
+fit in the cruel pastime of baiting each other. But,
+unfortunately, the family spat is not the innocent
+diversion that husbands and wives appear to think it
+is, nor does it end when the husband puts on his hat
+and bangs the door behind him and goes downtown,
+and the wife wipes away a tear or two and goes about
+her daily tasks.</p>
+
+<p>The children are the real victims in these family
+fights. It is they who stumble from the domestic
+battleground with shattered nerves, with torn and
+bleeding spirits and souls, with maimed and deformed
+characters. All of us have known children who have
+taken to the streets almost as soon as they could
+walk to escape homes that were full of bickering and
+discord. We have seen how little control the fathers
+and mothers who could not control their own tempers
+had over their children, and we have not wondered
+when truant officers tell us that nine-tenths of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>
+wayward girls and hoodlum boys are the children of
+divorced parents, or else, of parents who did not get
+along together. Now comes a great psychiatrist who
+asserts that he has never known an instance of nervous
+breakdown in the children of happily married
+parents who were brought up in a peaceful home.</p>
+
+<p>Read that over again. Memorize it, you fathers
+and mothers who begin the day by having a row at
+the breakfast table because the coffee isn’t just as
+you like it or the toast is burnt or you neglected to
+send up the coal yesterday and forgot to leave the
+money for the milkman. You think it is of no consequence
+because your wife knows you don’t mean half
+of what you say and she is fighting back more from
+force of habit than anything else. But neither one
+of you gives a thought to the children who are listening
+to it all, to the children who are learning to regard
+you with contempt, who are having all their
+illusions shattered; whom you are teaching to be bitter
+and misanthropic, with no faith in anything beautiful
+or fine. You do not realize that you may not
+only be giving them a warp in character that will
+bar them from success in life, but that you may be
+actually dooming them to a breakdown that will
+make them wrecks in body and mind.</p>
+
+<p>Isn’t that a pretty high price to pay for the
+pleasure of quarreling? And isn’t it a cruelly unfair
+thing to force your children to settle your score?
+For the sake of the children you brought into the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>
+world and for whom you are responsible, isn’t it
+worth while to deny yourself the pleasure of finding
+fault with your husband or wife and saying all the
+mean, acrimonious things you can think of? No use
+in saying that you can’t get along together. You
+can, if you want to. You get along with other
+persons.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXIII">LXIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE LEARNED PROFESSION OF HOME-MAKING</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">No</span> complaint is more general—possibly no
+belief is more prevalent among women—than
+that a woman of intelligence wastes
+her energies and her abilities in being merely a
+housekeeper. Following the domestic arts is a despised
+calling, held in such contempt by the majority
+of women that they never take the trouble to achieve
+success in it; and yet there is no other occupation
+under the sun that requires so many and such varied
+talents as does the learned profession of home-making.
+Did you ever think what a woman must be in
+order to create and carry on a happy and prosperous
+home?</p>
+
+<p>She must be a financier. There can be no peace
+and pleasure in a home where the wolf is always
+howling under the window and the bill collector hammering
+on the door. There are, of course, a few
+men in every community who are such gifted money-makers
+that they can annex more coin than any
+woman can spend, but for the great mass of ordinary,
+industrious, hard-working humanity the wife
+settles the financial status of the family. It is her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
+ability to handle money, her knowledge of where to
+spend and where to economize, her knack of making
+a dollar buy a hundred and five cents’ worth and get
+a blue trading stamp thrown in to boot, that is at
+the foundation of every prosperous home. We don’t
+hear anything about it, because the woman doesn’t
+know herself how awfully clever she is, but the majority
+of women in this country are doing marvels
+of financiering in the way they make both ends meet
+in their housekeeping allowance, and keep up appearances,
+that entitle them to qualify in the Rockefeller
+class.</p>
+
+<p>She must be a general.</p>
+
+<p>She must know how to command. She must know
+how to set all the multitudinous wheels of household
+machinery in motion and be able to keep them moving
+without friction. She must be able to enforce obedience,
+inspire enthusiasm, plan campaigns, forestall
+her enemy, be fertile in expedient and subtle in strategy.
+Any woman who maintains a comfortable and
+well-ordered home, the kind of a house that we like
+to visit, and who raises a nice family and marries
+her daughters off well could give the commander-in-chief
+of the army points on generalship.</p>
+
+<p>She must be a diplomat. The husband question,
+the children question and the servant question are
+not to be handled without gloves. There is no hour
+of the day that she is not called upon to deal with
+some problem that requires the finesse of a Talleyrand.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>
+She must be able, if the white-winged dove of
+peace is to brood over the home nest, to deal with
+her husband’s prejudices and circumvent them so
+delicately that he will never know that he is being
+induced to do the thing that he swore he would
+never, never do. She must assert her authority over
+the growing boy with such cunning that he does not
+perceive that her fine Italian hand is on the check
+rein holding him tight and steady. She must be able,
+without the girls dreaming that she does it, to insinuate
+a doubt, drop a word of ridicule, imply an
+impossibility that will keep her daughters out of entangling
+alliances and steer them toward the reciprocally
+profitable permanent treaties they should
+make.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, she must be able to see most when she
+is apparently stone blind; hear everything when she
+seems to be as deaf as the adder of the Scriptures;
+to be most on guard when she looks to be sleeping
+at her post, and to be most chaperoning her
+daughters when the onlooker and the girls themselves
+would swear that she was most giving them their
+liberty.</p>
+
+<p>She must know how to tread very softly if she
+keeps off the corns of her servants, for whether a
+woman is agreeable or disagreeable in the home her
+children are bound to stay there with her, but it is
+the blessed privilege of Mary Ann and Bridget and
+eke of Hulda and Dinah that they can pack their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>
+trunks and go. Only the very quintessence of diplomacy
+renders a mistress <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">persona grata</i> to the
+kitchen, and the woman who preserves friendly relations
+with that must understand the Alpha and
+Omega of how to make a jolly cover the discipline of
+a martinet. Any woman who, when she is fifty years
+old, has a husband who thinks her a Solomon in petticoats,
+grown children who quote mother’s opinion,
+and a cook who has been with her five years is fitted
+to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
+at the Court of St. James’s, and nothing
+but the stupidity of a nation that believes that
+breeches and brains are synonymous terms keeps her
+out of the job.</p>
+
+<p>She must be an artist.</p>
+
+<p>It is the woman’s province to create the beauty of
+the home. This is true whether it is the palace of
+the millionaire or the three-room flat of the day
+laborer. Every room that she arranges is a picture,
+just as much as if she painted a Dutch interior on
+canvas.</p>
+
+<p>She must be a poet.</p>
+
+<p>A home is not merely a place of shelter and food—it
+is a thing no less of the spirit and soul—and a
+woman must put into it the passion of her heart and
+the joy of creating just as truly as a poet must put
+them into his song. To make a home that is beautiful,
+that breathes the spirit of home, that is a
+haven of peace and rest to those who live in it and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>
+that is a glimpse of Paradise to the stranger who is
+bidden within its gates is a profession the most exacting
+in which any woman can engage and the one
+that calls for the greatest number of talents. Also
+it is the most profitable, for within it are made the
+men and women who go forth to bless the world. And
+the wonder of wonders is that so many just plain
+ordinary women are doing it, and the greatest marvel
+of all is that they do not realize what a glorious
+thing they are doing!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXIV">LXIV<br>
+<span class="fs70">A FATHER’S INFLUENCE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">There</span> is no subject under the sun of which
+men take such a distorted view as they do
+of a mother’s influence. Romancers have
+glorified it, poets have idealized it, musicians have
+sung it until men have honestly come to think that
+mothers have a practical monopoly of their children
+and the sole duty and privilege of shaping their
+lives. Even fathers seem to think that fathers count
+for nothing and that all they are good for is paying
+the bills. In the family circle they take a back seat
+and let mother run the show. It is Mother’s Day
+that is celebrated with pomp and flowers and beating
+the cymbals. Nobody notices Father’s Day—perhaps
+because the first of the month is always Father’s
+Day and it comes around so often.</p>
+
+<p>No one would belittle mother’s influence. For good
+or evil it is all powerful. But it is all powerful because
+father is so often too stupid or too lazy or too
+careless or too much absorbed in his business to do
+his duty to his children by helping to mold their
+characters. He dodges his responsibility. He passes
+the buck to mother and salves his conscience with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
+platitude about a mother’s sacred influence, which in
+his innermost self he recognizes for the hokum it is.
+For mother’s influence does not always work for
+righteousness. Motherhood works no miracles.
+Bearing a baby does not put brains and wisdom in a
+hen-minded woman’s head. It does not give a shallow
+woman depth. It does not make a narrow, prejudiced
+woman broad and tolerant. It does not
+make a fool woman wise.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all around us we see men who would not trust
+their wives’ judgment about anything else on earth,
+turning over to them their children’s immortal souls.
+They know their wives to be silly and ignorant—without
+vision, without the ability to see or understand
+anything beyond their own little circle—yet
+they let these morons shape their children’s lives.
+They let them form their children’s ideals and set
+their standards. They let them decide on the schools
+their children shall attend, the churches they shall
+join, the people with whom they associate.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the very men who trust their children to weak
+and incompetent and unintelligent wives to rear
+would not dream of permitting a weak, incompetent,
+unintelligent partner to run their business. They are
+too well aware of the value of their personal advice
+and supervision and of the need of their strong and
+expert hands on the wheel. Men blindly subscribe
+to the faith that a mother’s influence is bound to be
+good, especially upon her daughters, yet a moment’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span>
+thought would show them how fallacious such a belief
+is.</p>
+
+<p>A woman can only give out what she has. She can
+only try to make her daughters what she is. And
+unless a man wants his daughters to be just the sort
+of woman their mother is, he cannot safely leave them
+in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that there are not many women who
+deliberately bring up their girls to be immoral and
+start their feet on the downward path. But there
+are thousands upon thousands of mothers whose influence
+upon their daughters is vicious, because they
+inculcate in them their own low ideals of honor and
+honesty. They teach them by precept and example
+to evade every duty of wifehood and motherhood,
+and from their very infancy up they instil into them
+a greed and selfishness that wrecks the happiness of
+all who come in contact with them. Such are the
+mothers who teach their daughters how to lie and
+cheat, how to buy on credit the finery they cannot
+afford, how to kill a man with their extravagance.
+Such mothers are those whose favorite maxim is that
+what a husband doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him.
+Such a mother is the one who, not long ago, I heard
+say to her young daughter who was getting married:
+“Don’t tie yourself down with babies. Go about and
+amuse yourself and have a good time, and if your
+husband doesn’t like it he can lump it.”</p>
+
+<p>When a man has that kind of a wife—and no man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
+can be so afflicted without knowing it—he does a
+criminal thing when he leaves his girls to their
+mother’s influence. It is his bounden duty to use his
+influence to correct hers as far as possible. Little
+as men seem to realize it, children nearly always listen
+with far more respect to what their fathers say
+than they do to what their mothers say. For the
+child knows intuitively that the father has had a
+broader experience of life than the mother has. It
+knows that the father goes out into the world and
+does battle with it every day and that he knows from
+experience the things about which mother vaguely
+theorizes. It knows that father knows the rules and
+how to play the game.</p>
+
+<p>Hence when a man really makes any attempt to
+develop his children’s characters he finds them as clay
+in his hands, ready to respond to his slightest touch.
+It is only when father merely uses his influence as a
+veto power that it is negligible. That a boy needs
+his father’s hand in directing and controlling him at
+the critical time of his life and a father’s wisdom to
+steer him along the right course is universally recognized,
+but I often think that a girl needs it even
+more. For a girl needs to be taught the things that
+life teaches a man. She needs to be taught to be
+straightforward and honest and to live up to her contracts,
+that she must give as well as take in life and
+that she must have the courage and the grit to carry
+on when things are hard instead of turning quitter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>
+and to make the best of a bad bargain. Many a
+divorce would have been avoided and many a home
+that is now broken up, kept intact if a father’s influence
+over his little girl had made her a good sport,
+instead of mother’s influence developing a yellow
+streak in her.</p>
+
+<p>A mother’s influence is a great thing, but it needs
+to be backed up by father’s. That is why God gave
+every child two parents instead of one.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXV">LXV<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE RICHES OF POOR CHILDREN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> bitterest cry of poor people is that they
+have nothing to give their children. The
+fathers and mothers who cannot buy imported
+finery for their girls or sports-model cars for
+their boys and send them off to expensive colleges
+and fill their pockets with money feel that they have
+come empty-handed to their children and have nothing
+to give them. Yet the poorest man and woman
+who bend above a cradle have it in their power to
+bestow upon their babe treasures so great that their
+worth cannot be computed in dollars and cents, and
+that will bring the child more pleasure and happiness
+in life than they could purchase with all the wealth
+of the Rothschilds. For there is no price tag on the
+most precious things in the world. They are equally
+free to prince and pauper, and more often the beggar
+gets them than the millionaire does.</p>
+
+<p>For example, there is love—a close, intimate, personal
+association—and tenderness and understanding.
+Poor parents can more easily give to their children
+than the wealthy can. And the child that has
+them is rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>
+child that has them not is poverty-stricken, although
+it has all else besides. The mother who rocks her
+baby to sleep on her breast, whose tender arms are
+always outstretched to gather her youngsters to her
+heart, who is never too tired or too busy to listen to
+childish confidences, who surrounds her little ones
+with a brooding atmosphere of affection,—gives to
+her children far more than does the rich mother who
+gives her children nurses and governesses and pony
+carts and fine clothes and costly playthings but who
+does not give them herself; who bestows on them
+everything but the things that a child wants most and
+needs most—mother love and tenderness, the real
+mother touch.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago a very rich young man figured in a
+disgraceful scandal, and the one excuse offered in his
+defense was that his mother was dead and his father
+had never given him anything except money. He had
+never had any affection bestowed upon him. He had
+had no parental guidance. When a little lad he had
+been put in a school and kept there without even being
+visited by any one who loved him, without even
+going home for vacations. He had been just a pitiful
+little millionaire waif for whom nobody cared.
+The lot of such a child is infinitely worse than that
+of the one whose parents are in such humble circumstances
+that they can give it perhaps only the plainest
+of food and clothes, but who do give it a real
+home that is full of close, warm family life. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>
+fathers and mothers to whom children are grateful
+and whose memories they revere are not those who
+bequeath them great fortunes, but those who leave
+them the memory of a love and understanding that
+never failed and of a childhood that was made sweet
+by their parents’ cherishing.</p>
+
+<p>No matter how poor you are, you can give your
+children love and companionship and the privilege
+of growing up in a peaceful and cheerful home, and
+that is something that few rich parents can give their
+children.</p>
+
+<p>Another gift that you can make your children is
+that of teaching them how to read. When you do
+that you really don’t need to do much more for
+them, because you have put a magic coin in their
+hands that will buy them entrance into all the doors
+of delight and open to them all of the portals of
+romance. No one who loves to read can ever be
+bored or lonely. He or she has only to open a book,
+and, presto, he or she has for company all of the wit
+and wisdom of the ages. Gay adventures, beautiful
+ladies and gallant gentlemen beckon, and one has
+only to follow them into realms of enchantment.
+All of interest, all that informs, that thrills, that
+amuses, is the property of the reader. But, reading
+does not always come by nature, as Dogberry
+thought it did. Often it has to be acquired by art,
+but any child can be taught to like to read; it can
+be given the reading habit, and no other gift can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>
+possibly be bestowed upon it that is half so valuable
+or that will bring it in such happiness or that will
+be such an ark of refuge to it in times of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Another gift that the poorest parents can make
+to their children is to teach them how to see. Most
+persons go through the world as blind as bats. They
+never see anything that isn’t directly under their
+noses, and thereby they miss half of the fun and
+pleasure in living. There are men and women to
+whom a sunset is just a phenomenon of nature that
+happens every day; to whom a crowd is just a jam
+of people; who get nothing out of travel but inconvenience
+and missing the particular kind of breakfast
+food they prefer, and who loathe rain because
+they get their feet wet and hate snow because it is
+messy. And there are other men and women who see
+the glory of God in every flaming sunset; who thrill
+to the finger tips at the drama they see enacted in
+every crowd; to whom travel opens up a new world;
+to whom every rain is a symphony and every snowstorm
+a poem.</p>
+
+<p>Which of these get the most out of life—those who
+see or those who are blind; those who can get pleasure
+out of little things or those who are too dull and
+dumb to amuse themselves; those who are sensitive
+to every beauty in nature, who appreciate music and
+art and literature, who get the last flavor out of good
+cooking, or those who find everything flat and stale<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>
+and uninteresting because they have never been
+taught to see the under side of things?</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the poorest parents can teach their children
+that brave attitude toward life without which
+all the balance is cinders, ashes, and dust. For disappointments
+and trouble come to us all, and it is
+only those who have been taught how to make the
+best of their bad bargains, how to laugh at misfortune
+and mock at fate, who achieve any real happiness
+in life. So cheer up, you parents who complain
+that you have nothing to give your children. You
+can give them love. You can teach them to read and
+to see things. You can give them a brave heart.
+These gifts are worth more than money. And nobody
+can take them away from those who have them.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXVI">LXVI<br>
+<span class="fs70">A MAN’S RIGHT TO HIS HOME</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">It</span> is a matter of continual wonder to me that
+women do not realize how unjustly they treat
+their husbands about their homes. Of course,
+a woman’s home is her castle and all that, and it is
+right and proper that she should be the ruler of it.
+Moreover, inasmuch as the average man is in his
+home only a very few of his waking hours, while his
+wife spends practically all of her time in it, it is
+more important that it should come up to her ideal
+and fire her fancy than his. She should have the
+right of choice in selecting the neighborhood she desires
+to live in, because she has to know the people
+next door and look across the street all day, and he
+doesn’t. Nor should any mere husband presume to
+dictate about the number, size, and arrangements of
+the closets in a house that is going to be his wife’s
+workshop. Nor should a man interfere with his wife’s
+taste in decoration, no matter how much it runs to
+putting ruffled petticoats on the furniture and installing
+forests of floor lamps, for having a home dolled
+up as she wants it, fills a woman with a great and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span>
+exceeding peace and joy, and no good husband should
+withhold this pleasure from his wife.</p>
+
+<p>But all that does not give the wife the right to
+monopolize the home and use it for her sole behoof
+and benefit, as so many women think it does. The
+man who pays the freight, the man who buys the
+house and who supports it, should have a few poor,
+simple privileges in it which even a wife should recognize
+and respect. He should at least, in all common
+fairness, have the status of a star boarder in
+the home his money keeps a going concern. He seldom
+does, however. There is not one home in a
+thousand where the man of the house has even a room
+of his own which he can furnish in accordance with
+his own taste and where he can mess around as much
+as he likes.</p>
+
+<p>I have known many men who tried to establish
+dens for themselves in their houses, but before they
+got fairly settled, with their collections of stamps or
+fishing rods or stuffed animals or what-not disposed
+around them, their wives decided that it would be
+just the place for a sewing room or the nursery.
+Three hooks in a closet and a couple of drawers in
+a chiffonier are about all most men get for their
+private use in their homes, and at that they generally
+find that their wives and daughters have superimposed
+feminine fripperies over their best suits and
+parked their silk stockings on top of their shirts. So
+universal is the feeling among women they have a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>
+right to the entire house that when a wife does concede
+an easy chair and a reading lamp to her husband
+she boasts of it loudly and calls everybody’s
+attention to her unusual and generous gesture,
+whereat all marvel. And even her husband himself
+puffs out his chest and feels that he is a pampered
+household pet.</p>
+
+<p>Why women should feel that they have an exclusive
+right to exercise the hospitality of the home
+nobody knows, but they do. If you will observe you
+will see that in most homes it is the wife’s family who
+are perpetually billeted in the spare bedroom, while
+the husband’s family makes few and occasional visits.
+You will also observe that there are ten men
+who have their mothers-in-law living with them to
+one man whose mother resides under his roof. Any
+wife would think it very mean in him if her husband
+did not extend a cordial welcome to Aunt Sally and
+Cousin Sue when they were invited for a visit and
+if he wasn’t willing to have her pretty young sister
+come and stay indefinitely in town with them so as to
+have the benefits of the city. And she expects him
+to register great joy when her mother telegraphs that
+she is coming for a month or two.</p>
+
+<p>But it is another pair of sleeves when it comes to
+a husband’s relatives, and there are precious few men
+who would dare to dump a bunch of their kinspeople
+on their wives. Many a man is afraid to ask even
+his own mother to come to see him. The average<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>
+husband would fall dead with surprise if his wife ever
+intimated to him that she considered the fact that
+he paid for the rent and food and light and heat and
+general upkeep of the home gave him just as much
+right to have his family stay with them as she had to
+have hers.</p>
+
+<p>As to the friends who come to the house, the wife
+considers it her prerogative to settle that little matter
+by herself and thinks that her husband has nothing
+to do with it. She spreads the mat with “Welcome”
+on it for those she likes and slams and bolts
+the door in the faces of those she doesn’t fancy. And
+she practically never fancies her husband’s old
+friends. So the man who had looked forward to having
+his old friends in his new home, who had dreamed
+of long talks with Tom by his fireside and to having
+Bob, who was closer than a brother, drop in at any
+time for pot-luck finds, somehow, not only that they
+do not come, but that he is afraid to ask them to
+come. Wives are always complaining that their husbands
+are not willing to stay at home. Perhaps the
+remedy is making the home a democracy instead of
+an autocracy. If men had more rights and privileges
+at home they might like staying in it better.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXVII">LXVII<br>
+<span class="fs70">DEVOURING FRIENDS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">“One</span> of the greatest pests in the world is what
+I call the devouring friend,” said a woman
+the other day. “She is a bloodthirsty cannibal
+who gobbles you up alive, and you have no way
+of protecting yourself against her, because the sacred
+name of friendship bars the use of all the lethal
+weapons that you can use in defending yourself
+against other bores and social nuisances.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, the common or garden variety of devouring
+friend is the one who literally eats you out
+of house and home. She is a self-invited guest who
+drops you a little note saying that she is passing
+through your city or that she has to have a little
+dental work done or wants to consult a doctor or do
+some shopping, and she does so pine to see her darling
+Susan and talk over old times, and will it be convenient
+for her to come and spend a few days with
+you? All of which being translated simply means
+that she desires to graft a hotel bill off you.</p>
+
+<p>“Anyway, she comes and camps in your spare
+room by the week, because she always manages to
+string out the dental work or the appointments with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>
+the doctor or the milliner. She should worry. For
+she is having a good time at no expense. Furthermore,
+by hints and insinuations she inveigles your
+husband into taking her to places of amusement that
+you have not felt that you could afford even when
+there were only two of you to pay for. And she runs
+your grocery bill up to the skies because she develops
+a taste for the most expensive food. And as
+you see her calmly consuming the price of your new
+dress you know exactly how a cornfield feels when
+a swarm of seven-year locusts settles down on it and
+goes into action.</p>
+
+<p>“Then there are the devouring friends who eat
+up your time. I am a busy woman. I cannot afford
+to waste a minute. Unfortunately for me, I have a
+number of women friends who are rich and whose
+principal occupation in life is killing time. Now,
+these women know perfectly well that I not only do
+all of my own housework but that I make my children’s
+clothes and that if they kill a morning for me
+they upset my whole schedule and make my work
+pile up upon me so that my labor is twice as hard.</p>
+
+<p>“But does that keep them from interrupting me?
+Lord, no. Every time Maud has a spat with her
+mother-in-law she will drop over and spend a whole
+morning giving me all the harrowing details. Every
+time Lulu’s husband gives her a new limousine I have
+to waste hours of my valuable time listening to a
+minute description of all its splendor. Every time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
+Sallie and Susie want to be sympathized with or
+want to brag about their children they ruin the heart
+of a day’s work for me by backing me up against a
+wall and making me listen. And a dozen times a day
+I am interrupted by women who call me up over the
+telephone to hold long and fruitless conversations
+about nothing.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet there is no possible way to protect my precious
+time against these friends who eat it up. They
+are all charming women. They like me and I like
+them. I want to retain their friendship, so I cannot
+shut my door in their faces when they come to see
+me. I can’t ask them to leave when they stay too
+long. I can’t ring off when they call me over the
+telephone. I can’t even say ‘damn’ aloud, no matter
+how much I am thinking it. But I know what
+the cynic meant when he said that if God would save
+him from his friends he would protect himself from
+his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>“Then there are the devouring friends who swallow
+up all of your home life. My husband’s business
+is such that he has only one or two evenings at home
+a week. We would like to have these to ourselves to
+keep up our acquaintance or to go out on a little
+spree together. We have proclaimed this fact loudly
+and long to our friends and we refuse every invitation
+that it is possible to get out of for those two
+sacred occasions. But it doesn’t do a particle of
+good.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Being an unusually charming and entertaining
+individual, my husband is regarded by my friends
+as a social tidbit—a particularly savory <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">hors
+d’œuvre</i>, as it were—and they gobble up our evenings
+together without the slightest compunction. If we
+won’t go to them, all right. They will come to us.
+So just about the time we are settling down for a
+real heart-to-heart talk, here come the Smiths to
+pass a pleasant evening with us, or the Joneses descend
+upon us and bear us off, shrieking and protesting,
+to listen to their new radio, or the Thompsons
+telephone that they are just coming over for a game
+of bridge.</p>
+
+<p>“And there are the other devouring friends who
+nibble away at our independence like a mouse at a
+cheese, until some day we suddenly wake up to the
+fact that our freedom is all gone. We haven’t a
+vestige of liberty left. We dare not give a party and
+leave them out. We have to explain to them everything
+we do and tag meekly along in their footsteps.
+And there are other devouring friends who gnaw constantly
+on our sympathies by telling us all of their
+troubles and making us bear their burdens for them.
+They are ghouls who make us feed them our hearts
+to satisfy their morbid appetite for pity. Perhaps
+there is no way to get rid of devouring friends, but
+it certainly would add to the pleasures of life if we
+could swat them as we do other household pests.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXVIII">LXVIII<br>
+<span class="fs70">THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">What</span> is the secret of happiness? I once
+asked Mary Anderson this question and
+she replied: “To find out what you want
+of life, and then to have the courage to take it. I
+wanted quiet, seclusion, home and husband and children,
+the ordinary domestic life of woman,” she went
+on. “I had the courage to leave the stage at the
+very height of my career. And I have had the courage
+to refuse every offer to go back, no matter how
+dazzling it was. I have also had the courage to stay
+in my sleepy little village and refuse to let myself
+be drawn into the brilliant whirl of London society.
+I have been happy because I knew what I wanted, and
+I have been brave enough to take it in spite of all
+temptations to be led into doing the things that I
+did not want to do.”</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly this is one of the answers to the great
+riddle that we are always asking and that so few
+solve. A great many people are unhappy because
+they do not really know what they want. They have
+no clear vision of the thing they are seeking. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>
+are torn between conflicting desires and never settle
+down to any one thing, and find contentment and
+peace in that. You see this exemplified in the men
+who are always changing from one occupation to another,
+and who work with their minds on their golf
+and play golf with their minds on their work. You
+see it in the women who are fretful and peevish wives
+and mothers, complaining of the burdens of domesticity
+and feeling that they have missed happiness
+in not following some career, and in the women who
+have followed careers and who are always bemoaning
+their loneliness because they have no families. Yet
+how seldom do the disgruntled, who lament their fate
+in life so loudly, have the courage to face about and
+take the road that they at least believe leads to happiness!
+We behold so many idle tears that we are
+inclined to believe there are vast numbers of human
+beings who get a kind of morbid pleasure out of
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the secret of happiness? I give four
+guesses at the conundrum. The first is work, to keep
+so busy that we do not have leisure to think whether
+we are happy or not. There is no other pleasure
+comparable to the clean joy of being swallowed up
+in some useful, constructive work that calls forth
+every power of mind and body. Your own job, that
+you do competently, has for you a never-failing interest,
+a perpetual thrill that nothing else in the
+world can give. Only brainless idiots are content to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>
+loaf. Intelligent, thinking men and women must keep
+busy in order to be happy.</p>
+
+<p>My second guess is that happiness is the bird in
+the hand and not the bird in the bush. If we are
+ever to be happy we must be happy now at the present
+moment. We cannot put it off until to-morrow.
+You are always hearing people say that they are
+going to do this and that when they get rich, that
+they are going to travel when they are old, they are
+going to play, they are going to take up old acquaintances,
+they are going to enjoy themselves five,
+ten, twenty years hence. But when the time comes
+that they have set to be happy in, they find that they
+have lost their capacity for enjoyment. Those who
+have inched and pinched and sweated every penny
+trying to accumulate a fortune have formed such a
+habit of parsimony that it is agony to them to spend
+money. Those who have denied themselves too much
+have lost all desire. Those who have stayed at home
+too long have become such a fixture on Main Street
+that they are lonesome and homesick everywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>So the happy men and women are those who take
+the goods the gods provide each hour. They make
+a reasonable provision against the rainy day, and
+then they indulge themselves in the good clothes, the
+pretty home, the comfortable car, the palatable food,
+the little trips that are within their reach. They do
+not put off every pleasure until some mythical, problematic
+day, when they will be able to live in a palace<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>
+and have a Rolls-Royce and Paris clothes and
+when they will be too old and rheumatic and set in
+their ways to want to do anything but sit by the fire
+in their own familiar chair. Never was there sounder
+philosophy conveyed than in the old comic opera
+ditty which said, “I want what I want when I want
+it,” and if we don’t take it then, it is dust and ashes
+in our teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Happiness consists in simple things. We are always
+envying the rich and great, and think how
+happy they must be, but we might well pity them, for
+they have far more sources of sorrow than we have.
+Beyond a modest competence, riches are a burden,
+and money can become a curse that blights every
+natural joy. The millionaire is cut off from the
+greatest of all happiness—that of knowing himself
+loved for himself alone. He suspects the motive of
+every friend, he does not even trust the woman he
+marries, and he knows his wealth to be a blight upon
+his children. The real source of happiness is in enjoying
+simple things—a gorgeous sunset, a beautiful
+landscape, a clever book, a good dinner, the talk of
+a friend, the unfaltering love of husband or wife, a
+baby’s arms around your neck, a fine son and
+daughter filling you with pride and joy. These have
+no price tag on them. They may belong just as
+much to the poor man as the rich man. Indeed, they
+oftener do.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, remember the song, “I Want to Be Happy,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span>
+but I Can’t Be Happy Till I Make You Happy,
+Too.” In unselfishness, in doing good to others—that
+is the real answer to the secret of how to be
+happy.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="LXIX">LXIX<br>
+<span class="fs70">PREPAREDNESS FOR OLD AGE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">What</span> are you storing up for your old age?
+Are you laying up any money against the
+time when you will be old and feeble and
+no longer able to work? The hour will strike for
+you, as it does for others, when your earning powers
+will be gone. Your hands will be too stiff and clumsy
+to keep on with their accustomed task. Your mind
+will be too slow to go the pace in the fierce competition
+in the commercial world. If you are an employee,
+you will lose your job. If you are a business
+man, you will find that your trade has somehow
+drifted away from you. If you are a professional
+man, you will be superseded by the new men whose
+stars are just rising on the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing that you can do will alter these conditions.
+No miracle will save you from the common
+fate of all who grow old. But if you have saved
+up enough money to make you independent, it will
+be merely a matter of mild regret to you. If, however,
+you have laid up nothing for the rainy day
+that is bound to come to you, it will be a tragedy
+that you will pray death to end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span></p>
+
+<p>For in all the world there are no people so piteous
+and forlorn as those who are forced to eat the bitter
+bread of dependence in their old age, and find how
+steep are the stairs of another man’s house. Wherever
+they go they know themselves unwelcome.
+Wherever they are, they feel themselves a burden.
+There is no humiliation of the spirit they are not
+forced to endure. Their hearts are scarred all over
+with the stabs from cruel and callous speeches.</p>
+
+<p>In youth money is a convenience, an aid to pleasure.
+In age it is an absolute necessity, for when
+we are old we have to buy even consideration and
+politeness from those about us. This is true even in
+the households of our own children, for between the
+father and mother who are able to pay their own
+way and are the source of a never-ending flow of
+gifts and treats, and the father and mother who must
+be supported is a great gulf fixed. It is the difference
+between having the place of honor and the back
+seat; between being listened to with respect and having
+one’s opinions derided; between having one’s little
+peculiarities catered to as interesting characteristics
+and being snubbed for one’s old-fashioned ways.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is this as unfeeling and hard-boiled as it
+seems. The average young couple has all it can
+do, in these times of the high cost of living, to provide
+for itself and the children, and it makes the
+burden crushing to have to add the extra weight of
+the support of the old people of the families.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span></p>
+
+<p>The fate of the dependent old is so terrible that
+it is a marvel that it does not frighten every one into
+trying to provide against it. Yet it was recently
+stated in a journal of statistics that 80 per cent of
+the men and women more than sixty years of age
+were dependent either upon their children or upon
+public charity. Don’t let this misfortune befall you.
+Guard against it. Begin systematic saving while
+you are young, so that when you are old you will
+at least have the comfort of being independent.</p>
+
+<p>Are you laying up affection for your old age?
+Most of us have a curious and naïve belief in what
+we call “natural affection.” We befool ourselves
+into thinking that people must love us because they
+stand in a certain relationship to us and because
+there are blood ties between us. Never was there a
+more fallacious theory. There is, to be sure, the
+mother’s passion for the child she has borne and the
+instinctive clinging of the child to its mother while
+it is young and helpless, but that is all. It doesn’t
+follow as a matter of course that grown-up men and
+women love their parents just because they are their
+parents. As a matter of fact, they don’t, unless the
+father and mother have won their love by years of
+tenderness and understanding and sympathy. You
+can’t be hard and tyrannical and selfish and stingy
+with your children and expect them to love you because
+it is their duty to do so. If you want your
+children to love you when you are old, you have to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>
+begin winning their hearts when they are in the
+cradle.</p>
+
+<p>Have you laid up a good supply of friendship for
+your old age? No complaint is heard more often
+from the old than that they are lonely. Few come
+to see them. They are seldom asked out. No one
+sends them flowers when they are sick. They are
+neglected and they crave the little attentions that we
+all like and yearn for the society of their fellow
+creatures. Now, when old people are lonely, it is
+always their own fault. It is because they have
+neglected to lay up any friendships for the sere and
+yellow days when they have no longer the power to
+attract people to them.</p>
+
+<p>They have gone their selfish way through life, sufficient
+unto themselves in their youth. They have
+never held out a helping hand to those in need. They
+have never wept with those who wept and rejoiced
+with those who rejoiced. They have not bothered
+to write notes of condolence or congratulation. They
+have never visited the sick and afflicted. They have
+never spent an hour listening to an old person’s garrulous
+talk, and so, when they get old, they are repaid
+in the same coin.</p>
+
+<p>Are you laying up any mental riches for your old
+age? I know an old lady so feeble that she cannot
+stir from her chair, and whose eyes have failed so
+that she cannot tell day from night, and who is so
+deaf that she cannot be read to, but who passes her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>
+days delightfully reciting to herself whole cantos of
+Scott and Byron and recalling word for word chapters
+of Dickens and Thackeray and Miss Austen.
+Her mind to her a kingdom is, in which she finds entertainment
+and amusement. Will you be amused or
+bored when you are in your nineties and have nothing
+but your own society? I know another woman,
+middle-aged, who is deliberately laying up a treasure
+of memories of travel to solace her in her old age.
+She will never know a dull moment, for she will have
+something to think about besides her rheumatism and
+her diet when she sits alone in the twilight of life.</p>
+
+<p>Old age comes to us all. Don’t let it find you
+empty-handed or empty-minded. Thus shall you
+make it a time of happiness instead of torment.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>The Blue Book of Social Usage</em>—</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 bold">Etiquette</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 bold wsp">In Society, In Business, In Politics, and At Home</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>By EMILY POST</em></p>
+
+
+<p>“The most complete book on social usage that ever
+grew between two covers.” There are 24 pages about
+introductions and greetings, 7 about street conduct,
+13 on conduct at the theatre, 10 on conversation, 25
+on cards and visits, 33 on invitations, 12 on teas,
+61 on dinners, 12 on breakfasts and suppers, 26 on
+balls and dances, 12 on “the debutante,” 12 on matrimonial
+engagements, 33 on preparations for the wedding,
+35 on “the day of the wedding,” 23 on funerals,
+58 on letters, 22 on dress, 9 on the clothes of a gentleman,
+34 on the well-appointed house, 24 on traveling
+at home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>The author is a shining figure in society and her
+charming and popular book is accepted everywhere as the
+authoritative Blue Book of Social Usage. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80"><em>Crown 8vo, Cloth. <span style="padding-left: 1em">639 pages.</span> <span style="padding-left: 1em">$4</span>, net; flexible leather, $7.50, net;
+postage, 18c extra.</em></p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>The Blue Book of Personal Attire</em>—</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp bold">How to Dress Well</p>
+
+<p>A valuable treatise by an authority which considers
+dress for women from both the artistic and the
+practical view-points, and provides sound information
+on the principles of tasteful and attractive apparel.
+Not only does this book give details for enhancing
+one’s personal appearance, for slenderizing the stout,
+for broadening the slender, for the selection of headwear
+and other accessories, but also practical guidance
+for the selection and testing of materials, choosing
+of laces and furs, budgeting the dress allowance,
+and for the care and up keep of the wardrobe. It is
+brimful of the very information pertaining to dress,
+color, and toilet accessories about which every woman
+hesitates to accept any but truly trustworthy advice
+and is a fitting companion to Emily Post’s “Etiquette.”
+Modistes, designers, dressmakers, and milliners will
+also find this work of highest value. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80"><em>8vo, Cloth. 494 pages. $3.50, net; postage, 18c extra.</em></p>
+<br>
+
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 wsp bold">The Blue Book of Cookery<br>
+<span class="fs70">And Manual of House Management</span></p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>By ISABEL COTTON SMITH</em></p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp"><em>With an Introduction by Emily Post, Author of “Etiquette”</em></p>
+
+
+<p>This is not “just another cookbook,” but an original
+and authoritative guide for the preparation of foods
+and for house management. All the originality and
+importance of this volume would be of limited value
+unless it were written by so capable and practical an
+authority as Isabel Cotton Smith. It contains more
+than 2,000 recipes; gives complete information on the
+management of house and home, with invaluable suggestions
+for table economy, and includes everything
+for every season and every day in the year, for every
+possible repast from breakfast to late supper and
+from teas and picnic meals to specially designed menus
+for children at home and at school, as well as menus
+for vegetarians.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp"><em>Crown 8vo, Washable Fabrikoid. $2.50, net; postage, 18c extra.</em></p>
+<br>
+
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs150 bold wsp">A Woman of Fifty</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 wsp"><em>By RHETA CHILDE DORR</em></p>
+
+<p>This unique autobiography of a remarkable and
+courageous woman covers one of the most revolutionary
+periods of time in history—from virtually the
+beginning of a concerted movement to organize the
+women of this country in the fight for equality in
+politics and industry to the time when these hitherto
+unattainable causes were firmly established in our economic
+and governmental systems. As journalist, lecturer,
+editor, and writer, the author has taken part in
+virtually every event that marks her generation; was
+the only woman war correspondent with the famed
+Russian Women’s “Battalion of Death” on the last
+Kerensky offensive on the Eastern Front; spent three
+years in “after war” Europe, and is to-day in the
+thick of things in this country. Written in a frank,
+forceful, and grippingly interesting style.</p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs80 wsp"><em>8vo, Cloth. 482 pp. $2.50, net; postage, 18c extra.</em></p>
+
+<p class="center no-indent fs120 bold wsp">
+FUNK &amp; WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers<br>
+<span class="fs80">354-360 Fourth Avenue, New York</span><br>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter transnote">
+<h2 class="nobreak fs150 bold" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 58 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">which are resonsible for more real</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">which are responsible for more real</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 61 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">you happen to be born in a certain relationshp</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">you happen to be born in a certain relationship</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 71 Changed: </td>
+<td class="tdl">any particular trade or profesion</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">any particular trade or profession</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 101 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">earn her own living as a “poor working women.”</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">earn her own living as a “poor working woman.”</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 105 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">so far be it from me to abridge</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">so far be it for me to abridge</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 150 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">life better than than that of the successful</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">life better than that of the successful</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 179 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">he will be filled fell of pep and energy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">he will be filled full of pep and energy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 179 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">discovery that somewhow the mysterious something</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">discovery that somehow the mysterious something</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 188 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">she is not likely to tarnish your deal.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">she is not likely to tarnish your ideal.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 217 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">as many men starving for affection as there are woman.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">as many men starving for affection as there are women.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 218 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">reward depends altogther on his wife’s attitude</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">reward depends altogether on his wife’s attitude</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">pg 221 Changed:</td>
+<td class="tdl">their purpose when they falter and waiver</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">to:</td>
+<td class="tdl">their purpose when they falter and waver</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75448 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75448 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75448)