Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1915 — Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks [ARTICLE]

Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks

By ORISON SWETT MARDEN.

Copyright by McClure Newspaper Syndicate SHOULD NOT BE A DRUDGE Oft A ’ DOLL. "There are some things ft doesn’t pay us to get," said Vice-President Marshall in a recent address. “For instance, it doesn’t pay a man to get so much money that be becomes ashamed of his old-fashioned wife and no longer wants to trot in her society.” Not long ago a man who abandoned his wife and who tried in every way to provoke her to get a divorce from him so he could marry a young and attractive girl, plainly told her that she was not good-looking or stylish enough for him, that now that he had money he wanted a wife who could show off in society. This poor woman had made all sorts of sacrifices in their early days of struggle with poverty. For years she had worked and deprived herself of necessities to help her husband get a start in the world, and to care for and bring up his children without a nurse -or maid. She made a drudge of herself, but when he had become prosperous he had no use for the worn-out wife, with her burned-out beauty and her wrinkles, which had paid the price of a large part of his prosperity; he wanted to cast her aside for a young, fresh and attractive wife. In the trial the wife said: "I worked from seven in the morning until eleven o’clock at night. But now that I am no longer needed in the business, he has heaped' upon me insults untold. He has neglected and failed to properly provide for me. “He repeatedly told me that I was not fashionable enough for him,’’ the wife concluded. “He liked dressy women. He took me to one place and pointed out a Miss K. and said he bad spent |4OO wining and dining her.” The world will never know the tortures, a thousand times worse than death itself, endured by wives of prosperous husbands, who so often prefer suffering to scandal and endure a living death rather than expose their husbands, who have been fascinated by younger and more attractive women. One of the most pathetic spectacles in American life is that of the fadsd, outgrown wife standing helpless, in the shadow of her husband’s prosperity and power, having sacrificed her* youth, beauty and ambition — nearly everything that the feminine mind holds dear —to enable an indifferent, selfish, brutish husband to get a start in the world. It does not matter that the wife sacrificed her own opportunity for a career, that she gave up her most cherished ambition in order to make a ladder for her selfish husband to 'ascend by. When he has once gotten to the top, like a wily, diplomatic politician, he often kicks the ladder down. He wants to make a show in the world; he thinks only of himself. His poor, faded, worn-out wife, standing* in his shadow, is not attractive ■ enough for him now that he has gotten up in the world.

The selfish husband thinks that he should have a clear track for his ambition, and that his wife should be content, even grateful, to be allowed to tag on behind and assist him in every possible way in what he considers the grand life work of both of them —to make him the biggest man possible. It does not even occur to him thgt she could have an ambition welling up within her heart, a longing to answer the call which runs in her own blood, and a yearning to express it in some vocation as well as he. - I do not believe that the Creator has limited one-half of the human race practically to one occupation, while the other half has the choice of a thousand.

“But," many of our men readers will say, “is there any grander profession In the world than that of home making? Can anything be more stimulating, more elevating than home making and .the rearing of children? How can such a vdtation be narrowing, monotonous?" Of course it is grand. There is nothing grander in the universe than the work of a true wife, a noble mother. But It would require the constitution of a Hercules, an infinitely greater patience than that of a Job, to endure such work with almost no change or outside variety, year in and year out, as multitudes of wives and mothers do. The average man does not appreciate how almost devoid of incentives to broad-mindedness, to many-sided-ness, to liberal growth, the home life of many women is. The business man and the professional man are really in a perpetual school, a great, practical university. He is continually coming in contact with new people, .new things, being molded by a vast number of forces which never touch the wife in the quiet home. I believe in marriage, but I do not believe in that marriage which paralyses self-development, strangles ambition, and discourages evolution and self-growth, which takes away the life purpose. Nor is lt necesary that the wife should work llke a slave in order’ to grow.- There is a certainclass of men who go to the other

extreme and make slaves of their wives—work them half to death. But physical drudgery does not develop power. The slave wife is as badly off as the doll wife. A wife should neither be a drudge nor a dressed-up doll; she should develop herself by self-effort, just as her husband develops himself. She should not put herself in a position where her inventiveness and resource*' fulness and individuality, her talent* will be paralyzed by lack of motive* Everything in the whole environment of tens of thousands of American wives is discouraging to growth and tends to strangle a broader, fuller life. A healthy mind must be an active mind. Vigor and strength cannot be built up in man or woman by inaction of a life of indolence or monotony. There must be a purpose, a vigorous, strong aim in the life, or it will be nerveless, insipid and stale. For centuries women themselves accepted man’s estimate of them, and were content-to walk in his shadow. But since the higher discovery of woman in the last century a new order of things is being brought abouL Women are becoming less and less dependent upon men and more inclined to live their own lives. They are beginning to see their own possibilities, that they can have careers and ambitions as well as men. The girl of today expects a liberal education and looks forward to a career of her own. Women have at last learned that men have not monopolized all the genius, that ability knows no sex. And the wife is beginning to realize that there is one thing she should guard as the very jewel of her soul; that is, the determination to keep pace with her husband.

HOME* SWEETEST WORD IN THE LANGUAGE. The story is told of a perplexed young man who wrote to the query department of a newspaper to know whether the editor would advise him to buy an automobile or get married. He said he could not afford to do both, and was in a quandary. The editor cautioned the young man to deliberate earnestly and not to make up his mind without due consideration. He was reminded that while an ’automobile costs more it doesn’t talk back, and that a sec-ond-hand automobile could be traded for a new one. It Is not recorded what was the decision of the irresolute young man. There have been men, good men, whose lives, measured by ordinary standards, were successful, who never married; but those who hear or read of them feel that such careers were incomplete. To a certain degree, a young man should look upon marriage from a utilitarian standpoint. A good wife is so much capital. She makes him to be, by- a kind of grace, a great deal more than he is by nature. She contributes the qualities needed in order to convert his vigor Into a safe as well as productive efficiency. She introduces, for instance, into his intellectual nature that ingredient of sentiment which intellect requires in order to be abte to do its best work and makes home an Eden. “To Adam, Paradise was home; to the good among his descendants, home is paradise." Most married men are saner, much more normal and level-headed, economical and careful, on account of their wives. A model home is a great corrective for a man. It keeps him up to standard and saves him from getting blue and discouraged. It develops the affectionate side of his nature and renders his character stronger and more symmetrical. Men can produce very much mor-e because of harmony and affection in-the home. There is nothing else which will call out the divinest qualities of a man or woman like unselfish service. The very consciousness that one has others depending upon, him tedds to call out the best in him. A happy marriage brings sunshine Into the life and broadens, softens and sweetens the character. It is a great educator, a perpetual influence for good.

Who could estimate what civilization owes to man's dream of a happy home of his own! What an incentive to man in all ages has been this vision of a home of his own! It is this picture which holds the youth to his task, buoys him up in times of hardship and discouragement This picture of a home, this vision of a little cottage and some fair maiden waiting at the door —this home vision has ever been the great incentive of the struggler, the greatest incentive of mankind! It is the dream of "a home of my own” that has lifted multitudes of youths out of obscurity. There is no spur on earth which has had anything like the Influence over man that this home vision has. The thought of his home and wife children, dearer to him than life, keeps vast multitudes of men grinding away at their dreary tasks, when they see no other light in the distance. To multitudes of people hotpe is the only oasis fw their desert life. Home Is the sweetest word in the language. It has ever been the favors ite theme of the poet, the author, and the artist. History is packed with the achievements of men for the sake of the home. They cross oceans, they explore continents. They endure the heat of the tropics and the cold of the arctics, they explore mines in the wilderness, cut themselves off from civilization for years for the sake of wife and home- . ® I t-.t.iiaomii 111 - A Women are always eineere engry.