Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 12, Number 9, DeMotte, Jasper County, 8 January 1942 — Kathleen Norris Says: Teasing Is Innate Cruelty [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kathleen Norris Says: Teasing Is Innate Cruelty

(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)

Three years ago, when I was 18,” writes Janine, “my chum Maude and I thought we were deeply in love. Our two boy friends took us everywhere, dancing, skiing, to movies and night clubs, and we felt there was no harm in the intimate relationship that naturally resulted. I can truly say that no thought of hesitation or guilt ever crossed my mind. “When I became engaged last year, however, I told Dave of that early affair. He immediately assured me that he was no angel and had not expected me to be one, and that he felt that sort of thing ought to be forgotten. “Maude was also married some weeks ago, and after her honeymoon she and her husband came to us for their first dinner party as married people. We had a table of eight and everything went perfectly, except that Dave began to tease her, and to my horror mentioned the name of the man with whom Maude had been in love and asked her if she ever saw him. “All this mystified Maude’s husband. Maude called me up in a perfect panic the next day, saying she had not told Rod anything of her early affair and that Dave had simply infuriated her by his teasing talk. Immediately I told Dave he said that he would of course not go on with it, and added that he would never have thought Maude was that sort of a girl. Caused a Quarrel. “You can imagine how this made me feel! I was so mad that we had what Dave called 5 our first knock-down-and-drag-out fight, but we got over it and were friends again and decided to forget the whole thing and start fresh. But a day or two later he asked me how long my intimate relationship with my first sweetheart had gone on. I answered only for about three months, and nothing more was said. “Yesterday morning the paper mentioned the fact that Maude is on the women's committee to provide amusement for the men in camps, and Dave made a sneering reference to it; he said this was only in fun. But later Maude sent me a brief cold note, saying that. they could not come to a buffet party that we are giving after the big football game, and I know they have given two dinners at least in the last month, but we have not been asked to their house yet, I am afraid David has carried his fun too far. “Maude is my oldest friend, and we have talked for years of the pleasure we would have as brides doing our shopping and discussing our housekeeping together. Can you make any suggestion that may save me from losing her friendship and influencing Dave not to tease her or remind her again of the past? A Fatal Flaw A teasing husband, my dear Janine, is a much more serious matter than it sounds. Impulses toward murder, theft, arson and forgery are kept in order by the law, and by a man’s natural fear of punishment. But teasing is a fatal flaw in the relationship between married persons, and I don’t know of any cure. Teasing is innate cruelty seeking an outlet. It veils its intention

to sting and hurt under a merry mask of fun. It is always “just fooling.’’ When he carelessly. and laughingly has threatened the actual foundations of a marriage, as Dave in his light-hearted banter with Maude, he retreats, coward-fashion. Dave pretends not to realize that he may have started suspicions in the mind of Maude’s husband, May Regret Her Secrecy. You.; were- smarter than Maude in that you made a clean breast of your own early weakness in the safety of engagement days, when Dave was so anxious to win you that nothing you could have done as a girl would deter him. Maude chose to keep her secret, and she may yet live to regret the deception. You had better give up the hope of continuing your friendship with Maude; young wives almost always have to sacrifice their school-girl friendships to the claims of husbands, and you will be no worse off than the others. Make new friends, devote yourself—as I am sure you are devoting yourself—to thp fulltime job of keeping Dave happy and building for you both a sound and successful marriage But if he continues his teasing, and extends it pretty generally to all your friends, one way to spike his guns is to acknowledge cheerfully that David isn’t happy unless he’s teasing someone. Say something like ‘He’ll tell you that your children are undersized, Tom, and that if you’d been as smart as he is you wouldn’t have had to pay that speeding fine, and that he knows you and Betty came here to dinner to get our insurance, but don’t take it seriously. Dave is a darling in spite of it all.” No Perfect Solution. This makes what ammunition Dave has in store decidedly wet. But it is not a perfect solution. There is no perfect solution for so serious a fault except the solution that must come from the tease himself, a genuine resolution to be considerate of the feelings and misfortunes of others. In New York some years ago there was a complacent wife who couldn't sufficiently impress all of us, who had suffered in the general financial collapse, with the fact that she and her husband were luckier than ever and richer than ever. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she would babble happily, “Harry iust got out of This in time and into That when it was going to make that sensational rise, and just before the crash he sold our place for three times what it would bring today!”

When Maude and her husband came to us for their first dinner party as manned people Dave, my husband, began teasing her. To my horror, he mentioned the name of the man with whom Maude had been in love.

Illustration of two women in dresses looking angrily at a man in a suit.