Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1889 — SUCCESS IN MARRIAGE. [ARTICLE]

SUCCESS IN MARRIAGE.

The Sensible Views of an fxj tremaly Sensible Woman. On the much mooted question, “Is Marriage a Failure?” a lady writes to the Chicago Inter Ocean some re-! marks so sensible that we can not but quote them for the benefit of our readers: A woman makes a failure of marriage unless she makes an effort to do a great deal more tnan is implied in her marriage contract. It is supposed that the husband supplies the materiat for the home, and they are very raw materials indeed unless the wife takes hold of those meatte with the band of a creator, building up out of them helps and associations loved and needed by both. And a woman must put her soul into her house, or it is a hollow and sounding shell. As high as we must rate the accomplishment of good housekeeping, it is not all in the making of a home. I know a lady who was a marked failure as a housekeeper who was the idol of her husband, and who graduated to the ..world a family of accomplished and honored children, And there are women who in pain and weakness are confined to their own rooms, yet who manage to hold the power in an orderly house and fill it full of love-light and happiness sufficient for the comfort of all who cross its threshold. It is the quality of recognizing and filling need that is the essential quality Df success in marriage. Practically, if

a man comes home from business with a headache, hungry for a bit of sympathy and love, and a good deal of quiet, and finds his wife in a raging excitement over an elaborate dinner, and is ordered to keep out of the way and amuse the children till the great proceeding is culminated, he is about as unfortunate as the man who "brings a college friend home to dinner and finds his wife in wrapper and slippers deep in a French novel. But the woman who spies the coming friend from the window slides out of her wrapper in a twinkle and appears upon the scene iu due time with a soul cheering cup of French coffee, is the woman who makes her husband envied among men. Unfortunately women have hobbies, and ride and ride and never perceive that they are boring their companions to death. There are men who would go to war to be rid of paper flowers, hair flowers, rugs, tidies and what not; and there are men who think art and music are inventions of the evil one to make people miserable. Any one, anywhere, who cultivates a hofiby at the expense of other people’s comfort is making a failure of life; but true politeness of the heart between friend and friend, man and wife, will obviate the danger of overdone amusements. It is easier to forgive virtuous excess of zeal, and it is mostly excess of zeal for excellence of some kind that causes some women to be more exclusive housewives than wives of men. The greatest charity should be extended to a woman who maKes her house so perfect in detail and polished in appearance that her friends go into it with fear and trembling, for she is afflicted with a virtuous zeal, and has only overiruwn a very good thing. Housekeeping lias its fanatics and martyrs a 3 well as ahy other good cause. . But housekeeping conducted as a means of happiness and comfort, either in a cabin or a palace, is a science that, no wife can neglect if she wishes to sustain thir’taw of mntuaiTfiSlpfuTbeas "■ in marriage. A wife expects her husband upon marriage to begin a course of toiling for her support without remission or any suspension of responsibility,, and why should he not expect her to aspire to the greatest excellence in homemaking? Just here is where the wedge of dissolution frequently enters. \ woman fails to give as much as she receives—that is, she works from compulsion more than from a desire to keep up her side of the partnership with dignity and grace. But one says; “1 work all the time; I work like a slave.” Yes, my dear, ?on do work like a slave—just like a «lave, and not like a responsible being seeking an end and not the means, ion have braided little Eva’s dress up md down and all over, which does not help little Eva, and your husband would have appreciated you more had you spent yonr evenings with folded hands and happy face in your rockingchair by his side. You spent hours of time on unnecessary things and forgo! •he essentials of your partnership, which is to evolve as much peace and ?o pi fort us possible out of your materials. The science of good housekeeping m these days, when we can buy so Jinny conveniences, is not so much superiority in any one thing as a general excellence in every thing. We Is not need cooking-schoolaMor girls so much as schools branches of home-making arcrtaught.,in order to preserve the balance of usefulness in the girl’s mind. A man does not want to raarrv a chef do cuisine, and ft is no wonder the papers make fun of cooking-schools. To learn one department of housekeeping to the neglect of everything else is ruinous. If a woman is to marry, there it nothing so much to be valued as good health and good sense and a very loving heart, and then it will follow that the wdl adapt herself to the calls upon her ability. When a woman marries for a lifo of ease and doesn’t gel. it, thore is certainly no remedy in her

ease so long as she forgets that life is a struggle anywhere, and feels that she should be excused from helping to carry the’burdens of those by whom she may be surrounded. The mutual bearanee and forbeliance of life is as greatly the secret of happiness in marriage as in anything else. We have to tolerate unpleasant things in bur companions in any relations of life, and why try to build up a law of marriage in any other way?