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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Young Marriage Is Unbalanced Business ffeell Syndicate WNU Service.) 14 f I , 'KUiJ When a girl of 18 marries everything is joyous tumult. Prtients pour ina dizzying number of frocks are bought. Grandmother's veil is brought out of the linen chest; a photographer takes pictures of little Betsey. By KATHLEEN NORRIS MOST girls like the idea of marrying young. At 17, a normal girl, walking home from high school between two girl chums, feels in her soul that if she could have the excitement excite-ment and glory of quietly announcing an-nouncing that she and Peter Baker are going to be married on her graduation day, she wouldn't care much what else happened or didn't happen in all the years to come! "Betsey engaged!" gasp the aunts. "Why, mercy on us,' how old is the child!" "I'll be 18 in June," Betsey reminds re-minds them demurely. But inside her nothing is demure. Everything is joyous tumult Pride, thrill expectation, ex-pectation, love of the nice boy who loves her so madly, all these keep Betsey's spirits at high level during her last weeks as a girl. Other things contribute. Presents pour in; di2zying numbers of frocks are bought; parties are given. There is an adorable little apartment to furnish; there is a sparkling ring; Grandmother's wedding veil is brought out of the linen chest; a photographer comes to take pictures of little Betsey half-hid behind the folds of it. The Miracle of Marriage. In all of this Peter's image becomes be-comes somewhat fogged in Betsey's mind. He is there, of course, loving lov-ing and happy, but he is really much less important, in the eyes of an 18-year-old girl, than the fit of her wedding gown. Betsey in all her life has never been lonely, ignored, ig-nored, doubtful, hungry for friendship. friend-ship. By no possibility can she value val-ue Peter's affection rightly, or estimate esti-mate this miracle that is marriage at its true worth. No, it is all fun, for her. Betsey has smart little calling cards with "Mrs. Peter Arnold Baker" engraved en-graved upon them, at 18. But at 19, at 20, the glow begins to pale. It isn't that she doesn't love Peter and dear little ridiculous ridicu-lous Patsy, but Betsey isn't the center cen-ter of attention any more. The other girls, who looked on impressed and perhaps a little envious, two years ago, are in the full swing of life's happiest days now. Betsey is missing all of this; she is married. Peter has changed from the carefree sweetheart of a few years ago; he has a wife and baby to support now. "I was married at 18," Betsey can still say proudly. But it doesn't seem to matter any more. She is beginning dimly to perceive that the very young wife has an obligation that sits badly on young shoulders. Hers Must Wait. Janet is 36 now; she married at 18 and has two daughters of 16 and 13. Her husband had two girls by his first marriage also; they are now in their early twenties, going out a good deal, and never so happy as when their handsome father shares their social engagements. He gives them dances at the country club, little downtown dinners, and now that Emily, the oldest, is engaged en-gaged to an army captain, the house is in a flurry of wedding preparations. prepara-tions. "From the moment I married Emmet," Janet writes aggrievedly, "everyone seemed to regard me as a settled old woman. I am not old, even now, but with two great girls at the awkward ages I am not included in-cluded in any young parties. Emmet wants Emily and Isabel to have everything; ev-erything; I thought, when we were OLD AT 20 You can't expect, twenty years from now, to recapture the youth you lost by marrying marry-ing at 17 or 18. If you try, you will probably become one of those pathetic middle-aged women who refuse stubbornly to grow old gracefully, thereby there-by losing not only the joy of youth but the charm and peace of the later years. Not all such marriages turn out badly. But more often than not, when the novelty and glamour wears thin and marriage mar-riage becomes the serious business it really is, the bride of less than 20 years begins to realize that she is no longer a girl. She is, at 20, already too old for her age. married, that I would have the managing man-aging of his house and his children, but from the first Emmet's sister who lived next door, practically ran our house, and the girls were in school. "When they came Emmet was so delighted to have two young lady daughters to spoil that I was reduced re-duced to a working housekeeper's position, and anything my own girls wanted had to wait until their half-sisters half-sisters had had a chance at the social so-cial whirl, a chance to go the right places and meet the right men. "Just to give you an idea: Isabel, when she leaves the house, will call up to me, 'Two extra for dinner, Janet!' Emily borrowed a fur coat my aunt left me, 'just for this once' and has been wearing it all winter. When I spoke to Emmet about it and said I had intended to cut it into muffs for Jane and Diana, my own girls, he laughed and said that long before they were ready for muffs the coat would be moth-eaten anyway. Inconsiderate Demands. "I feel as if I had thrown away my life; no girlhood, really, no young-ladyhood of dancing and good times, maternal problems with the children" of a man more than twice my age when I was only 18, and now nothing but slavery in a family of six, with constant problems of company, meals, parties, late hours, and the inconsiderate demands of two spoiled girls. Except for occasional occa-sional help by the hour, my girls and I do all the work. , "Just now," the letter concludes, "Emmet is asking me to put a mortgage mort-gage on our own home so that he can make the down payment on a home for Emily and Martin." Well, little-girl marriages don't always al-ways mean total eclipse. But they almost always present problems that can be solved only by the sudden sud-den and painful growing up of the little girl. She doesn't long hold the proud position of a young queen, adored by her older husband, and hardly older, herself, than those children she is mothering so charmingly. charm-ingly. For a few months or a year she does bustle about, identified in the shops as that pretty girl-wife of Doctor Brown; for a few years she talks with precocious wisdom, like a grave little girl playing mamma, about what she and Harry mean to do for Toddy and Nancy. But very shortly she learns that even Titania, when she marries, has to keep a house comfortable and a cook pacified, that Toddy is an unpleasantly un-pleasantly spoiled little boy who runs to his grandmother with all his troubles trou-bles and makes a partisan of his father, and that Nancy doesn't like her and never wilL |
