Show KATHLEEN NORRIS MORRIS Divorce Is as Much a State S a e T GOT MARRIED without knowIng know know- III II Ing anything about marriage And five years later I got a di divorce dl vorce without knowing anything about divorce This sentence in a a Utter letter that came to me this week expressed something that I had never thought out before I mean that divorce Is just as definite a state as marriage marriage mar mar- Is and an even more difficult difficult cult and complicated one Before Defore I had worked out any of ot the problems of marriage the letter goes on I found myself with a whole set of new ones as asa asa asa a divorced woman I hadn't made Hals Hal's home comfortable I was restless and dissatisfied always wishing that I was back on my old job with 40 a week to throw throwaway away just as I pleased I was bored with dust dishes and eventually baby Yvonne was a delicate baby I was I nearly mad with nerves and mental mental mental men tal cruelty provided an escape Escape I You know what I escaped escaped escaped es es- es- es into Id I'd never made the effort to make Hals Hal's people people peo peo- pie like me and they didn't I did go back to my old job but it wasn't the same thing with my little girls girl's claims tearing at my heart I tried combining with witha a girl friend who had a small boy that didn't work I tried boarding homes Vonnie and I were miserable miser able through all those years I felt myself neither one thing nor another and when Von was 12 I married again Could Slave Have Been Deen Friends It was a mistake I saw the mistake all the sooner because I had strangely enough made a close friend of Hals Hal's sister and through her of his mother We could have been friends all the time If I hadn't been so immature and so soC sol 0 C l P nearly marl maJ with wilh nerves spoiled My second husband had good points but business acumen wasn't one of them I found my myself myself my my- self seU supporting him and second baby daughter So 50 when Von Van made a foolish young marriage followed within two years by a divorce I divorced also and we combined forces I Inow Inow Inow now am back at the old job I ran away from 17 years ago with Von I supporting the family with pay pay- payments ments from the fathers of both children and myself cook and nurse nUrle for tor all aU four tour of usI usI usI us I am only 40 40 but my life Ufe as a loved protected wife Is over Von sees lees her father who Is married again and has haa two boys boy I 1 never see ee anyone I go 10 to movies in the evening my daytime hours are crowded with domestic duties and andI I am tired all aU the time Mother Takes Take Blame BUme Deep in my heart I blame my myown myown myown own mother who was wu also divorced in my childhood but perhaps Von has as good a right to blame me She Is II pretty and popular at 19 19 and of ot course coure will marry again Then I dont don't know what will be bed become come of me A Job I suppose and some ome arrangement for tor my little Merle Marie Louise LoWse such ucb as I made for tor Von This youngest little girl ii It very gentle centle and clinging and It tt kills kUfa me to think that she the hat has not Dot the secure lecure happy home background back ground of 01 other children I know I Z have made a mess mesa of my We Ute and that If U I 1 had hid known the tho true values vatu of 01 things thing 1 15 10 years year I ago I might have made a success of my first marriage and perhaps spared Von her own mistake This is only one of a thousand just such hopelessly complicated situations of which I hear every year It seems impossible to conS con convince vince our children of just two simple truths One that no marriage marriage mar mar- is easy that it has to be worked out with the utmost strength of character And two that the outcome of a happy strongly-knit strongly marriage no matter how difficult to achieve Is the most worthwhile thing In the world And perhaps we should add three that divorce isn't freedom it is Instead a plunge into deeper aI and d deeper complications A certain Chicago divorce attorney attorney at at- torney one Samuel M. M Starr is trying to do something about the appalling increase of divorces in these United States He has established established established Divorces Anonymous My respect admiration and best wishes accompany Mr Starr inthis in inthis inthis this undertaking I lore Hare power to him himl Of the thousands of letters I receive every year on this subject of divorce more than half hail are from men and women who admit that had they an opportunity to try again with the same partner they would find tind it easier to make the first marriage a success than to make the divorce one In many many small homes there are vaguely dissatisfied women women wom worn en who somehow expected married life Ute to be more varied |