OCR Text |
Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Traitorous Cheats Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. By KATHLEEN NORRIS "TTOW can a man be sure Li- his wife is not cheating on him?" asks Van Harrison of East St. Louis. "I've got a very pretty wife," his letter goes on, "and, of course, when I'm at home she is all devotion. devo-tion. But I'm not not at home much and I have a feeling that Doreen does pretty much what she wants to do when I'm away. "Last year she got hold of some handsome furs, said she had picked up a pawn ticket in the street and found that they were overdue on payments and could be bought. Well, I investigated that. I felt like a heel doing it and it seemed straight enough, but it could have been framed, too. "Now she has two good-looking air-weight suitcases, about $50 worth of stuff, and she says a friend sold them to her for practically prac-tically nothing,- because the friend had new ones. I haven't the nerve to ask her what friend and follow that up. I know she dresses better tnan any of the other women on our size income. Now other women are beginning to hint that Doreen isn't playing fair. Job at Home "How's for getting a job at home, even at a sacrifice?" continues this anxious yet inarticulate husband. "She seems to see every show that comes to town well, I could take her to shows. We have one kid, now 11, and something he said to me , . . awake all night , . . yesterday about Mamma's interest? and Mamma's friends has kept me awake one whole night. It will keep me awake a lot more if I don't settle the matter. Can a woman cheat and get away with it these days, and what are the men doing about it?" Unfortunately, Van, I say in answer, an-swer, a woman in Doreen's position posi-tion can cheat easily. And if you change your job and attempt to keep too close a watch on her, if she actually is cheating, she wil) break away. Honor isn't affected by a man's absences, nor a woman's oppor tunities to be untrue. Honor is a matter of her mind and her soul, of what she was taught and trained to do as a child, of character and background and of that innate fineness fine-ness that comes naturally to a woman whose home influences have been sound. Training Is Key If Doreen hasn't had the advantages ad-vantages of a good mother and fc ther and sound training in decency de-cency and honesty, nothing that you can do will cure her. And there's where the vital, the tragic importance of giving children a good start comes in. Raising small children, cooking and housekeeping, watching the family health and planning the family meals can seem but a dull task to an ambitious, pleasure-loving, pleasure-loving, vital woman, but it is a more essential one than any that a scientific genius ever enjoyed. The service a good mother and father do for their town, for the nation and for civilization generally general-ly is beyond all words. Every child that grows to maturity with a normal nor-mal healthy mind and body, with a sense of duty, a willingness to serve rather than be served, to work for a "plan rather than wait for the realization of a fairy-tale, to be unselfish, to be interested in the affairs of others, to be self-reliant self-reliant and to develop a sense of humor is fortunate throughout his whole life. And to the mother who breaks up tjer home, scatters her children, regales re-gales her friends with complaints of the children's father and to that mother who, like Doreen, cheats while Van is away and collects gifts from this lover and that, while laughing at the man she promised to honor, I can say only that you are laying a careful foundation for the ruin of your own lives. |