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Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Obeying Duty Is Mental Tonic "ivrY mother m law is a 1"1 great one for talking about 'duty,' writes a very young wife from New Mexico. "I would like to know what 'duty' is. It has a very disagreeable sound to me. The only connection I ever had with it is that on some occasion or other, England expected every man to do his duty. To my husband's mother it means everything disagreeable. "I was an only child, motherless from babyhood," the letter goes on, "and spoiled, I supposed, by a rich father. Most of Papa's money is gone, now, however, and Phil and I and our baby live very quietly. My husband's mother lives next door, and as I say, she is always at me about duty. My duty to Phil, to her, to Johnnie, to my neighbors, church, everything. What is duty, anyway? I never had a mother's guidance, and I really want to know who makes these laws about duty and what they mean. Phil is 33, I am now 18, and the baby is seven months," finishes this artless letter. Word Seldom Heard Your letter, Marie Louise, reminds re-minds me that one doesn't often hear this little word nowadays. But it used to be the very backbone of everything we were told, as children, chil-dren, to do. Many a mother today, learned that word "duty," too, when she considers the paid bills, the holiday plans ahead, the sweetness sweet-ness of achievement well, she may not know that "duty" is behind be-hind all this, and much higher words behind duty, but she is deeply deep-ly content. . A husband, into the very fibre of whose childhood a sense of duty has been instilled, goes straight ahead through the trying crises of married years. He doesn't waste money on cards or horses, because be-cause he owes Margaret honesty in handling the budget. And after awhile the flowers of duty begin to bloom in amazing profusion. The world begins to see that the Adams are fine people. Dutiful persons may have their dull days their dull months and even years, in youth. But gradually gradual-ly they prove the wisdom, of taking this matter of duty seriously. Middle Mid-dle age becomes a true harvest time. No serious selfish mistakes are back of them; there could not be, for duty to others is supremely not duty to oneself. No broken homes, bewildered separated children, chil-dren, no alimony squabbles or family law-suits. None of the things that make age lonely and bitter and ugly. Duty prepares a healthy life for her followers. No, Marie Louise, duty isn't disagreeable. dis-agreeable. It's like a great foundry furnace, black and soot-crusted outside, but inside pure roaring flame. Your mother-in-law is over stepping all rules of decency and kindness yes, and her own duty, too in harassing you so constantly, constant-ly, but it is just possible that being very young, and finding yourself so early burdened with great responsibilities, re-sponsibilities, she is anxious to get you on the right track. But don't be afraid of the word duty. We need it in every phase of life. ". . . Phil is 33 . . ." worrying about nursery psychoses and fixations and inhibitions and allergies might find a short-cut solution so-lution to her troubles in that simple sim-ple word. Duty means, of course, the thing you ought to do, for the general good. For the good of the family, the commonwealth, the nation. Duty consists of a thousand small acts, perhaps not important apart, but extremely important when taken tak-en together. Thousands of years of painfully achieved civilization are back of that word. A husband's duty, a wife's duty, an employee's duty, an employer's duty. Law and order only mean that men and women are expected to do their duty, and will be held responsible if they don't. You and I owe a duty to every human being with whom our daily lives bring us in touch. The postman, post-man, the bus driver, the children's teachers, everyone from a neighbor's neigh-bor's baby to the old men sitting in the sun at the poorhouse, has that claim on us. Sometimes mothers today look on anxiously as their children's marriages go on the rocks. "Bob and Marjorie have everything in the world to make them happy," they say bewilderedly. "What do youngsters expect of marriage, anyway?" Bob and Marjorie go to psychiatrists. psychia-trists. They are not apt ever to suspect that that little word "duty" holds the answer. Neither one has ever been taught what it means. Need Not Be Angel A wife who does her duty need not be superhuman; she need not be an angel. She has merely to think of husband, children, friends, parents, school, her dressmaker, dentist, weekly helper, in terms of "what is my duty?" Such a wife weathers the psychopathic psycho-pathic perils of the monotony of marriage without any outside help. She has her bad times, perhaps, but when she looks at her peaceful happy home, her normal, happy children who. bv the wav. have |