Show KATHLEEN NORRIS Maternal Selfishness Released by Features By KATHLEEN NORRIS NORRISH AS a girl the right to H HAS marry when that marriage marriage marriage mar mar- means the breaking up of her mothers mother's home That is the question that Loui Louise se Barton asks me Louise is hardly a girl She has passed her birthday and she has been engaged to her Douglas for seven years When they first h hoped ped to marry Doug was in the navy But we didn't care we were so happy writes Louise There didn't seem any problem at all I Ithen then If we had only gotten married mar- mar marI I ned ried and told the family about it I afterward how different it all would I j Ie Ih h have e been My father was living I Ithen then and Douglas Douglas' mother too My t brother Peter got Into the navy in inthe inthe the very last weeks of the war var when he W was s 18 I INow Now I am 29 instead of 22 22 Peter is soberly at work in an insurance office Douglas' Douglas mother moth moth- er cr is dead his old home broken up through the housing emergency emer emer- gency into small apartments and my mother a confirmed invalid She has diabetic complications stomach ulcers blinding headaches and a t troublesome r o 0 u ubi b 1 e s o 0 m e enough trouble to keep her nervous I ind md nd uncertain of herself Some I I I Mother her said to 10 weeks Mother can be about go to I church and club and perhaps the I next week she collapses utterly Fears Mothers Mother's Attitude I It breaks my heart heart to desert Peter leave him to the domestic and financial burden and yet it breaks my heart too to delay my marriage any longer In fact writes Louise warming to rebellion as the letter goes on on everything would be ideal for me if it were not for Mothers Mother's attitude She insists on going on in our old big uncomfortable house instead of selling it or renting part of it she takes no account of the fact that I Peter is engaged and although his girl is handicapped now by the care of a paralytic father they have the their r hopes and plans too Douglas has established himself most successfully in a town about a hundred miles away way that isn't a 1 great distance but it means I can dolittle do dolittle little for Mother and Peter He has hasa a lovely little house there all furnished furnished furnished fur fur- and we vc would love to have Peter with us Why is it my duty My l mother says to wait and that many girls do not marry nowadays nowadays nowa nowa- days das until they are arc older than I am But nut many do and all my friends are happily establishing their nurseries and coming to consider themselves old married women And wait for Cor what I 1 dont don't want to wait for my mothers mother's mothers mother's moth moth- ers er's death or count that In on my plans What is your advice to a girl whose Camil family claims are so heavy and anti yet who is so deeply in love S My advice to you Louise is to get married at nt once and never for one moment consider your mothers mother's Inexcusable inexcusable in inexcusable in- in excusable attitude And my advice to Peter is the same When she gets tired of playing sick she will vill get well welt When she gets tired of keeping keeping keep keep- ing up a cumbersome old house she will get rid of it Injustice to Herself To let her jeopardize your lifes life's happiness now is not only an injustice injustice tice lice to you and your Douglas but to herself herse too Whatever the sorrows losses and disappointments of her herl l life e have been and whatever her physical ills iUs they are strictly her I personal property and it is for her herto herto herto to handle them You will have your own someday and I hope you will remember then how you feel now Few marriages can stand the strain of a discontented sickly critical old person right in the home circle Such old persons 1 if you dig into their own history as young married folk were invariably invariably ably intolerant and critical when it came crime to their own old people a generation generation gen gen- earlier |