OCR Text |
Show Kathleen Norris Says: Extravagance in Marriage 7s a Pitfall (BU Syndicate WNU Service.! r I wish you could see what my wife got for our baby. Perambulator, high chair, crib, bathinetle, sterilizing outfit, blankets the cost was t200 more than our budget for the child allowed. By KATHLEEN NORRIS HOW many young wives would feel horrified and shocked if their husbands could be identified as the "Tired Tim" who writes me this letter? If you happen to be a young wife the letter may help you to see one of the pitfalls of modern marriage mar-riage a little more clearly than you do. I say modern marriage, because be-cause .marriage used to be quite a different thing a hundred hun-dred years ago. A girl was so glad to get a husband then that she practically idolized him. Families were large, having from eight to fifteen members. Dependent mothr ers and unmarried sisters lived with the young wife, and all together the women handled han-dled the tremendous burden of domestic duties. They hung out long lines of wash; cleaned windows; fed chickens; cared for babies; started children off for school; wrestled with coal ranges and dirty grates; made fruit cake and bed quilts; took rugs out to the yard and beat them; put up fruit; nursed the sick, and in between be-tween other Jobs wrote voluminous letters to dear old school friends. But it's different today. Each bride launches out by herself. In the following letter one young husband hus-band explains Just where his wife fails him. Wife Dad No Training. "Bert is the most adorable girl in the world," writes Tired Tim, "but she never had any training, and money simply doesn't mean anything to her. We talked budget before we were married, and worked it out on paper, but she's never glanced at it nor given it a thought since. "We've been married two years and have a baby, seven months old. I wish you could see what Bert got for the child. Perambulator, high chair, crib, bathlnette, sterilizing outfit, blankets it came to $200 more than our budget for him had allowed. My salary is $85 a week, but I carry Insurance and contribute contrib-ute $20 a month as rent for my mother, who has a pension; also pay $87 for our house including taxes and amortization of debt and about $40 more monthly for refrigerator, stove and so on. "These expenses will lessen as time goes on, but Bert already has found a larger place she likes better, where we will have a room for a maid. We now have only dinner help. "Bert is hospitable, and nothing is too good for her friends. In planning plan-ning menus she spares no expense. 'Let's have steaks again, and a mousse, and alligator pears,' she will say. Our friends are all better fixed financially than we are, and my wife' likes to keep up with them. Very Much In Debt. "Last week my office boss told me that they had considered me for a promotion, but the fact that I was about $2,300 in debt to doctor, hospital, hos-pital, dentist florist and so on, seemed to them a serious thing and they wanted nn explanation. Fool-j Fool-j ishly, I told Bert this, and her an-j an-j swer was to appeal to her father for i money, 'because Tim was being so j mean.' The old man, very much wor-i wor-i ricd, gave her a diamond ring of her mother's to pawn, and Bert ever s inci has been anxious to redeem it for she naturally values it highly. "Now don't think," the letter concludes, con-cludes, "that I am criticizing my rife. But I am working hard, pret- J YOU MAY HAVE TO PAY 1 you are letting your husband hus-band worry about money you spend his hard-earned salary on beauty treatments, bridge prizes and clothes you fail to abide by the household house-hold budget you planned long before you were married Then, says Kathleen Norris, you have failed in one of your most important duties as a wife. For no matter how pretty pret-ty you may look, if your beauty beau-ty shop bill is more than your husband can afford to pay, he won't be pleased. No matter how necessary that extra piece of furniture may be, if it costs more than it ought to, he'll probably hate the sight of it. In time you may be the one to pay in heartbreak and tears. ty well burdened, and not satisfied to face a future which may be an indefinite repetition of this sort of thing. Can you make a suggestion that I can pass on to her in the hope that she will take a different attitude toward extravagance and bills?" The trouble began many years ago, Tired Tim, when Bert was a little girL Perhaps because she had no mother she evidently grew up feeling that she had only to want a thing to buy it and that there was no relation between honest money and dishonest bills. Thousands of women much older than Bert have this failing, and thousands of mothers moth-ers let their daughters go into marriage mar-riage without a hint of the seriousness serious-ness of this oversight The simple truth is, any woman who lets her husband 'worry about finances is a poor wife. This seems like a sweeping statement, but it is true. To be only a money spender, spend-er, squandering his hard-won salary sal-ary cheerfully on beauty parlors, frock shops, theaters, club lunches, bridge prizes, is to fail in your job, and more marriages go on the rocks because of this Inexplicable stupidity stupidi-ty on the part of intelligent women than because of any other one thing. It doesn't matter how fresh, groomed, curled or frocked you are, or how charming your house is, with the new hangings, the new china, the chromium chairs and the Venetian blinds. If your husband is worrying about money, he hates it all Ilusbands Like Serenity. For men, surprisingly, aren't fussy about furniture. They love comfortable old chairs, familiar lamps, "Dad's old desk" and "Mom's old spoons." They even get to like the dresses of yesterday; many a wife has been exasperated to answer, "I've had it three years," when an affectionate husband comments com-ments admiringly upon her costume. What a husband likes Is serenity at home, a woman content and busy, bills paid. I remember one young wife who "fell madly in love" with the picture pic-ture of a nude girl by a stream. It was in the "September Morn" era. The picture cost $300. It was do prettier than the picture on the grocer's gro-cer's calendar that year, but she wanted it and she had to have it She paid installments on it for more than a year. Her husband hated it, and friends made fun of it. She told them she was Just storing it for Emily. Her husband, run down and anxious, died of pneumonia that winter, leaving leav-ing an estate of something less than $2,000. Almost one-tenth of that bad to go for the picture. I hope she felt it was worth while. |