Show KATHLEEN NORRIS HORRIS money decides marital course N ONE OP OF THESE articles IN some time ago I 1 said that tha t money was the most important consideration where the success success or failure of a marriage was concerned hundreds of women wrote me ma in answer and most of them were shocked at so material a view and protested that in a true marriage money was but a minor consideration when we were married we had nothing many of these letters from happy wives said 1 I would marry dick it if he a penny said the girls letters old women grandmothers great grandmothers wrote me that it was not safe to put ut such ideas into the heads of idealistic youth chances with love it is impossible to answer all these letters personally but this might stand as a sort of answer to them all what I 1 meant in my article was by no means what they took it to mean it would be unnatural and absurd to suggest that a girl in love measures the claims of the man she does not lovo against the claims of the man she does because the first mentioned has a good income and the I 1 second none her chances canoes with love weighing down the scale are infinitely the better millions of happy american marriages r perhaps it would be safe to say abst american marriages 1 Z 1 ho hf had no penny feuy start on a very shaky financial basis usually the man has a job and tile the girl her trousseau and wedding gifts and perhaps a few wedding checks all ten 15 80 60 happy years later they love to look back at the earlier difficulties the money shortages the scares and crises but to survive these crises takes all the character and courage young people have hav e some of those who enough character and courage muddle through simply because they cant separate others keep putting oft off divorce because it Is their nature to procrastinate crasti nate and the and the procrastinators often find themselves emerging into better times easier finances older children a more developed attitude toward the seriousness of marriage money aboney question lurks rut but under the trouble even though it seemed to be a matter of not loving enough or having no common interests or being actually incompatible the money question was always lurking when there Is a money adjustment nerves get frazzled le lee takes it much too casually and diana frets or dlan diana the slightest idea of the value of money and charges dresses and hats as though every charge going to be entered on the bills the babas threatened mastoid turns out to cost diana wont bother with a budget or lee gets mad whenever she asks aska him where that 10 went when lees mother comes to io vla via it its a question of entertaining and of hearty lunches which doubles bills diana cant ask her to ea eat t a peanut butter sandwich in the kitchen when lee spends tour four days ir in bed with flu theres the dottor doctor again and wilson walson at the office gets the commission that ahat lee might have hisa ha lee get his raise and the only thing that Is raised Is the roof when he discovers that young lee has broken a window downtown io the tune of nine dollars high living costs distract diana she tells alpe lee that there will have to be a change she cant go on and lee worries and frets tn in his turn and wonders how he ha is going to tell her that there are to be changes at the office too filmore for manager Fil morel five years younger than lee and trained by leel when they separate nobody mentions I 1 ons money lee says that he hates acs for the children to hear scrapping all the time and diana tells her lawyer that lees insensitiveness to the strain under which she lives amounts to severe cruelty if the financial situation were restful and secure rather rathe r than subject to every domestic storm that blows none of these things would disturb it crises like dentist and doctor would have their place lee would trust diana and diana would take pride in holding ex benses down 11 f so dont minimize the importance of money you young husbands and wives or rather settle it honestly and fairly and then you can forget as completely as you please ask yourselves if you aro are being just about it A few years ago a rapturous engaged young woman was talking to me and to her mother of hex her new household |