OCR Text |
Show j f KathleJVorris Says: The Half -Hearted Wife - BeU Syndicate. WNU Features- "To get a good Joofc o Roberta's one-time ideal would be a wholesome thing for Dick." ' By KATHLEEN NORRIS ON MY desk lies a letter from a girl of 24, an office girl in an Illinois city, who is going to be married mar-ried in June. Roberta is going go-ing to have a church and home wedding, with bridesmaids; brides-maids; she's going to a pretty new home after a California honeymoon; she's going to have well-to-do relatives-in-law who apparently can't do enough for her and she is smugly miserable. She is miserable because six years ago she had a wild, passionate passion-ate young love affair with a boy named Archie. Archie led her on for some months with the idea of marriage, mar-riage, and then left without a good-by good-by and broke her heart. She has told Dick all about Archie. "I've told Dick," says her letter, "that I'm afraid I don't feel for him what I ought to feel. We're congenial; con-genial; I'll have a fine position in the community when I'm married; I admire everything about Dick, but still there's always the memory of Archie. Dick has been patience itself it-self about it; he wanted to be married mar-ried before he went into the service, serv-ice, bi 1942, and every time he was home on leave, but how can I give myself to one man however fine, with the lingering love for my girlhood's girl-hood's sweetheart always in the background? "My mother detested Archie, and she loves Dick. Everyone thinks I'm lucky, but I don't want to make a mistake. Would it be wiser for me to break, even now, and stay uue io Arcnie, even though he may never come back, or is it enough to have the husband completely devoted, de-voted, and wiU what I can give Dick be enough for him?" It seems Incredible to me, Roberta, I say in answer, that any woman in the world is still clinging cling-ing to this romantic Victorian delusion. de-lusion. Out of Date Attitude. Sixty or seventy years ago it was fashionable for any vaporous and simpering young female to flatter herself that "her heart was another anoth-er s," but at the same time to give her hand to the prosperous, devoted and satisfactory partner. Many an engaged girl even now, rather likes the fancy that she will be more adored than adoring, and that she may capriciously dole out favors to hfw16' ften "binding him that he told her, in engagement days, that just to have hewlH eugn, and he would some day win her love. In engagement days, yes But what an awakening is ahead S romantic Roberta, if Dick i, th kmd0,manwh0 eepXeroy cobwebs aslde once the marriage is an accomplished fact, and be comes bored when Roberta wants to enter into a sweet, aacchartae confession of her earlier attach men and expresses regref she has not given anri Dick her entfre hearf E'Ve caUedr":VaWamawkish vie thTnt u Ves of Anatole." I carved in 00 little look out and ae'50 at tMs cepted them as onlv aC" Hobertablongs her due. iytruet0;;:hie";;f beau, appreciate that she is a lucky woman, and instead of simpering sim-pering complacently as Richard attempts at-tempts to win her love, will set herself her-self in good serious whole-hearted affection to win his. A Visit from Archie. Perhaps the luckiest thing that could happen to them both would be to have Archie, the breaker of hearts and engagements, return to town. Archie had no prospects, no job, no sense of honor, six years ago he probably hasn't any of these now. To get a good look at Roberta's one-time ideal would be a wholesome thing for Dick, and save him much annoyance in the future, fu-ture, and the thought that she couldn't do any better than Archie, at 18, would be highly salutory to Roberta. Her wistful reminiscences would lose some of their effectiveness effective-ness with Archie hanging around the house. No ghosts out of a woman's past can be quite as embarrassing as her one-time lovers. Awkward brothers, severe fathers, exacting or boring uncles and aunts - these she can stand. She can stand to nave Dick dine with sister Mollie and the swarming babies and the disorderly dinner table and the noise and breakage and yeUing. But when her dream-boy of senior year high shows up, laughing stupidly at humiliating old mem ones, calling her the pet name that once thrilled her to the soul ex-Pectmg ex-Pectmg certain affectionate familiarities familiar-ities like holding hands in public and occasionally kissing, then Roberta's soul shrivels within her, and she wishes that he were 1,000 mS writeRlnhaId S Smart he wou,d nenn 6 Hnd ask him o Robert! We"end WUh Wmsclf a"d Robeita in their new home some- |