| Show kathleen norris says tile the un unluckiest luckiest wife always the unluckiest Un anh luckiest woman 1 A bell syndicate service 57 11 00 4 ILA i VA f nose f I 1 to azz her husband told her that his assistant professor a handsome girl of 23 loved him as deeply as he did her by KATHLEEN NORRIS f HE un luckiest wife in the T world of course I 1 the un 1 luckiest woman there are thousands of women in this country and hundreds of thousands in other countries whose lot is harder than that of marjorie mason there are women in your town and mine who have been fighting poverty all their lives long living along the boundary line of want able to give their children only the barest necessities of life and worrying constantly for fear that those necessities might not be always available women who have never known even a few days a few hours of luxury and beauty of plenty and security women who have to refuse their small babies the freshness and comfort and safety small babies need who have to refuse their growing children the toys the clothes that more fortunate children take for granted who suffer a thousand deaths as the young men and women of the family demand cars and pocket money and college education as their right this in america in europe and in the orient the situation is infinitely worse civilized christian countries still see barefoot children begging in winter streets china knows that every winter a million of her people will starve slowly to death and a million more fall victims to the diseases that weakness malnutrition cold and hunger bring comparative misery so when I 1 speak of the bitter trial that marjorie mason has been called upon to bear I 1 am treating only of the comparative misery and humiliation that can come to a woman who has a comfortable home fine children a car a club friends a good cook in her kitchen books leisure enough money good health and she says a rea real i trust that god will help me through this difficulty if I 1 am wise enough to heed his guidance not much material from which to construct an appeal to your pity is it and yet there is no wife alive that wont feel pity for mari mar i jorie when she hears her story marjorie is 32 she has been married for nine years to a man she deeply loves he is a professor handsome popular successful with a comfortable little income of his own to supplement his salary the masons live in a roomy house on a beautiful campus there are three children in the family a girl of seven and boys of five years and one year marjorie has as assistant the fine colored mother of one of the undergraduate girls she is free to do her part in campus work mothers and alumni groups hospital convalescent home shakespeare study club dramatics she not only teaches her daughter but she belongs to a little circle of college mothers who take turns in amusing and watching the younger children on different afternoons marjories life was all sunshine until some four weeks ago when her husband in one of those luxuries of confession that weak men so enjoy told her that his assistant professor ro fessor a handsome girl of about 23 loved him as deeply as he did her he was exultant over his conquest and fatuously related to his wife the details of the affair in which the girls great love had overcome her scruples bitter injustice this sounds as nauseating to me as it does to you writes marjorie but arthur was like a crowing boy over it I 1 did what I 1 could told him that he must be out of his senses to jeopardize his position his whole lifes work in this way to say nothing of the bitter injustice to me and to the children I 1 tried to put my own heartbreak aside it was too late then for any outbreak of amna to do any good for days I 1 unlucky women the un luckiest wife alwa always s the iest woman in the world according to this article by kathleen norris for while some of the trials that married women momen are forced to go through are difficult indeed many times things could be much worse but at the same time problems do creep into tle the homes of families aitho seem to hate apparent security and so the story of Alari marjorie orie mason alason is here discussed it is the story of a young professors sors wife and the problem she had ad to meet faced with an unfaithful husband she is confronted with the problem of disgracing him for life by exposing him or learing hint him and taking her children with her site she is advised adt ased to choose the second plan the emptiness of his home should bring tills this man to his senses seemed to be in a bad dream for the thing had come upon me like ile a thunderbolt and the past was all spoiled as well as the future arthur as completely oblivious of any feeling of mine as he had been of ordinary decency and duty asked me if I 1 would have the girl at the house now and then so there would be no talk this I 1 told him was a physical as well as moral impossibility I 1 simply do it on this point we had our first serious quarrel since then I 1 have not spoken to arthur directly but for the childrens sake a certain amount of civility must go on arthur continues to show nothing but complacency ency and high spirits he tells me that if he and the girl had resisted temptation or love as he calls it then all three of us would be unhappy As it is I 1 am the only miserable one and they dont expect me to understand the girl gir came to see me and was tearful and explanatory and heroic I 1 dont think I 1 spoke at all in the 10 minutes I 1 endured her company arthur would be dropped from the faculty if ff this were known his fine old father president emeritus of another university would die of grief and how would my children be bettered by the shame of their father but I 1 cant go on as things are these few weeks have shown me that tell me what to do advice to marjorie arjorie BI marjorie the first thing to do is get out and take the chi children adren w with i th you but not with any bitterness or threats say to your few close friends that you are taking the baby to the mountains or that the small daughter had two chest colds last year and you think it wise to try the shore not far from you there are lakeside summer cabins which rent in winter for as little as 10 a month find one and move this will have a triple advantage it will get you away from the immediate contemplation of an insufferable state of affairs it will scare the complacent philandering arthur out of his wits he will be lonely disorganized and possibly brought to a realization of what wealth he had and has done all he could to destroy and lastly it will terrify the girl she may suddenly awaken to the truth that she has given everything for nothing and is in in a fair way to lose position and reputation when arthur comes to his senses or rather having obviously very little atle sense when he appreciates that he has made an expensive and foolish lobush mistake tl then ien come back forgive him and resume the outer snell shell of the old ha happy appy loving life you ou may never want to share hi his S room or his affection again ht co could uld hardly expect that but for the resto rest take the blow that fortune has as dealt you as every woman must in m one way or another pick up P the pieces and face the future fu ture stronger in in your own soul if der in m your heart |
