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Show Kathleen Norris Says: The One Thing Worse Than Being a Wife Bell Syndicate -WNU reaturee. To lean her head against his shoulder in an unwatched moment, to say "Fred, you're being terribly nice," makes up for a good deal. ' By KATHLEEN NORRIS THE one fate harder than being somebody's wife is being nobody's wife. In those few words lies the truth of 'woman's position, and there's no evading the disconcerting dis-concerting fact. To be the wife today of a man in service overseas is heartbreakingly hard. To be married here at home, to be trying to keep happy a nervous, nerv-ous, overtired, anxious, irritable irri-table and unreasonable man, is worse. But not to have a man belonging be-longing to you at all, riot to be able to turn to a mate, in these darkest days ., of the world's history, is surely the worst lot of all. There are certain brief, high-lighted intervals . in a woman's life when she may be happier single. When she is young and lovely, when she signs a new contract in Hollywood, Holly-wood, when she makes a success suc-cess along any line of business busi-ness or professional adventuring, adven-turing, how delightful to be independent and free! But that sort of fun only keeps Its flavor for a' few months for few years at' most. Then the chosen vocation, however filling to the mind I SIGLE LIFE AOT SO BLESSED ! Being a wife is sometimes pretty hard. It's dften tedious, frequently disagreeable. Prolw ably most every married worn- ; an has wished, at least once in her life, that she could get out of her bonds. Being single has its attractions for a little while "yfr. when a woman is young and attractive, or tvhen she is succeeding in her career or business. But in later years, a woman appreciates the comfort and security of having a husband. Even if he is quite unsatisfactory, unsatisfac-tory, he is a source of strength and comfort. It's so nice to have some one to pet you arid smooth you down when everything every-thing seems to go " wrong someone to lean on in difficulties, diffi-culties, someone to rejoice with you in your triumphs, or the successes of your children. Many women who have con- tern plated divorce when mar- . ried life seemed unbearable, , are glad they stuck it out j afterwards. There is only one j thing worse than being a wife, says Miss N orris that is being be-ing single. ' and the purse, proves singularly unsatisfying to the heart Passing love affairs so thrilling In the beginning, so quick to cool, so hard to dispose of only make her realize more keenly how they cheat her from, and Indeed unfit her for, that hard and sweet, exhausting and yet exhilarating, constantly pruned yet constantly growing, .maddening, heart-filling thing that is true marriage. mar-riage. ". - . "' , Some Women Need Patience. Very rich and very famous women wom-en sometimes haven't patience and character enough to achieve it. They fling themselves from divorce to divorce, often with disastrous effects ef-fects on their-children's happiness, and always with the destruction of their own. But many a humbler, poorer woman wom-an finds in middle-age that fate has been kinder to her than she knew. Perhaps there were times in her mad, and presently feels all right again. And perhaps after awhile she realizes, that through no particular merit of her own she has been saved from making a fool of herself, her-self, as Janet did, losing home, husband, children, the respect of her family and friendsi income, position and a dozen other things she had been taking calmly for granted! For Janet's Bill has married someone else, has been made general manager, man-ager, takes the children off for visits and they adore him and nobody wants to hear Janet's side of the story! " ' ' Husband Source of Comfort. Even a normally unsatisfactory hjasband can be a very present source of strength and comfort For a wife has her faults, too, and does foolish things, and feels ashamed sometimes. She buys an extrava-gant extrava-gant blouse, when the budget is already al-ready strained. She risks taking a baby with a hard cold on a social call, and he comes down with bronchitis. bron-chitis. She forgets that the Walkers are asked to dinner, and is caught in an old apron, with curling pins in, and nothing in the house but three frankfurters and half a watermelon. These things happen to all wives. To lean her head against his shoulder in an unwatched moment, to say "Fred, you're b.eing terribly nice!" makes up for a good deal. . "Oh, I haven't always liked him," said a peaceful old wife to me on her golden wedding day. "But I've always loved him! It isn't always easy to live with a man." No, and it isn't always easy to live without one. And it isn't always easy to live at all. : younger wifehood when she gladly would have broken away. When she threatened to get a divorce, and certainly cer-tainly would have gotten it if Well, if Fred's mother hadn't been so decent, for one thing. If her own mother hadn't been so aghast at the Idea. If the children hadn't been so devoted to their father, and if their position hadn't been so much better, living in his home, than it would have been in the more modest mod-est establishment she' would have maintained on allowance and alimony. ali-mony. Dignity, pride, a reluctftnce to blacken Fred's character in the eyes of society all these hold her in place. :J , So she endures the unendurable, swallows her pride, stifles her sense of self-pity and justice, gets over her In the later years particularly, a husband hus-band is m source of comfort. i |