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Show Kathleen Norris Says: For the Sake of Tomorrow, Stick It Out Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. fex . "It's good to have a sturdy graying old friend beside you to say "Look here, kid, we're not 50 yet. We've some sivell years ahead. Hoiv's for driving to Mexico next month?" By KATHLEEN NORRIS MARRIAGES are brittle affairs, these days. We older persons, looking on, can see the difficulties diffi-culties of young husbands and wives, and suffer with them. If gallant sturdy little Bets decides de-cides that she simply can't stick it any longer we are apt to be sympathetic. Not that we are happy over the young divorces, di-vorces, not that we approve of that way out but we can't help being sorry. "Bets did her best," we say. "She really tried. She was learning to cook, she loved her little apartment and the baby, but Kenneth really was impossible. Crabby and critical, criti-cal, and wanting her to entertain his friends when all she could do was struggle along with the housework house-work and then, of course, drinking. drink-ing. Oh, yes, he did. She never could depend on him, and when he's drinking, Ken Taylor can be horribly hor-ribly disagreeable. "It's too bad! They started off so much in love, and all the time he was away Bets wrote him and sent him pictures of the baby and all that. But since he came back I don't know, everything seems to be going wrong. Ken's family are lovely love-ly people, too everyone admires old Doctor Taylor. But you just can't do anything with the youngsters young-sters these days; Bets says she still sees Ken's good points, she doesn't feel revengeful or resentful or anything. any-thing. It's just that they can't make a go of it." 'Divorce Like Atom Bomb.' This story is so familiar as to be boring or rather terrifying. These facts and they are facts in every great city and every crossroads village, strike at the very basis of our whole social system. Divorce is socially a very atom bomb; no group can survive it It splits into fragments families, friendships, little lit-tle boys and girls, never to be united again. We waste millions on privileges for our children, but we deprive them of rights. Now, since the success or failure of a marriage lies much more In the hands of the woman than the man, it is to young wives that I address these reminders. However your husband fails you howeverserious his faults, it pays you to stick it. These- are hard times on nerves, perhaps the hardest hard-est since history began. You and your husband are both under a strain that your father and mother hardly knew and your grandparents never dreamed. Your marriage has survived the fever of the greatest war of all time. But it is in that weakened and bewildered condition that follows fol-lows raging fever. You are beginning begin-ning to pay the bill for world delirium. de-lirium. Everything is against you; housing, marketing, expenses, taxes. Costs are at their maximum; the accessories of modern living, flowers for the hospital, gas for the car, school for the twins, paint for the house, theatre tickets, railway tickets. long-distance telephone charges, toys, hats, taxi fares, having hav-ing the rugs cleaned and keeping your membership in the club all these pile up on your desk in the shape of too-familiar bills embellished embel-lished with the little hand pointing to "please remit." Combine this with trying weather, Taffy's poison-oak and Billy-Eill'i "He can be horribly disagreeable." THIS WILL PASS Young married people are under unusual stress these days. The unrest naturally following fol-lowing a great war keeps everyone every-one edgy. Little difficulties develop de-velop into quarrels. There are plenty of real hardships, too, like the housing shortage and high prices for food and other necessities. Many couples have to live with relatives, always a situation where frictions are easy. Add to these the changing chang-ing attitude totvard family responsibility re-sponsibility and the mutual obligations of marriage, . and it is easy to see why so many unions are heading toward the break-up. To those who find the strain hard to bear, and who are looking to divorce as the way out, Miss Norris offers some mature advice. She points out that conditions change, generally gen-erally for the better. Children grow up and demand less time and worry; husbands settle down and get serious about earning an adequate income. Other trouble's pass away with the years. In middle and old age, says Miss Norris, the wife who endured en-dured the hard early years is rewarded. She can enjoy the triumphs of her children, the companionship of her husband, hus-band, the security of home and a cluster of friends. asthma, mother's visit, the breakdown of the refrigerator, and you have the makings of more than one hot quarrel, more than one evening eve-ning of sulphurous silence, more than one rapid decision that it just can't be done. Troubles Lead to Quarrels. "We don't see anything eye to eye any more," Bets says, shaken and tearful, but deadly decided, too. "He'll go to his mother; I'll go to Nevada with Ann. I'm sorry. We both tried. But I couldn't live through that scene at the country club again! If he doesn't respect me, he might respect my own mother. moth-er. I'm done." But husbands grow up. Conditions change. Children emerge from irresponsible, ir-responsible, burdensome babyhood. Kenneth gets a better job; his self-respect self-respect awakens. The twenties aren't all of marriage, nor even the thirties. There are the forties coming and the fifties. You'll be glad some day that you didn't deprive your small boy and girl of daddy's friendship. You'll be glad to have your man beside you when Billy-Bill goes off to college; when Tally flutters out to the upstairs balcony of some big comfortable countrytown home and tosses her while bouquet to her bridesmaids. Comradeship counts then. It's good then to have a sturdy, graying old friend beside you to say, "Look here, kid, we're not 50 yet. We've got some swell years ahead. How's for driving to Mexico next month?" Weather this bad time if you can. Change yourself, and thus cause him to change. Plant in your twenties twen-ties the shady, flower-scented garden gar-den that is a happy marriage in middle age. |
