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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Dont Marry Army Beau in Haste (Bell Syndicate WNTJ Service.) A man, who is almost a stranger to the girl, returns home. Perhaps he has been wounded in mind or body. In the years of adjustment that must follow this war he may not be fortunate in finding his place, for a while anyway. COUNT THE COST Are you sure that you will love him as much a few months, or a jeiv years, from now? Are you sure that if he comes home weary and discouraged dis-couraged you will be able to help him find his place in a changed world? Are you sure that if he comes home sick or wounded you will be willing to nurse him back to health or cheerfully face the fact that he will always be an invalid? If you are, then by all means marry him now and seize those few moments of happiness happi-ness to which you feel you are entitled. If not WAIT. 18; she married a navy man in October, Octo-ber, had just three days of honeymoon. honey-moon. She wrote me this letter in December, and it has made me somewhat thoughtful. Regrets Hasty Marriage. "Mother and Dad think I am very bad to want to have dates and go dancing," her letter says. "But I am too young to sit knitting socks with all the old women! Nat told me to have a good time and not mope, when I was crying my eyes out saying good-by, and I am sure if he thought that way other people ought to let me alone! "But here is the thing: I met an Englishman last month who is my ideal of a hero. He is in the R.A.F., was wounded and cannot fly again, but he is going back to England after a six months' rest to go into the ground service. By KATHLEEN N ORRIS THE problem of whether a girl shall marry her soldier before he goes away, or promise to wait for him and marry him when he gets home is a very serious one. And, as is usual in marital mari-tal questions, it is a matter about which one can't generalize; gener-alize; everything depends upon up-on the girl's character, and the man's, and how long they have known each other. In 1917 a young woman of my acquaintance was deeply in love with a certain gallant swain, and they were to be married before he went to France. Her father and mother persuaded her to make it a rock-bound engagement instead, and that was the understanding when Bill went away. Both being persons of honor they met when he came back in December Decem-ber more than a year later, with the engagement still valid between them. But after a few days they mutually mutual-ly confessed to changed feelings, and Betty, with infinite relief, found herself free to marry an older man whose friendship had come to mean everything in the world to her in the 18 months of separation. Bob shortly followed suit by marrying marry-ing a demure little French girl for whom he sent immediately. And both marriages have proved eminently emi-nently successful, with friendship maintained all 'round. This wouldn't have been the case If Betty bad insisted on the week of thrill and marriage and farewells that was all she could have had in the war year. "Life with such a man would be one long thrill. There is not a girl here who is not crazy about him. From the beginning, however, he seemed to pick me out as his especial friend, and he is at the house quite often. He is 17 years older than I am, but my father and mother heartily like him, too. "My father was born in England, in the same place Sidney comes from. Sidney is divorced and has a little boy of 12; his former wife lives in Hollywood and he went there to see her; apparently they are still friends. But I am sure that if I was free he would want me for his wife, and while I hope I am too sensible to ask poor Nat for a divorce, di-vorce, I hardly know how to handle the situation, for Nat may be at sea for months, and I would like to say something definite to Sidney before he returns to England. An Extreme Case. "My feeling for Nat was that of a child, pity and affection and excitement ex-citement and the thought of being married on my eighteenth birthday, which I had always planned. But what I feel for Sidney is the deepest and truest emotion of my life." Although I devoutly trust that there are few American girls capable capa-ble of writing such a letter, it does present an extreme case of the difficulties dif-ficulties that attend a sudden, war-parting war-parting wedding, and girls who are wise enough to look forward more than a few weeks might learn something some-thing from it In Europe engagements always have been longer than they are with us; one meets over there wives who cheerfully admit waiting three years, five years. One happy English Eng-lish wife, engaged in 1913, did not hear wedding bells until 1919, but when she did hear them they were real wedding bells, and her dignity and courage and patience have brought her a rich reward. Shifting Affections. There were many tragic cases of shifting young affections in those years; the girls who had only a few days or weeks of wifehood to remember discovered that theirs weren't real marriages, no adjusting adjust-ing and growing to know each other was included, and consequently it was hard to regard them as binding. bind-ing. So my answer to scores of girls who are asking me now whether to marry their army beaux is, "Wait" Of course there are exceptions; ex-ceptions; girls and men sure of their own feelings, anxious only to have their little hour of happiness before the war clouds thicken. For these, marriage under any circumstances Is safe. But sometimes what actuates actu-ates the girl is the glamour of the new man and his new uniform, and the determination to seize this hour of life anyway, no matter what tomorrow to-morrow may bring. Tomorrow comes. A man, who is almost a stranger, returns home. Perhaps he has been wounded in soul or mind or body. In the years of adjustment that must follow this war he may not be fortunate in finding find-ing his place, for a while anyway. Or perhaps he has seen somewhere the other woman, the woman he really loves. On the other hand, what does a girl lose by waiting? She gets to work, as all girls must nowadays; she writes her soldier letters full of cheerful nonsense; she sends him boxes of the things he needs. And If by chance some other man comes along, and her maturer affection goes to him, at least she is much better off, in writing an honest letter to her man in the army, than if he were his wife. "Dorinda" is an undeveloped, ahallow, fickle little creature of only |