Roseburg news-review., June 13, 1936, Image 9

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Why Are Men Happier in Marriage Than Women?
Feiv Husbands Would Try for a Divorce
Because They Like Solid Comfort!
I .Ail iBfl,f
ni Tpi wii ma us r)
J , j C' 1 11 Allen Poe. Uygenta. of .n earlier day, who never re-
2l,.- -.'tJf WV tone of his work. .
ByJcanRendlen - -jSV "Tl.r? n
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Charles Dana Gibson's "Suggestion for ill-assorted pairs", as pub
lished by Life in the days of the Gibson Girl.
SINCE the stone age man first chiseled a now
unfamiliar hieroglyphic, marriage has been
the inspiration of the music of the universe, the
world's greatest masterpieces of art and litera
ture, the biggest murder headlines in Metropoli
tan dailies, and the spiciest gensip of country
clubs and "back fences".
It's always going wrong and it's always going
right. Millions remain unmarried, but psycholo
gists tell us that regardless of this, marriage
is the predominating thought of every man am'
woman. There are those who say that the fel
low who "will never marry" gives it morf
thought than those who have taken the leap!
However, whatever you may think about it
and whatever your "Bohemian" friends may say
about the grand old institution "going on the
rocks" it's all "pure stuff and twattle"
because there are more marriages, per popula
tion, today than there were in grandmother
day! If you don't believe it look around. Take
the popular pair, Mr. and Mrs. William G. Mc
Adoo, for instance or Governor and Mrs.
Frank F. Merriam of California. They're having
a grand time together and don't seem to min-'
being married a bit!
Statistics prove that marriage has increased
in popularity steadily for the past 40 years.
Going back to 1887 we find that for every thou
sand people the percentage of marriage was 8.7
while the figure in 1005 was 10 per cent. 1032
is the only year when it fell below, due to the
depression, and this was 7.87 per "cent. Then
the percentage gets back to its former height.
What then causes the general belief that mar
riage as an institution is on the rocks? Un
happiness! STRANGKLY enough, it seems that more and
more individuals are growing restless so
that today the problem is "how to be happy
though married". No less an authority than
Hertrand Russell declares that "the more civi
lized people become, the less capable they seem
of lifelong happiness with one partner". This
being on the theory that marriages are easiest
where people are least differentiated, such as In
peasant life, but when people have multifarious
The popular Mr. and Mrs. William G. McAdoo have a grand time together, despite the disparity of their ages and don't seem to mind
being married a bit! This pair is typical of what a happy marriage can mean.
tastes and pursuits and Interests, they want con
geniality in their partners, and feel dissatisfied
when they find that they have secured less of it
than they might have obtained.
Accordingly, I asked 200 men and women this
question: "If you could press a button and find
you had never been married, would you press
that button?"
This is exactly the same question that D?. G.
V. Hamilton, New York psychiatrist asked 200
people and both of us got approximately the
same type of answers. Dr. Hamilton found that
128 said "no"! My results were better, since 135
si id "no" to me.
Seeking the reason for this I found that men
were happier and more contented in marriage
than women. Men seem, these days, to cherish
a home more than women. Don't be misguided
here however they were not necessarily head
over heels in love with their wivse, but they
would hesitate to dissolve the union because they
were comfortable!
Most men gave this reaction, when they found
they were not to be quoted or become involved
by telling the truth. The women who would stay
married for the most part were still in love with
their husbands.
Telephoning psychologists and psychiatrists, 1
was informed by almost all) that marriage in
which the woman was older than the man had a
better chance of success than where the man
was the oldest.
This explodes the generally accepted belief
that a man should be older than the woman.
There are many marriages around you which
might testify to Ihis (if you could really know
the woman's age!) The outstanding examples in
the West of such successes are to be found in
the lives of many famous writers. Robert Louis
Stevenson, married a woman 10 years his senior
and ripened to fame and success with his wife,
not to overlook the great happiness which was
his.
One very successful business man gave the
clue to this when he said that "all-men want to
Tacoma Harbor Diver Brings Up Wreckage VromOldAndelana
Wayne's Adventure Revives a Tale of the
Coasts Strangest Disaster
By F. M. Lockerby
DEEP sea diving has its thrills, and many .
tale of adventure has been written about
men engaged in this underwater pursuit. Bui
scarcely less adventuresome, although it sound
more prosaic, is the life of a harbor diver. Take
George Wayne, veteran Tacoma, Wash., diver.
He has followed the sea for' years a,nd most ol
that time he has been a diver. Yet one of hi
greatest adventures took place in the placid wa
ters of Tacoma's harbor while he was engager
in a routine task
While diving in search of a lost anchor. Waym
brought up a portion of the wreckage of the
British ship, Andeiana. Thereby, he revived the
story of one of the strangest maritime disasters
of the Pacific Coast, the sinking of the Ande
iana, with all hands aboard, while she was an
chored off a Tacoma dock on January 14, 1899
Sixteen men are supposed to have lost their live
when the Andeiana sank.
The Andeiana was an ail-steel vessel. She hai
come to Tacoma to load wheat for Liverpool, and
was moored in deep water off the dock of the
St Paul ft Tacoma lumber mill. Her holds had
been cleared preparatory to stowing cargo and
there was comparatively little ballast aboard
when the men knocked off work the night of
January 13, intending to commence loading
wheat the next morning.
They never began their task, for the Anda
una capsized between 2 and S a.m., going down
in 23 fathoms of water. Her entire crew, with
the exception of one man who waB ashore in a
hospital at the time, was asleep below decks and
ank with her.
Tugs grappled for the ship the next duy and
.ound her. Towed into shallower water, efforts
vere made to raise her. The anchor, which
weighed 4,500 pounds, was brought-to the sur
face and was sold by the salvagers for $1,000.
But all efforts to raise the Andeiana herself
were unsuccessful.
PRESUMABLY the skeletons of the officers
and men of the Andeiana still lie inside the
ship and Wayne hopes some day to be instru
rnmtal in bringing the hulk to the surface so
that the mystery surrounding their death may
be solved. He declares that finding of a portion
of the wreckage of the Andeiana gave him one
of his greatest thrills as a diver.
Wayne makes frequent excursions into the
lepths of Tacoma's harbor in quest of things
that have been dropped from ships. He prefers
to work in depths of about 76 feet and can stay
down for ss long as three hours. If necessary.
Ha has been down as far as 160 feet on numer
ous occasions for two hours at a time, but he
says the pressure at such depths is too great
for comfort
The suit that he wears on these trips weighs
J -IT
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3
George Wayne inipecu his helmet before it
U placed over hi head and he slips into the
water for a stroll on the bottom.
several hundred pounds. It la in one piece, shoes
iijfluded, but the helmet screws on afterwards. It
requires the assistance of three men and a boy
for him to don the outfit. Putting on the outfit
is a hot job and Wayne gets plenty warm before
his aides are through attaching his telephones
and air hoses. He is usually sweating by the
time he is lowered into the water. Then he be
gins to get cold. The suit blows up like a bal
loon under water aTa! the weight is partially
neutralized so thr.t hu can walk around on the
bottom of the bay without much difficulty. His
hands stick out of rubber cuffs and generally
are pretty blue and numb by the time he yankc
his safety line to be hoisted to the surface. His
visibility generally Is about four or five feet.
Some times, he says, fish swim up and peer Into
the helmet at him seemingly in amazement. Al
though he has been diving for a number of
years, he has never suffered illness from it,
COMMANDER EDWARD KIXSHKRG in his
book, "On the Hottom" tells of diving ex
ploits and persistent courage and ingenuity in
overcoming great difficulties anil dangers of the
men that work "in the deep."
"When the causes of 'the bends' had been laid
bare, anrJ proper tables of decompression worked
out by experiment, diving in deep water became
practical enough to permit work to be done af
ter a fashion, though at great expense and con
slderable hazard.
"Everything that the diver tees is magnified
)y the water, but he rarely sees much. In north
ern seas, the water is nearly opaque, and objects
en feet away are often invisible. It resembles
looking through a ground glass window; light
:omes through, but nothing is seen. Conditions
are often even worse than thin; if the bottom Is
muddy, fine silt rises up in the' water in clouds
ind object even a foot a-cay are invisible.
Under such conditions, even powerful light
:annot pierce the water, and a diver a few feet
Prom a boat haa no Idea where to look for it
play with their toys, even after they're grown
up. When little they have toy yachts and when
old and financially able they have real ones." He
pointed to the numbei of men who play with
toy railroads and get a real thrill from the ex
perience. In other words he said, in effect, that
men never grew up! If this is true then it must
mean that men still want to be mothered! And
here is where the older woman succeeds as a
wife.
ONE man who said that he would push that
button if he could obtain freedom, ex
plained it by saying that he still had the "illu
sion" that somewhere there was the "right"
woman. Being an intelligent person he added
that "human beings need their illusions. If they
did not, there would be no market for story
books and motion pictures."
In the questionnaire sent out was the query,
"What changes would you suggest?" to which
many gave very interesting answers. One said,
"There are a hundred more nearly civilized and
certainly more effective customs, practiced
among primitive East African races. We might
profitably adopt most any one of these. Or, stay
ing closer to home, something possibly could be
.gained by relaxation of tho so-called conven
tions and proprieties, more freedom of move
ment both before and after the ceremony, less
intimacy, less display of the sense of possession,
and undoubtedly less hypocrisy in our attitude
toward the whole married relation or by any
thing else which is calculated to perpetuate the
period of courtship.
"But all that probably is futile, because after
all, we cannot remold human nature. Instinct
would seem to demand new thrills and new ex
periences. People, like cattle, are disposed to
rove In the never ending search for more luscious
verdure. And, admit it or not, observation would
indicate that the female of the specie Is more
deeply afflicted by that insatiable desire than
Is the more dull, and less energetic male. It was
the fear of loss, perhaps, which mode chivalry
build barriers around its womenkind
Returning to that authority Bert rand Russell,
there is found a new solution of "how to be
happy though married" and that is in freedom
to runge in other emotional fields, a freedom
that is to be recognized by both men and women.
Ho says "There must be a feeling of complete
equality on both sides; there must be no Inter
ference with mutual freedom; there must be
the most complete physical and mental intimacy;
and there must be a certain similarity In regard
to standards of values. Given these conditions, 1
believe marriage to be the best and most Im
portant relation that can exist between two hu
man beings. If it has not often been realized
hitherto, that Is chiefly because husband and
wife have regarded themselves as each other's
policeman. If marriage is to achieve it possi
bilities, husbands and wives must learn to un
derstand that whatever the law may say, in
their private lives they must be free."
Wives registering complaints against hus
bands listed almost 800 various things that irri
tated them, while husbands had less than 100
things they held against women.
THIS brings us to the fact that wives are more
unhappy in marriage than husbands. The men
have listed such things as temperament, selfish
ness, lack of Intelligence, lack of affection, lack
of social qualities and lack of sex adequacy.
Outstanding Is the fact that practically no men
mentioned clothes in the complaints or desires
in regard to their wives, so it Is safe to con
clude that clothes do not mean as much to men
as to women.
While authorities on psychology, behaviorism,
and sex all give various answers to unhappiness
in marriage, a check up reveals that most of the
loss of glamour In regard to the great state of
matrimony is caused by the simple virtuea or
rather the lack of them, such as unselfishness,
affection, understanding, and the plain homey
virtue of being able to laugh in the face of ad
versity 1
Actually, when all checking up it done and all
is said, the institution of matrimony la doing
rather well. It may not be the glamorous thin?
for men that they experienced as bride-grooms,
but they are happy In it because they lilt a
home and Its comforts and well, a home
without a wife In it doesn't rate so much I
PAW THAH I