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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 1913)
3 BT RITA RBSSB. THERE ar beguiling advertisers who lure us Into letting: them send homo things for a period of say 80 days "on trial." to bo returned If they are not In all details exactly as repre - sented. Would, says one Utopian dreamer of better times to come, that a woman might take a husband on trial; that a man might come really to know the woman with whom he thinks he wants to make the world-wlthout-end bargain to love her forever before the Irrevo cable words are finally pronounced. George Meredith first suggested trial marriage. We were properly horrified by the idea, and naturally. But there are those who advance a milder propo sition In trial engagements. If a woman is to marry a man, say these, let her at least give him a try out of loving to see if he gives satis faction In the romantic requirements of the Romeo rule. If not, then It is safe to assume that the girl In Question Is saved from a life that on the face of It is foredoomed to failure, since the hero of her dreams failed thus early to qual ity ror the rirst place in her affections. May Save Lois Repentance, This Bounds very well. Trial en gagements might save many a wedded-in-haste couple from a long period of repentant leisure; useless regrets that they didn t wait a bit. There are many arguments advanced pro and con. "Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?" asks an old-time poet. But most or the happiness that accrues from such sudden flamlngs of the affections we are bound to tell the truth have come to our observation only in old time novels. That "love Is lov,e forever more," we are not prepared to dispute when it is love. But many things go masquerad ing in these years of grace, and love is a favorite disguise. Old-time novelists oftentimes took three volumes in which to tell the rap. tures of first love and to lead on to the tedious ending, which ended always Just where most of us had much pre ferred the story would begin "and they lived happily ever after." But did they? Our early romantic faith even In those days wondered how a man. Burly and dark and forbidding In countenance and In heart could ln Bure eternal sunshine and happiness to the fair youg Rosalind who placed her white hand in his and took him for bet ter or for worse. Relatives Mlgrht Guide 17a. Those years were secret years the years that followed. Few heart his torians rose up to draw the revealing curtain from the Bad periods of fair Rosalind's married life. Few were the confidences that came to us from her in looks. In real life, most of us have relatives who have survived from those romantic days, and whatever they may acclaim about first love being the truest, best love, we notice these same wiseacres are the ones most vigorously opposed to sudden marriages. "Be engaged long enough at least." they Bay, "to find out whether you'll get along with her people and to see If she likes yours." "But." the young people urge, "since we are not marrying the family " Stop right there! No one marries to himself or herself any more than any one dies to himself. No one lives to himself, the saying should go, or dies to himself, or even marries to him self! You not only marry the girl you marry, but you marry her father and mother, her brothers and 'sisters, her friends and even her pet canary, and the same she does for you. If she takes you she must be willing to take with you all your relatives, your friends, their habits and dispositions and all your associations. Each Must Make Concessions, Of course, each must marry what the other one is. And most of us are what our associates, our friends and our families make us. One can't strip off these and throw them away as one tosses aside an old pair of shoes on one's wedding day. We are what we are, and we must be taken altogether for better or for worse. And this Is why a thought over mar riage, a trial engagement. Is better than the headlong, romantic leap Into the dark. I grant you that sometimes such a marriage does turn out happily, but it is mere chance. And the average young man and woman should be long headed enough not to want to take such a chance. If marriage is for all eternity, at least you two might afford to wait month to be sure that your affection can stand a strain 'of 80 days' repara tion or 30 days' seeing each other every day. Absence Is a great test of love. Sometimes it makes the heart grow fonder. Other times It causes two peo ple, who think . they love, to ponder over wbethor a permanent separation might not be better for both most di rectly concerned. Separation is a great test of love. A . trial engagement, while two are Sep arated. Is not such a poor suggestion lor a test. A long engagement ofttlmea Is pro longed because deep under It there Is a reeling in one or the other that the evil day must be postponed as lonsr as poeslble. This feeling is one In Itself tnat should cause the gravest investi gation. If, during the engagement, in difference is a marked symptom, what win marriage be like 7 Look about you and see. Xevr Love an Eye-Opener, Ofttlmes a man and a girl whose en gagement has dragged for several years are suddenly brought to realize their real indifference to each other by the advent into each of their lives of a stranger. Th man meets another girl who re news in him all the ardors he felt when first he thought he loved the girl to whom he is now engaged. . The girl In question meets a man and suddenly realizes that he approximates the perfection of which she only had dreamed of finding in. her sweetheart- Gone is her old doubt. She knows she loves now, as we know when we are happy. She Is alive and tremulous with joy at being in the earns world as the stranger. Under such a circumstance who could question the wisdom of the former engagement being broken? There Is another side, of course, to the matter. Trial engagements may be abused just as It is inevitable that trial Tiarriages would mark a score of vic tims unhappily. The coquette, for instance, she who seldom has more heart than she has honor and none too much of either, would Justify her flirting in this wav. The casual Summer man could, use this as a slip knot to escape many a moon light entanglement, but In spite of both these as illustrated objections there still Is a great deal to be said for trial engagements. Would Weed Oat Dishonest. A girl who would use the expedient to carry a flirtation to the place it pleased her to put It down would do the same thing under other circum stances. She has no scruDles of honor when it oomes to affairs of the heart. Whether they are approved by society or frowned upon by people of nice feel ing, she pursues her way, and her vic tims line the highway along which she passes. A man who Is lacking in honor woulA NGEM'EN"r.. -f All Lovers Should Be Put to the Acid Test Before Marriage Occurs, Says Rita Reese find It no easier under a universal ap proval of trial engagements to exert his fascinations and. to number the frail and fond, ones who succumb to his wiles than he does today. Such a man is at heart the counter part of the heartless coquette, and lacking In the one qualification. He stands the same contemptible individ ual, no matter what code the matter Anally may rest under. Besides, this type of man, like the other type of girl, usually is too subtle to let the affair come to a showdown. an actual declaration. To me the man 'Who makes & girl be lieve that he cares for her without ever definitely expressing himself is a crea ture little removed from the forger ana the actual thief. If he doesn't obtain goods under false pretenses, the good of her affections, then who does? The fact he has not said in so many words that he loves her makes him no less the Criminal. Words are given to conceal thought, is an old. adage. And in the lover a game speech is really not necessary. The heart has a lan guage of its own. Any eye can speak volumes to the eye it loves. A man may woo a maid, most fervently-and yet not a word pass between the two. Xo Redress for Ben, When a girl takes such wooing to mean that the man is honest In his Intentions, only to find out that he means nothing, there Is no redress for her. . She knows, but what proof has she to offerto those who do not know that he ubm all his art to win her heart and did it in such a manner that she stands powerless to prove he even once showed her any attention. The disguises of love are subtle. There is no denying that. Trial en gagements, when they are frank and honest "try-outs of affections, are commendable expedients to those who- would be sure before they go ahead to make a home together. .Personally, I am In favor of trial engagements. . For this reason; On the face of the declaration . the . two people are honest and trying to play fair with one another. They have as yet signed, no until-death-do-us-part agreement. They are too honest to do that until they are sure they'll - stick to the contract cheerfully. They do not want to break the covenant in spirit any more than they want to disrupt it in letter. They think they love each other. They are sure they could live to g-ether in peace and harmony so long as- lire is voucnsale-d. to them. But, being wise, they have observed other couples seemingly as happily mated as they are come to grief on hidden rocks, sucked down by unsus pected undertows. Best for oth Parties. - - So they say to each other: "We think we love. We will try being engaged. This is not a binding agreement on rnpaa wife is the only unpaid I member of the household. She should have a dflnito allow ance quite apart from the housekeep ing money and. If possible, a separate banking account," says - a housewife who has asked that her name be with held. Read what she has to say on the subject: When will it be an understood thing that every wife is entitled to a definite amount of pocket money? Every girl has an allowance when she goes away to school, though It may be only a few dollars a month. Nearly every girl has pocket money at home, though it may take the form of a dress allowance. It is only when she marries that she finds herself without a penny of her own. In thousands of cases she Is the only unpaid member of the household. The husband has his salary, the maids have theirs, the boy has his; but the wire lour Wife Should JM I ; : i ! J ! ajS-i j! I i ! ! j ! either. It is only a preliminary canter around the field. We will announce to a few friends our intentions of marry ing if the engagement should prove a suooess. On the other hand If either feels the tie growing irksome,, the en gagement coming to be a burden, it Is to be summarily broken and each is to go his or her way absolutely free and unfettered." Why shouldn't an agreement, fine and fair to both parties, prove the best of all possible beginnings of a real life partnership? It Is essentially business like in Its olauses and in its conclusion. If the partnership is not a mutual benefit and happiness to both parties it Is to be dissolved, leading each one free. I think it is a Utopian suggestion. In the far South a very young girl often provides material for a roaring Summer farce by the number of men to whom she is engaged. This on the face of it seems rather a curious state of affairs, but the en gagements in question are innocent boy and girl friendships, and, I think, do much toward educating a girl's mind her appreciation of a man. Girl Should Love Flirtation. A girl who grows up with men around her, who at 18 is having a beautifully Innocent flirtation with a man. explain ing to him beforehand that it is only a trial engagement to see if he's really worth having, is & developed woman when she reaches SO. Then when she marries it is for all time. She has had her fill of flirtations. She had put' them away with her other childish amuse ments and taken up the dignified role of a wife, which she guards with jeal ous honor. ' I have never seen a girl who, denied 1.11 the innocent Joys of belledom when a gin, later in lire oion t seise at it eagerly If the chance for popularity were offered her. Maybe she marries the first and only man who ever asked her, and with him she is apparently happy. Put her out West in an Army post and see her compared to the young girls. ; She Is 10 times more keen for a romantlo adventure than these girls are. There is a potential danger In withholding innocent romantic experi ences from . girls. A baby must touch a lamp chimney to see for Itself that the pretty flame is something to be let alone. Then don't, when you have warned, all you are ca pable of warning, a young girl about love, deny her the opportunity of a little innocent flirtation to find out for her self. She can't tell the true love unless Bhe happens to have seen the false. She csm't know how blessed she Is In her marriage to a good man unless she has been permitted to look on and see the misery the union - with any other kind brings in Its wake. Trial engagements do take a girl's Instead She Should count to Meet All has not even pocket money. All she I has Is a housekeeping allowance, which must cover all the expenses of the week and must not be used for anything else. Does she want to go to a mati nee? She must ask for the price of the ticket. W ould she like to visit a friend in the countryT She must ssk meekly for the fare. Wife 8 k on Id Have the Money. It is surprising that so many women should put up with so humiliating a position. It is a survival of the days when the wife was looked upon as a kind of slave, as some one who should do a great deal of work for no better reward than having a home. In these enlightened days it la a grotesque an achronism. In spite of the twentieth century the average wife is still in the barbarous position of having to go to her husband for every penny. He likes It, of course. It pleases him to feel that she is dependent on him. He is flattered when she nerv ously and prettily asks him for a paltry 10 shillings for some pleasure to which she is easily entitled. It gratifies his vanity to give her a 85 bill. He would not be so com fortable if she quietly said that sKe was going to take a box that after noon. Only the exceptional husband likes to think of his wife as independ ent. One result is that she often is re duced to petty subterfuges. Instead of paying cash. - she runs up bills or allows accounts to go unpaid for months Instead of weeks. Finding that she has spent a great part of the housekeeping allowance. and not caring to admit It, she thinks she will get over the difficulty by economising next week, and then pay ing the bills. There is no commoner source of domestio friction. After a few weeks she finds that she cannot get square again, and finds it necessary to alarm the head of the house Definite Allowance Required. The only reasonable arrangement la bloom off, provided they axe carried to an excess and wilfully abused, as I have pointed out, to Justify the heart less work of e. flirt. A trial engage ment should not be entered into lightly. While having no actual weight in itself; it should be a serious thing in that the two who agree to be engaged do so from the sincere and earnest de sire to find out whether or not they are suited each to the other. A trial engagement entered into for the fun of the relation is in Itself bad and half vicious. It is frivolous and hardening to the finer sensibilities of both. They do not become even tem porarily engaged for anything more definite than the fun for the time. To some such an engagement would mean a license that ordinarily they would not take in the expression of af fection love for each other. Love, like this, takes the bloom from any real sensitiveness and seldom leads to any real affection. Tennyson sang that love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. We cannot agree with the poet. Love may be Just as fervent, but the wise one who finds herself growing to be an in cubus on the one beloved does what she can, and that quickly, to remedy the matter, if this happens during the en gagement She doesn't hurry up the eve Have a Separate Ac Her Financial Needs for, the wife to have a definite allow ance quite apart from the housekeep ing money, worked out on the basis of the total income and the amount the husband spends on luxuries. Take, for example, the 81500-a-year household. In . the great majority of cases the husband spends about 85 a week on pleasure and luxuries, and tne wire si.x& at most. She very sel dom has any definite allowance and has to worry him for every quarter. if possible, she should have a sep arate banking account, so that she could be perfectly Independent, and possibly find some pleasure in saving a pleasure in which thousands of j i i i i i r 1 : : i . : I V t i j ' I frAy t ; ; iv . v ' . i i si - - A- i. I 1 1 t yr- J ! 'Af i-.i j i i I y marriage in the nope that In the new state -she may be able to fan up the embers of the dying love into n. good, strong flame again. She knows the best thing for her to do is to cut the cord that binds the two together. To give love his freedom and bid him gayly to go. - v . Acid Tetrt for Iove. Love tethered never did do anything but fly in his dreams. If a girl would hold love she must, paradoxical as It may sound... bid him go whenever and wherever he likes. Then, if it be truly love she speaks to him, he will stay be side her forever more. " We have studied the psychology of long engagements and of short ones, There is a great difference between these and trial engagements. A long engagement may be quite as binding as a marriage vow. Many do so consider it. When this is true,- the peril is that the heart may suddenly wake up to its own Impending - doom and desolation, wedded to the other one, yet a sense of honor will bold the tongue and the con fession that should in all honesty be made is not given. What happiness could a girl expect with a man who feels this way toward her, after they have been engaged, say, for a year, and who is qulxotio enough to keep the dis women find surprising satisfaction. Only the poor seem to realise this. The laborer knows that his wife is the most likely member of the house hold to save money, and in "the ma jority of cases heis wise enough to hand over his whole week's earnings to her, less a few shillings for his pocket. She makes the very most of, say, the 85 Intrusted to her, and at the end of the week produly tells the husband that she has saved 81.25. This system prob ably accounts for the undoubted fact that the women of the poor are very seldom extravagant. The wife, being In charge of practically the whole In come, takes pride in using it skillfully and carefully. If she had "to ask for every penny she would very soon be come extravagant. The system does not work so well with larger Incomes, but some modifi cation of it would probably be a great deal better than the present barbarous method usual in middle-class house holds. One case is typical. A husband was worried by his young wife's ex travagance. She was constantly ask ing for money, which he had not the heart to refuse. She had no concep tion of the value of money, and r lave To M Jt V 'et er Run the Bank p Account a While- Jert Better Than Taking AHeddlonq 41 m nil r WH." I.WW1, VV -T. -; :oft.-ter.OI'"ul--l.'l covery of his Indifference to himself least he wound her feelings. I can appreciate the nice sense of honor that makes a man marry a girl for whom he has confessed an earlier love, and to whom he is engaged, but I cannot conceive of any woman who under theBe conditions would not in finitely rather be told the truth and given the opportunity of breaking the engagement herself, than to go for ward to the wedding day and to a long life of close association with a man who Is Indifferent to her. Gtrl Sherald Denial Preot. In a case like the above, the advan tage of a trial engagement Is apparent. Our hearts are really as easily veered as weather vanes. We are swept by all the winds of caprice and changing tides until me meet the Right One. To prove that so-and-so, whom you love bo devotedly now, is the right one engage yourself to her or to him with the understanding that this la to be a trial engagement. "I think I love yon better than my life," say to that one, "but I may be mistaken. Any way, I don't intend to mar your life by finding out too late that you are not the man I love, and I don't Intend to let you marry me until yon know I'm the woman for you for all eternity." These lines may sound bombastic But better a little bombast than a great many years of fretful chafing against bonds that Irk. 1 Please don't understand me to mean that I think there Is no such thing as first love. I do. But I believe In being abso lutely sure beforehand that it Is to be the last love. I believe that hearts know each ether and that we sometimes recognize our affinities. But I believe In making as surance doubly sure. A heart is a tender organ, and I be lieve many a perfectly good and strong heart has been broken, and that for love. Over a right love that couldn't be had because an earlier wrong love has usurped Its place, as often as for realizing too late that1 prevention is bet Work for Body Causes Sleep THB secret of good sleep Is the physiological conditions of rest being established so to work and weary the several parts of the organism as to give them a proportionately equal need of rest at the same moment. The cerebrum or mind organ, the sense organs, the muscular system, and the Internal organs all should be ready to sleep together, and they should be equally tired. To awake early and feel ready to rise, is a seemed to think that it came, like water, out of the tap. The husband's only consolation was that she spent it very charmlnsrly. After a year he decided to do a bold thing. He transferred his banking ac count to his wife, and gave her entire control of his whole income, about 82000. for a year. At once she became a different woman. Instead of tuklng pleasure in spending money, she took almost a fantastic pleasure in saving it. Apparently Impressed by the respon sibility, she gave up many of her pleas ures, and took great pride in seeing how little she could spend every week. It was understood that she could have as much pocket money as she liked, and the result of this was that she spent practically nothing. In a few years they saved hundreds of dollars, and the husband still goes happily to his wife for every check. There is nothing he enjoys more than seeing her gravely working out figures. Wife Shows Her Economy. It is time, surely, that husbands ceased to treat their wives as children. and allowed them to be responsible partners. No other system works so well. The moment a woman feels she it FdF ter than cure for the entanglement that latter-day civilisation make pos sibla, nay imminent, to any believing and trusting heart. Love Nemb Temple. I believe that love Is the holiest emo tion handed down to the earth from the gods in Paradise. And because it is this, it should be dealt with as care fully as the other sacred fire was in the days when temples were erected to the god of love. Love needs a temple. I question if the flame of love can be kept going in this blowy, windy world without a proper temple. And the proper temple for love Is a home, and the saored altar should be a human heart. Blessed are they who find love. They are wise virgins who see to It that they have oil enough In their cruses to keep the lamp going. The foolish vir gins are they who believe anything they may hear and welcome any good looking stranger as love. Love, when he comes, brings his own credentials. He doesn't try to creep In anybody's heart through a back win dow. He walks up boldly and rings the belL And because he is so honest and aboveboard, he's willing to wait to es tablish his claim. "If you don't know positively that I am the Right Love," he says, "I'm con tent to wait to prove it. "To show we are honest and sincere in our plan, let us proclaim our secret to those who are interested." Later he says: "We will try a trial engagement. If it works, we will marry. But all things will be clear as the face of day and If we fail we stand Justified and already explained. "If we do oome to see that our first love Is to be our last love, then the tri umph is still as great. We've attempt ed an experiment that we may recom mend to others as the sure and unfail ing test of love. "Any test that really tests and proves the value of a thing Is In Itself Justi fied and worth passing on to honest lov ers everywhere." point gained; and the wise Belf-man-ager should not allow a drowsy feeling of the consciousness, or weary senses, or an exhausted muscular system, to tempt him Into the folly of going to sleep again when once consciousness has been aroused. After a few days of self-discipline, the man who resolves not to doze that is, to allow some still sleepy part of his body to keep him In bed after his brain has once awakened will find himself, without knowing' it, an "early riser." Is an active partner, with equal con trol over money, the chances are that she takes pride in being economical. But, so long as she knows that she must ask her husband for quarters. half dollars and dollars, and has only a vague idea of how much money he has, she will probably be extrava gant, and certainly less of a comrade. The great mistake the average man makes is In thinking that the average woman, enjoys spending money. As a fact, she enjoys saving It far more. What Lies Beyond Us? Harper's. We know that the big telescopes, aided by the photographic plate, reveal stars to the number of at least 100. 000,000 lyingr utterly beyond the con fines of unaided vision. Now it appears that a pinch of salt, which one could hold on the point of a penknife is made up of atoms numbering not hun dreds of millions merely, but billions of billions. The population of atoms in the smallest particle of matter visi ble under the microscope la greater by far than the total human popula tion of the globe since the race de veloped. And a little instrument com posed of two fragments of gold leaf make it possible to perform the miracle of counting these denizens of the realm of infinite littleness. Within the smallest atom there la something almost 2000 times smaller than the atom itself a something that Is detachable from the atom, and sus ceptible of being measured as to its mass and tested as to its electria charge with the aid of apparatus actu ally in use In the laboratory. This ul timate particle of matter Is called the electric corpuscle or electron. We owa our knowledge of It chiefly to Sir Joseph Thomson. It is the smallest thing in the world, and It Is probably the basal substance out of which all matter of whatever character Is built. As regards bulk, the electron Is, ac cording to the French physicist Jean Becquerel, billions of billions of times smaller than the atom. To make the comparison vivid, Becquerel likens the electrons in an atom to a swarm of gnats navigratlns about In the dome of a cathedral. As we penetrate thus far and farther into the realm of the in finitely little, seeing in imagination the smallest visible particle of matter resolved Into myriads of molecules, eah molecule into sundry atoms and. each atom into its teaming swarms of electrons, the question naturally arises. What lies beyond? Correcting a Husband. A colored woman went to the pastor of her church the other day to com plain of the conduct of her husband, who, she said, was a low-down, worth less, trifling fellow. After listening to the long recital of the delinquencies of her neglectful spouse and her efforts to correct them the minister said: "Have you ever tried heaping coals of fire upon his head?" "No," was the reply, "but I done tried hot water."