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About The Evening herald. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1906-1942 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1929)
ma OraillllllHD in- r., "WIT What Men Should K now About Modern Marriag a ri o To Help the Male of the Species Decide Whether He Should Wed Or Stay Single. a vxtt nrr r v r r r Writer Who IKcehs His nr Her a a 0UIEI 3.10 Identity Concealed Tells All About Newest Standards in 'Women nd Wickedness ND now there' another big literary mysteiy to solve. It all concerns the authorship of one of the newest books ol the season. An Intelligent Man s Uuide to ivlamatre and Celibacy. On the cover of the book, and in the preface, it is stated that this work it "By Juanita Tanner." But there isn't any such person as Juanita Tanner. Where does the name come from) Well, in George Bernard Shaw's great play, "Man and Superman." the hero is named John Tanner. The heroine. Ann Whiteneld. one of the go-gettingest females ever created on earth or in the brain of any author, decides that she will marry John Tanner. John flees, but Ann gets her nan. And there Shaw's story ends. Another writer, however, has taken up John and Ann Tanner's problem. This other writer, the real author of "The Intelligent Man'i Guide to Marriage and Celibacy," has concealed his or her true iden tity by saying that this bold book was written by Juanita Tanner, the daughter of Shaw's characters. John Tanner and Ann Whiteneld. There is plenty of good reason why the real author should wish to keep his name and whereabouts a mystery, for the book it loaded with the frankest tort of an analysis of what modern marriage it aU about. But the book presents its own argument best, and so here are tome of the doctrines it presents in telling men all about why the old double standard of morality isn't double any more, and why men should 01 shouldn't marry. These excerpts are reprinted by permission of the publishers, the Bobbs Merrill Company, and by the mysterious author, who has even gone to far at to take out a 1929 copyright on the boot under the name of Juanita Tanner. IT it fashionable in these days to try to arrive by experimental methods which we call "nature t method of trial and error." and these methods teem especially popu lar in the field of morals. But as no individual can possibly perform aU the experiments in living it tee mi necessary to employ reason at least to the extent of de ciding what experiments to undertake. They art often mutually exclusive. If. for example you decide upon the experiment of promiscuous living, you must definitely forego the experi ment of chastity. If yon go in for ro mance you must eschew the practi cal, and vice versa. n d certainly before we experi ment in marriage, a field in which the casualties run high, it would teem the better part of valor to weigh whatever data may be avail able, consider care fully the materials we have to work with, and choose, among various methods of proced ure, that one which seems most likely to succeed. For nature, in her trials, can af ford mistakes. She can afford to waste millions of individ uals and thousands of years. But we have neither to many lives nor so much tame. The materials yon have to work with as a man are women and love. As to methods of procedure the world ac knowledges two: marriage and celibacy. These, however, teem to me to be again divisible into four; for there are at least two broadly differ ing views of marriage and at many of celibacy. That is, there is marriage regarded as a prac tical undertaking to found a home and a fam ily, the other party to the enterprise being any one of a number of suitable people of similar intentions, and there it marriage regarded at the romantic onion of two persons destined in the eternal scheme of things to complement each other. There it also celibacy regarded as a state of tingle blessedness permitting extra-legal inter course without the bother of family responsi bQibes, and there it celibacy regarded as a state of devotional chastity. ' A T the start you are facing a set of condi Y. b'ons or we might at well call tbem frankly girls that no man has ever faced before. You've gone to school with girls (unless you went to a private school), to col lege with them probably, and now you're going to have to work with them in business and the professions. Whatever you do and wherever you go. at long as you stay within the limits of Anglo-Saxon civilization, you'll be running in to women and falling over them and finding them generally in your way. The chance are that women won't really compete with you for the real jobs for at least another generation. Too often, just when a girl is doing nicely, the will suddenly appear with the latest in plat- The pioneer avie voho kept a shotgun for stray Indians . . . has a granddaughter who turns a revolver on a straying husband Your marriage to a homely giri, though she be possessed of other sterling values, will be roamed upon. in urn settings on her third finger, and a disillu sioned higher up will begin hunting another man to take her place. One more example of feminine failure to stick to business) Not necessarily; she may have found a more profitable business oppor tunity. They may not have paid her quite as much as they would have paid a man for the same work. She may have concluded that it is better to command a man's salary even if it means promising to love, honor and obey tlie man. Still you may consider this a mean trick. A girl goes into business, messes it up for men, and stays just long enough to find some boob who's willing to support her. Or. if she stays she demands as much salary as a man who has to think about supporting a wife and maybe a family. It's not fair, it seems, for a man to find himself married to the old-fashioned wom an who demands support while he competes in business with the new-fashioned kind who demands equal pay. WOMEN who try supporting themselves are now able to guess what a terrific un dertaking it must be to support a family. If they have any fairness at all they are com ing to see that while it is true men have had all the advantages in business, it is also true that they needed them. But if you're a young man I think you're a bit foolish to give up your chance to see the world and tie yourself down to the sup port of a mere wife.. Don't mistake my meaning when I say I think you're fool ish to undertake the support ol a mere wife. If your wife is also your housekeeper and a nurse and governess, you owe her all you can pay her. But you are not paying her for be ing your wife; you are paying for a home and the privilege of being a father. When you contemplate mar riage these days you should be quite certain whether you con template marriage that merely includes a wife, or marriage that includes all that elastic word may cover. While the economic hazards of supporting a family and maintaining a home would seem sufficient to give any young man seriously to think, it cannot be concealed that the rewards of the under taking have decreased rather than increased. Now, we have abolished most of the distinc tions between a home and bachelor's quarters. The unmarried man can have a small apart ment with domestic service for leu than it would cost him to maintain a slightly larger apartment and a wife, and otherwise tliere may be no great difference in the domestic arrange ments. The comforts of home may turn out to consist of delicatessen food anyhow, at he can find out from his more candid married ac quaintances; as for darning, that ancient wifely occupation, there isn't a respectable tailor or laundry that can't do a better job nowadays than most wives. WOMEN are shedding few tears over the change. Modern living condition! for people of ordinary income utterly annihilate the theory that two can live at cheaply at one. Our grand fathers, who objected to girls rid ing bicycles and going to college and voting because the girls would become rough and wicked like men, were not off the track, though they may have been headed in the wrong direc tion. What they prophesied hat come to pass, up to a certain point, and today observers of short skirts and drinking and swearing and pet ting inform us in no uncertain terms that the whole of the prophecy will toon be fulfilled. Women will toon be just as bad as men or know the reason why. , The Double Standard in its fullest expres sion gave women almost a monopoly of morals, and in its least a handicap in the golfing tense; men were allowed a few slices into the rough, to to speak, as part of their game. You as an intelligent young man will see at once that this wain t a compliment; quite the I I I l !l lit W "m.W II I I M "X .- m Then '. . . you mill have to search far and vide to find a girl a no can be vorshipped. contrary. The assumption was that men hadn't the moral stamina to play the game of monogamy according to the rules set down, and to they were allowed by common consent to cheat. Now you at any rate don't have to be told that the pedestal days are over. You know better than to think. I hope, that girls are naturally any better than you are. They may have been trained for generations to be better, so that even now when they try to cut loose from all restraint they don't quite make the down grade. But they are trying so hard to learn about everything that sometime they not only believe the worst, they believe a worst actually worse than the real worst is. You've probably noticed it. Still, give them time another generation or two and they'll be right where they're deter mined to be, which is in on tlie ground floor. Then you will have to search fir and wide before you find a girl who can be wor shiped as an angel or even re vered as a saint, if this is what you want in exchange for your provision of food and clothes and shelter. BUT the real question now it how is it going to be with you? Are you broad minded enough to accept in a wife the variegated previous experience which women have so often accepted in men) And can you as an. intelli gent man tell me any good rea son why you should contract to devote a life's energy to the support of a woman you mar ry for her physical attraction, when she can not in reason promise that she will not cease to attract? She will do her best to keep up her end of the bargain; the commerce in beauty-drugs, surgery, dress and all the other recognized aids to attraction it suf ficient guaranty of her ceaseless effort. Neve rtheless, the young girl you mar ry is probably bet ter looking at mar riage than she will be later; it it only reasonable to sup pose that time must bring some diminu tion of her attrac tion; while your pro vision of a living presumably will ire prove as time goes on. That it, at you contribute more, the wife who gives you only physical attrac tion must give you Women will soon be just as bad as men or Irnov Vie reason ttiji. lest. Though her charm may on the whole be well preserved it cannot ' possibly be promised for a long lifetime, but your promise it tor lite. At a man yon have no doubt been trained to a sincere reverence for beauty; you may also have come to find it an emotional stim ulus. Thus choice of a wife become for many men an esthetic adventure. To artistic consid erations they will even sacrifice comfort, at evi denced by the popularity of beauty contest winner over domestic science experts. Traditionally your selection of a beautiful woman, whatever her other qualification, will (Coprrlcht, Hit. NBA Macula Prints In U. a. A. be approved and understood, while your mar riage to a homely girl, though she be possessed of other sterling virtues, will be frowned upon. But of course you. as an intelligent man. are very well aware that physical beauty is no guar anty of mental companionship. You may even feel some embarrassment about becoming the reward in a beauty contest. PSYCHOLOGISTS these days are using a great deal of space in magazines and Sunday papers to warn women that all men prefer them to be dumb. ' Being intelligent you must, I think, realize that adoption of even the most charming and beautiful child-wife it no way to gain a life time companion. You must tee that only an intelligent woman could appreciate you. . I have throughout this discussion of choice been telling you that the decision in various matters rests with you. The reason it obvious: you are, still, traditionally, the person to pro pose marriage. Not long ago a group of Young Women's Christian Association members agreed by a large majority that "Men and women should share equally in the initiative of finding and choosing mates." You see what it's coming to, and the chances are that as an intelligent young man you've already had to turn down half a dozen proposals. Of course really popular or successful girls rarely go as far as a proxal; they don't have to. They know dozens of ways to put you in a position where you have to do it yourself. But you, on the other hand, have probably learned as many avenues of escape. But while such tactics are still presumably fatal to their hopes. I trust you will treat gently all young ladies who make you off ers of marriage. Looking at practi cal m a r r i age , or dained so that women could be mothers and men could be comforta ble, we discover that women no longer want mother hood and men do not find comfort in the plan. In short, practical marriage is close to being a failure in practice. The most plausi ble theory of mar riage seems to be that it will provide a best pal and sever- -. i.i est critic saieiy to re counted upon for sympathy and understanding, a friend who will know all about us and love us just the tame. IT requires only an elementary ability to meas ure to prove that more love it required in the end if it it to be spread over a long period. Yet this necessary bread-and-butter of a per manent relationship is plainly the antithesis of sex attraction and of the possessive variety of love. Other ingredients than sex must be pres ent, and in larger quantities. In this necessity may lie the key to thai prob lem so perplexing to sentimental Americans, of how it n that marriages based on property in terest or social aims occasionally prove more successful than our oithodox "love" matches. Common interests of even an economic tort teem a useful tie, more permanent and hardly more to be de spised than physical charm. For companionship to endure it must have a mutual interest in some woik or play wholly separated from sex. No mailer how well we may wish each oilier, we cannol be congenial traveling companions if we take different trains and encounter each other only at those junctions where we spend a night. Moreover it seems fairly reasonable to suppose that if some companionship is good more is belter ; that is. the oeaiei infection in marital friendship we can come the happier we shall be. In reaching these conclusion about the necessity for a mutual outlook and intention and even employment. I am not forgetting our great iancmollicrs. I know that the little lady who sits primly in the daguerreotype with great grand father standing beside her (or, as was the more frequent unchivalrout arrange ment, standing with a milted hand on his shoulder while he sits) is almost cer tain to be referred to as one who made a practical success of marriage, with no nonsense about equality or similarity. GREAT-GRANDMOTHER was a womanly woman, great-grand-, father was a manly man. and they .went about the business of wedlock as nature intended. They celebrated' their golden wedding with calm smiles and 24 grandchildren. Perhaps mental companionship in tlie sens in which we know it was not expected in the days when women were not supposed to have minds; women were required to be charming or useful, neither of which im plies being compan ionable. But also at women were expect ed to think less, men did more thinking about household af fairs than many ol them do nowadays, and as their wives usually did accom plish a little celebra tion on the quiet there was probably more companionship in the community in terests of providing wood and water, of managing garden and barnyard, than it generally tup posed. In pioneer days the practical objects were romantic ob jects demanding the best eftorts ol both husband and wife. The mere business of living was exciting and the physical results of mar riage were of far more consequence. The job on which the conquerors of the wil derness could unite was the job of raising off spring, which wasn't then merely a woman's work. Mutu.il interests? Look at those 12 and 16 and 20-children families I Small chance there for infidelities and complexes. OUR pioneer civilization developed this tort of partnership, but it did not endure past the pioneer stage. Wilh civilized security came a division of interests, and when the fron tiers became back-country the too intensively cultivated soil began to yield a bumper crop of marital difficulties. The pioneer wife who kept a shotgun for stray Indians had a grand daughter who, retaining merely the ability to handle firearms, turned a revolver on a straying husband. The only danger common to the younger woman and her husband was boredom. The promise of happiness is in a mutual job of keeping wolves from the door or coyotes out of the cabin. 4 Can we find no mutual jobs in present-day civilization) ft juit trhen a gut is doing nicely . . . she suddenly appears at the office with the latest in platinum sellings. ssssssi trust you i( treat genii) all young ladies feio malre you offers of marriage. n in. n IllllllilllliiillllllllllllllUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII(MIIIIMIIIIIISUIIIIIIIIlfll'",'H ma Li a
