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What Men Should K
now About Modern Marriag
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To Help the Male of the Species Decide
Whether He Should Wed Or Stay Single.
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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 .-
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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.
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