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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (June 28, 1914)
Ihe Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page ft i n IhO p WITH M Hb Dfln I I It IAW11AGE ay wotveiioM.cHie. Miss Russell in Her Second Wed ded Eole, Mrs, Harry Brali am. By Lillian Russell. (In an Intorvlew.) WHAT is the matter with mar rlage? Experience) plus observation havo taught me that it is too muct thought of love and too llttlo about money. Money causes more divorces than does unfaithfulness to marriage vows. Money is the root of nearly all matrimonial misery. The re mainder, caused by natures so dis similar as not to harmonize, is .too 'Blight for consideration. Most per sons can get along liapplly together if the chief bone of contention be removed. That chief bone Is differ ence of opinion abo'ut money! I am convinced that ninety - nine - hun dredths of all unhapplness in mar riage is caused by such differences. Marriage, while not wholly a fail ure, is one of tho half failures of the world. It is only fifty per :ent efficient. That one of every eight marriages ends in divorce proves ,that something is radically wrong. A short while ago tho ratio was one dlvorco to twelve marriages. Quick ly It became one to eight. I fear that it present conditions continue tho descending scale will be one to six, to four, to three and finally that state of social chaos will ensue when It will bo one to two, or ono-half of the marriages will perado their failures in the divorce court. And the other couples, remaining in the bonds of wedlock, will bo in the same mood which Achilles nursed dn his tent They will chafe at their ibonds and sulk" over their grievances. They will bo irked by their state. All the signs point to a marital rovolutlon. I am not of those who would destroy the institution. It Is needed to restrain the lower ele ments In human nature. And 1 would prevent tho marital revolu tion if I could by establishing mar riage upon a business basis. Mar riage is a business and should sub mit to tho regulations and restric tions and enjoy the emoluments of a business. I call upon the wives and the women who may become wives and their sympathizers, who are leading the revolt upon mar riage, to issue a protocol. Let them cease their onslaughts upon mar riage and adjust matrimonial differ ences upon a business basis. I beg them to consider the marriage con tract as a substitute for tho red flag of war. I propose as compromise meas ures a complete understanding about money apportionment before mar riage and that a wife shall receive one-half of her husband's income af ter marriage, to do with as sbo likes. Both t these I know are startling suggestions, but a consideration of them will show you that they are reasonable. I do not advocate mar riage witthout love but I believe that love should be held in leash and what Demarest Lloyd called "the short fever of mating" should be held in abeyance until an entirely satisfactory arrangement is made for the future. It has been considered Indelicate for tho girl who is being wooed to talk about money to her suitor. It should be, and soon will be, con sidered a sign of a weak intelloct if she doesn't. Marriage will not bo a lottery after Mary says to John, "Yes, I could love you. I know no other man whom I prefer for a hus band. But whether I marry you will depend upon what guarantee you can give me that our future together and my future, should I have the misfortune to become your widow, will be one secure from poverty." If John bo a sensible roan, not a human balloon inflated with Yanlty, he will admire his Mary's clear com mon sense and replv as frankly as she has spoken. If ho be a shifty, evasiye person, he will say: "Of course, my dear, I will make a will in your favor." I BY LILLIAN MttELL America's Perennial Beauty? After Four Experiments, Reveals at Last the Results of Her Unusual Opportunities for Discovering Why Wedlock Is Only "Fifty Per Cent. Efficient" How to Be Happy Though Married Better than paying a wife a salary is taking her as a partner. When a couple begins to haggle about uiiis romance aies. Don't make of your wife a thief and a liar. The parting of the waye is a difference about money. Marriage is a business and should be conducted on business principles. Lillian Russell. Gs.r mi wig- H1 si if 3 M 8l 4$ FAUK fHOTO OY I MTtr Ntt i Miss Russell in the Brief Time She Was Wedded to John Ohatterton, Signor Perugini. trust that Mary will not permit this to throw her of! tho right thought track. If sho bo perspicacious she will know that, although John makes and gives into her hands for her keeping, such a will, ho can make five or six wills afterward, and the last will be tho only legal one. That promise may seem to her to prove John's generous intent. It may mere ly mask his duplicity. Don't be satisfied with promises, Performances are what you have a right to demand. Insist that John sign a contract duly witnessed that when you become his wife you shall have half of his Income to do with as you like. The contract should further provide that he shall out of his half that remains provide for his household, that is, furnish a home and maintain it, and buy the ward robe of his wife and children and provide for the education of the chil dren. This, I quite understand, will cause a howling chorus of male pro test. I hear the cries "Too much!" and "A female holdup I" echoing throughout tho land. But I Tiold my ground against all dispute. Granted that if a man sara but loss than fifty dollars a week this may bo impracticable. Many Ameri cans earn $3,000 a year. The Income tax is based upon that average. I address myself to tho average American. If a man has not reached that average he should have it in view and reach it as soon as he can. So a provisional marriage contract will contain a clauso providing for that prosperous time. Meanwhile he and his wife should have a common purse. When she needs a gown they can go together to buy it. When he requires a suit they shop together and help each other in the selection. I have In mind such a couple who are ideally happy. There is, indeed, something to be said for this state. It is good to have Just enough to get on with comfortably for they have nothing to quarrel about. Most quarrels, and far the bitterest, are those about money. Many a couple has gotten on happily living a life of peace, until they begin to grow wealthy and bickerings about how the money should bo spent begin. This state would be delightful if the years had not a habit of steadily multiplying and there ss Russell, in One of Her In terludes of Singleness, Re flecting on the Dubi ousness of Double Blessediness. always bo a psychological beginning for any offenBe, however flagrant. Tho beginning of all dlvorco is a mental one. Tho parting of the ways is dif ference of opinion about money. Tho pair begin to dislike each other. Dislike becomos Intolerance. Intolerance grows into hatred. Thoy fly from this state to the divorce court, which by contrast seems to them the ark of poaoo. A comploto marriage contract, settling before hand all quoBtlonB of money, is tho ounce of prevention that would cure us of dlvorco. A rich man's refusal to give his wlfo money is tho last remnant of tho ages-long alavery of women. It It tho last of the galling bonds. Tho end of this would bo tho lifting of the yoke of serfdom, from her nock. Having to ask a man for money Is the brand of the slavo on a woman's cheek. His refusal of it stirs a flame of resentment in her that may re duce her happiness to embers. If I were a man, knowing what I do ot what is going on in women's minds and hearts to-day I should bo afraid to refuse her whatever amount sho asked. The play "To-day" is not an overemphasized statement of tha situation. Tho credit man at one of tho greatest department stores told m6 tho uuraber of women who order bills sent to their husbands for dresses they never buy is amassing. They buy, wo will Bay, three gowns, but thoy order a bill sent to their hus bands for six, and ask the store to advanco them the, amount of the threo they did not buy. Or thoy aak a friend to buy gowns and have thorn charged to their account and col lect the money from the friend. Scarcely a dressmaker is there who does not overcharge In her bill with the connivance of the wife. The wife collects the ex cess from the dressmaker or the dressmaker may have given her the money. So a man puts a premium upon dis honesty. He makes of his wife a thief and a liar. Tho marriage built upon a foundation of distrust on one side and dishonesty on the other la a house built upon the sands. Few women will take advantage of freedom given them with money. Put them on their honor. Tell IF Lillian Russell (Mrsi Aleck Mooro) as Sho Is To-day. Wifo of a Millionaire, tho Marriage Problem them It is their hutr and they are responsible for it. Far more likely than that they will squan der it Is it that they will hoard it. I have known women to set their husbands up in business again after the husband have failed by the sums they have saved. Most women would guard this their "future money," as thoy wsuld their honor and their reputations. Better than paying a wife a salary is taking her as a partner. We pay salaries to our inferiors. We take as a partner our equal. Lift your wife financially, as In every other respect, to the place where Bhe belongs, at your side. A New Idea of What Influences Sex of Children 0y (VJ.ItK. HY- Miss Russoll When Sho Was tho Bride of Edward Solomon. were no such thing as a long future stretching away, the path through which can only bo made easy by money. It is qulto true that there is no condition In Ufo which cannot bo ameliorated by money. I would not engender In any mind that reads this a worship of money. Bui I would advise every woman to re gard it as something whose suffi ciency will oil the path of hor mar ried life. Husbands, consider this: To give a wife half of your Income Is to put her on her mettle, likewise on her honor. The first decisive entering wedge In married unhapplness is the divergence of view about tho ex penditure of monoy. She demands a sum that seems to him extravagant. Ho charges hor with extravagance and sho begins to grow in his mind as a monster who consumes his monoy. So is the seed of hatred planted. Becauso he tells her she pays too much for a can of pe,as and should have bought a cheaper kind, or be 'cause ho asks her why she can't make over last Summer's hat, she begins to despise him. Ho shrinks from the hero she thought him into a pigmy of parsimony. That Is the beginning whose end is tho divorce court. I am qulto aware of tho archaic laws that exist in somo States about causes tor divorce. But there must By DR. LEONARD KEENE HIR8HBERQ, A. B., M. A., M. D. (Johns Hopkins). DO. ISRAEL DRAM, of Philadelphia, Is the latest re cruit in tho ranks of the sex determlnators. Ho discusses tho various theories which have been suggested as explanations of tho fact that either a girl or a boy was born. Tho influence of either parent as well as other ancestors, the months and seasons of tho year, the mental states of the father and mother, tho sentiments, emotions, the power of love, the foods, eta, have all been credited or blamed with a capacity to direct the sex of the approaching child. The upshot, however, of Dr. Bram's researches are entirely different. , A, .. An excess of food, he says, in the mother causes tho female to predominate. Thus tho child is a girl. Gen erous amounts of pabulum to the father, with a scanty allowance for the mother tends to tho birth of a boy. Albuminous, rich, heavy, meaty foods, if taken by either parent, will influence tho sex in favor of the overfed one. Ho cites the fact that in periods of privation, starva tion, financial panic and war the mothers do not re ceive enough nutriment, and the ensuing births are, as a consequence, mostly boys. Moreover, ho holds, the internal tissues, such as near-kidneys or "adrenal" glands, when active tend to mako tho child a male. In women whose adrenals are 111 or Injured the children are predominantly female. It the dry powder of the adrenal glands is given as a medicine, Dr. Brain contends, the offspring will bo male. Dr. Bram has devoted several years to an investiga tion of theso facts, A large number of his patients wished to have hoy babies. Ho experimented, he says, with thirty of these prospective mothers, twenty of whom were seen seven months before their babies were born. Every ono of those had a baby boy.. For hoyB, eggs, meats, fish, cheese and heavy albumin ous foods are forbidden. Cereals, fruits, potatoes, but ter, milk and buttermilk are allowable, Lots of water must be drunk, In addition to tbis. a capsule with two grains of the extract of suprarenal gland, combined with four grains of lecithin, is given after each meal always under the advico of a physician, of course. CopyrlKht, 19H. by tho Etor Company. Great Britain nights Reserved.