Domestic Life.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 143, 12 June 1903, Page 2

Domestic Life.

BESr UNWED. ■OREMOST among those by whom matrimony should be avoided, if they would preserve happiness, is the ambitious girl ! Doubtless her capacity for loving is equally as large as any other woman's, but, if she has consecrated her life to win fame, once the novelty of marriage wears off ambition reasserts itself as the prime factor in her schame of existence, and husband and home suffer as a consequence. Now, as a lover, no man resents a woman's ambition ; indeed, he will promise that his shall be the strong arm to aid her weak woman's powers to ascend the hill to fame, but once .marriage fetters have forged the i linbS Of their lives for all »in.e,tlte wife seldom, if ever, finds in her husband the helpmate of promise. He may not altogether compel her to abandon her cherished dreams straight away, but by his coldness and indiffence he will endeavour to starve her ambition slowly but surely to death. In many instances jealousy is responsible for this attitude of tho husband towards his wife's plans, for, as a rule, the ambitious woman marries a man exactly the antithesis of herself, and so, having no exalted dreams of his own to convert into realities, he fails to understand hers, and decidddly objeots to his wife being a more important person than himself in the world. Under these ciroumstanoes the wife" is naturally miserable, for at the very outset of her wedded life she is face to face with two cross-roads of choice. Take one, and she must fight her way unaided along the lonely road to fame, slipping with every step she wins, farther and farther away from the. man who swore in courtship days his should be the protecting arm to shield her in weal or woe. Her only alternative is to give up her cherished dreams, hopes, and plans, and settle down to tbe cemmonpltees of domesticity, after the fashion of commonplace wifehood. Surely either co" r ?e is passing hard , but the ohoice must be made, for no half measures will meet the exigencies of the case. Given she elects to climb upward and onward alone, a very wine-press of suffering is here indeed. For all the old ideals of love are reft, all the plans for the new life made under the influence of courtship's glamour abandoned, and small wonder that, despite success in her life work, the girl grows a hard and unfeeling woman, for all the better, higher instincts of her womanhood are stunted by the failure of her marriage. She may rush hither and thither, she may present a smiling face to the inquisitorial eyes' of the world, but the iron has gone deep into her soul, marring it beyond the power of human healing. On the other hand, if she give up her ambition, the chanoss are that ah 3 wiU grow equally hard. For that ambition, if it be worthy the name of ambition .at all, is part of - herself, and its severance from her life as painful as if it were a limb. A man does not realise this, and because his wife may not rail and storm, he concludes she is accepting | the inevitable, and - congratulates , himself that he has knocked all the ' 'ambitious nonsense' out of her. Perchance, later on, he wonders why the chic, brilliant girl has become a ! careless, soured woman, and thinks ' ' his is indeed a sad lot to be blessed < l ' .- ■ . a

by the possession of such a wife ! And that the wife regrets her «tar* riage goes without saying, far she has been forced to give up all that life held dearest —give it up, toe», after years of striving and toil, just when fame peeped with alluring radiance on the horizon of her labours. Thus the ambitious girl is undoubtedly better unwed, for the risk of not finding a husband who will genuinely share her life work and interests is very great. Folk may call her selfish, but a knowing and sympathising heart will understand all that it means to a woman, who must crush and trample out the love that illumined her life, or else bury out of sight of the the talent or tilent with wbAeh a beautiful Nature endowed her above her sisters. '' " *— ' — — mmm. a—— — -aa— way— —a— mfm