The Family Structure.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 19, 6 November 1912, Page 54

The Family Structure.

In an article contributed recently to an American magazine. Mr. Theodore ■Roosevelt made strong plea for the conservation of the home. That plea was backed :by the unalterable truth that ■woman makes the home whatever it is. .During the first few months of married life is determined generally the attitude of husband and wife. It is the impressionable stage—the wife ready to listen, to learn, and to. understand; the man joyful in liis possession, willing and eager to discuss his dearest hopes, his plans, and (his ambitions. Those first few months .are the crucial stage for the average couple. The writer remembers hearing once a woman bemoaning her fate, and wringing her hands, because marriage for her had proved disastrous. “I was the best housekeeper that could be found,” said she, “but it was quite natural that I didn't like my husband ■walking into the house with his muddy boots.” The poor man was made to change them in the laundry before he was allowed to cross the threshold of that too perfect home. Home-making ■there came to grief on the shoal of muddy boots and too excellent housekeeping. The world is full of suifli women. When a man is working in the city all day, or in the fields, maybe, home at sundown is heaven, or should lie. It is .the holy <*f holies, into which can be taken not only muddy boots but the little vexations ef the day, the trials, the joys, ami the successes jvhich have come the iwny of the bread winner. That is his right, to be able to bring (them home is to be understood. ■ Men need encouragement. Every Woman knows (lint. As David Graham Phillips once said, “A man is as often in need of coddling aS the l-ab.v of the house.” A wife during the eour’e of her married Lie ia called upon to play many parts.

In turn she is sweetheart, counsellor wife, mother, housekeeper, and servant’ To be all these things, and be them ■well, is one of the privileges of her sex but the greater the actress, the more solid the family structure remains.