[Dark Saint Alaick]

The world has never been partial to the thinking woman--the wise ones
have always foreseen danger. Long years ago, when women asked for an
education, the world cried out that it would never do. If women
learned to read it would distract them from the real business of life
which was to make home happy for some good man. If women learned to
read there seemed to be a possibility that some day some good man might
come home and find his wife reading, and the dinner not ready--and
nothing could be imagined more horrible than that! That seems to be
the haunting fear of mankind--that the advancement of women will
sometime, someway, someplace, interfere with some man's comfort. There
are many people who believe that the physical needs of her family are a
woman's only care; and that strict attention to her husband's wardrobe
and meals will insure a happy marriage. Hand-embroidered slippers
warmed and carefully set out have ever been highly recommended as a
potent charm to hold masculine affection. They forget that men and
children are not only food-eating and clothes-wearing animals--they are
human beings with other and even greater needs than food and raiment.

Any person who believes that the average man marries the woman of his
choice just because he wants a housekeeper and a cook, appraises
mankind lower than I do. Intelligence on the wife's part does not
destroy connubial bliss, neither does ignorance nor apathy ever make
for it. Ideas do not break up homes, but lack of ideas. The light and
airy silly fairy may get along beautifully in the days of courtship,
but she palls a bit in the steady wear and tear of married life.

There was a picture in one of the popular woman's papers sometime ago,
which taught a significant lesson. It was a breakfast scene. The
young wife, daintily frilled in pink, sat at her end of the table in
very apparent ill-humor--the young husband, quite unconscious of her,
read the morning paper with evident interest. Below the picture there
was a sharp criticism of the young man's neglect of his pretty wife and
her dainty gown. Personally I sympathize with the young man and
believe it would be a happier home if she were as interested in the
paper as he and were reading the other half of it instead of sitting
around feeling hurt.

But you see it is hard on the woman, just the same. All our
civilization has taught her that pink frills were the thing. When they
fail--she feels the bottom has dropped out of the world--he does not
love her any more and she will go back to mother! You see the woman
suffers every time.