The thing for you to do is to recognize your husband's RIGHT to make and answer for his own mistakes. Then drop the whole thing from your mind and calculations.

Then treat your husband as you would any man who came to visit you. Make yourself as attractive and cultured and agreeable as possible, and look out for his comfort, but never get in his way nor question his doings. Stand square up on your own feet and be as fine a woman as you know how to be—as gracious a one. If he does love some other woman it may be but a temporary infatuation and if you are attractive and kind and sensible and independent enough he may return to his first love in his own good time.

If not, why, no matter. Just you get interested in life on your own account and let him do as he will. If he does care for another woman he deserves credit for not deserting you, as many a man would have done. Just respect and honor him for the good that is in him, instead of condemning him mentally because the good does not show just according to your ideas of how it should.

Love does not stay put, no matter how hard folks try to keep it put. All we can do is to be as lovable as possible and thus do our part to attract love.

It may be that you are simply a sentimental goose who imagines her husband is "influenced" away from her, because, forsooth, he does not pay her the attentions he used to.

I was once that kind of a goose myself, and it widened a breach that did not then exist except in my mind; widened it until at last it became a real breach—my husband went elsewhere for his companionship. I was too morbid and finicky and exacting for a healthy man.

Just as the husband of the woman in "Confessions of a Wife," in Century did. I read that serial each month and feel like shaking that little simpleton!—she is just the kind of a sentimental hair-splitting little idiot that I used to be! Instead of getting at her husband's point of view and enjoying with him, at least sometimes, she insists on acting the martyr because he will not dawdle around and gush at her feet.

Whatever is the cause of your trouble the only cure for it is Common-Sense. Live your own life, cheerily, happily, and enter into your husband's life so far as you can. Take all the good things that come your way and rejoice in them, but don't moon around and fuss because you can't have the sort of love-life described in some sentimental novel. Your business in life is to LOVE, not to be loved. The latter is a secondary matter and the first is the thing that brings happiness to you. Go in to win now, and you can develop within yourself the full Life that you really desire. All you desire is yours and you will realize it in due time. But every moment you set your thought on straightening out Some Other body's life you are delaying your own realization and happiness.



CHAPTER XII.

THE FAMILY JAR.

"If a man and woman love each other and are every way suited to marry should they yield to the opposition of his grown daughter?" M.A.

This question in varying forms comes to me often. It always stirs within me something I used to call "righteous indignation." And incidentally it makes me smile. Translate the question into Plain English and anybody can answer it without hesitancy. Put it this way: When two Individuals know what they want and the whole world approves, should they go away back and sit down because a third Individual tries to interfere with their inherent right to the pursuit of happiness?

Of course not. A man or woman old enough to have a grown daughter is old enough to know whether he wants to marry again. Not even the most precocious daughter is a better judge than her father as to what is best for his own happiness.

Ah, there's the rub! It is not his happiness she is concerned about. It is her own. A new marriage would interfere with the daughter's plans. She would have to give the chief place to the new wife. She would have to give up a share of the prospective inheritance she has more or less consciously been counting upon. So she opposes her father's re-marrying.

But apparently not on these grounds—dear, no! Her father is "too old," or "too weakly," or the intended wife is "not nice." The daughter conjures up a dozen excuses, but never the real one; of which she is not fully conscious herself,—and doesn't want to be.

The parent's "duty" to children is great; far greater than the child's duty to parent; but parental self-sacrifice should certainly not be continued for life. A grown daughter is an Individual, who should stand on her own feet and make her own happiness without curtailing the happiness of parents.

Let her leave her father to a renewal of youth and happiness; or let her gracefully and kindly accept her rightful second place and use her loving energies in helping to make bright the home.

A sensible, well trained, loving daughter will do one of these two things.

A sensible, well trained, loving parent will consider his daughter's feelings and will do all he can to gain her willingness before he marries; but he will not make a lasting sacrifice of his own and the other woman's happiness simply to please a selfish girl.

If daughter and parent are not sensible, well trained and loving, it will be a case of frying pan or fire either way.

The recognition of individual rights to the pursuit of happiness according to individual desire, is the only basis of happiness in family relations.

The daughter who helps her father do as he desires will find him ready to help her do as she desires. And vice versa.

The daughter who "opposes" her father's marriage is quite apt to be the daughter who has been opposed by her father; he reaps as he has sown. Or else she is the daughter who has been brought up with the idea that parents are a mere convenience for her use.

The way out of the Family Jar is often labyrinthine; but the Loving Individual can always thread it.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRUTH ABOUT DIVORCE.

In January Psychic and Occult Views and Reviews the editor, M.T.C. Wing, presents a view of "Wives and Work" which is anything but an occult view of the subject. He evidently still clings to the old notion that man was made for the family, and not the family for man. He inveighs against George D. Herron and Elbert Hubbard et al because they permitted themselves to be separated from their wives. Apparently he thinks the chief end of man is to tote some woman around on a chip, and the fact that in his callow youth man picked out (or was picked out by) the wrong woman, cuts no figure in the matter. Man must keep on toting her even if he has to give up his life work by which he has been enabled to supply the chip, not to mention the other things the woman demands.

All of which is the very superficial view of the world at large, and has no place among new thought, "occult" teachings. It is entirely too obvious—to the old-fashioned sentimentalist, who is blind to the real facts in cases of separation.

The sentimentalist gets just two views of the family, and draws his hasty conclusions therefrom. He sees first a happy family, a charming, clinging little simpleton of a wife, with half a dozen or so infants clinging to her skirts and bosom, and her round eyes lifted in adorable helplessness to the face of that great, strong lord and master, her husband. In his second view of the family he beholds this strong man turn his back upon this adoring family and walk deliberately forth to self-gratification, leaving them to perish from hunger and grief. Fired with these pretty and entirely fanciful pictures the superficial observer burns with indignation and calls down anathema upon the head of the deserter.

The fact is that no man ever deserts a family under such conditions. There is always a long period of disintegration before any family goes to pieces—a period of which both man and wife are well aware. When a separation comes it is really a relief to both parties. The only real pain in such cases comes from the spirit of revenge, or a desire on the part of one or the other to pose as injured innocence, that she or he may rake in the sympathy and fire the indignation of just such uninformed friends as M.T.C. Wing.

I have known a lot of people who separated—known them intimately and observed them well. In not one of these cases did the deserted party claim to love the deserter. In all there was a real relief when it was all over. In every case the one thing which had held them together so long was fear of disgrace. "Oh, what will people think of me?"—is the first cry of everybody—especially women. It was that which made the deserted one unhappy and resentful. It is that which makes many women pose as injured innocents and rate the deserter as a villain. And all the time in secret they are glad, glad that they are relieved of the burden of living with an uncongenial husband or wife.

Of course there are other reasons why women hate to be left by their husbands. One is that their support is apt to go with the deserter.

Public opinion keeps many a family in the same house years after it really knows it is separated widely as the poles.

The dread of having to take care of herself keeps many a woman hanging like grim death to a man she knows she does not love, and who despises her.

The fear of public opinion and the love, not of money, but of ease, holds together under one roof tens of thousands of families who have been occultly and really separated for years.

A man is held by the same sentimental notion that M.T.C. Wing has—that he must "protect" the woman. So he stays in hell to do it. He has to stay in hell until she gets out.

In almost every one of these separation cases it is the woman and not the man, who gives the signal. In George D. Herron's case the wife offered to take a certain sum of money and release him from supporting her. He met her conditions—and bore all the odium like a man. To her credit be it said she did not pose as an injured woman. I know nothing about Elbert Hubbard's case, but I venture to say that if he and his wife are separated that she was the one who did the leaving act.

We hear a lot about the "Biblical reason" for divorce; but I say unto you that infidelity is no reason at all for divorce. The one just cause for separation is incompatibility of temper.

A man is an Individual; a woman is another Individual; and neither can make himself or herself over to please the other.

When two people from lack of similar ideals and aims cannot pull together the quicker they pull apart the better it will be for them—and the children, too.

I know well a couple who lived together long enough to have grown children. For nearly a score of years they pulled like a pair of balky horses—what time they were not doing the monkey and parrot act. The husband stayed out nights and tippled. The wife sat at home and felt virtuous. Finally the woman worked up spunk enough to do what she had been dying to do for years. She packed up and left. Now she is happily married to a man she can pull with, And he is married to another woman who pulls with him. She has quit feeling virtuous and he has quit tippling. They are both prospering financially. The children have two pleasant homes, and more educational and other advantages than they ever dared hope for. Everyone of the family is glad of that separation.

The family is an institution of man's own making. It is a good and glorious thing so long as it serves to increase the happiness and health of its members. But whenever the family institution has to be maintained at the expense of the life, liberty or happiness of its members it is time to lay that particular institution on the shelf.

What God does not hold together by LOVE let not man try to paste together by law.

One great cause of the increase of divorces is the financial emancipation of woman. Women can now get out and take care of themselves, where a few years ago they had to grin and bear it; or bear it without grinning.

If the new thought means anything, Brother Wing, it means that every individual man or woman, has the RIGHT to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness wherever and with whom he chooses to seek it, so long as he or she does not attempt to abridge the same rights for others. It means that a woman is as much an Individual as a man, and must stand or fall, hold her husband or lose him, on her own merits. The new thought deals with Individuals regardless of sex.

Marriage is a partnership, subject in the eyes of Justice to the same rules which govern other partnerships. Let us be just to the deserter, be he man or woman, before we are sentimentally generous to the deserted.

And don't let us be too sure that we know all the facts in these separation cases. It is human nature to fix up outward appearances for the benefit of the passer-by.

Seek rather to understand. Condemn not.

Has any one told you it is lucky to be married?

I hasten to inform you it is just as lucky to be divorced, and I know it.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

This is the springtime, when fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and everybody wants to go a-soul-mating. Consequently my mail is leavened with letters from those who are unhappily married but who are sure they have got their eye on the One who from the foundation of the ion was intended for them. They all want to leave the old mis-mate and go to the new found soul mate, and they all want my advice and encouragement—to do it! Some of these writers have already left their husbands (?) and want to know whether or not they should go back, or go on. To one such I wrote the following letter, which I publish in the hope that it will help others to find and follow themselves. Here is the letter:

One thing at a time! Get off with the old love before you go fretting about a new one! Don't you think you are a silly girl to ask anybody's advice as to whether or not you are to go back to your so-called husband? If I know what you ought to do I don't see what you are worth to yourself or the universe. The truth is that YOU are the only person in creation who can make that decision. If you don't yet know that you have a right to make your own life as you see fit; if you don't yet know whether or not you could go back to him; then be still until you do know.

You know things today that you did not know yesterday, and tomorrow you will know things you "can't decide about" today. So attend strictly to business and keep still, and stiller yet, until you KNOW what is best to do.

Then DO it.

So much for the old love. As to the new one, not even you can know for certain whether that other man would pan out the soul mate you now imagine him. But the Law of Love, or Attraction, will prove whether or not he is what you think. Your Own will come to you, and all creation can't hinder it—IF you keep that man was NOT what I longed for, a real comrade; sweet and cool, and free in your own mind, and make the best of THIS day as it comes along.

Ages ago I had a similar experience to yours. I found the only and original one intended for me. But I was tied to another man—NOT by a ceremony, for that ties nobody, but by my own conscience, which compelled me to "stand by" the man I thought "needed" me. So I stood, though I thought my heart was broken. In a few years I found that my soul mate was no mate at all!—I wouldn't have had him as a gracious gift! I felt like Ben Franklin who, as a barefooted boy, resolved that when he grew up and had pennies he would buy a stick of red striped peppermint candy; but when he grew up and had the pennies he didn't want the candy.

I have learned to smile at that experience as the bitterest and sweetest of my past life, and the source of volumes of wisdom. The Law of Attraction knew and the Law kept him from me. I afterward found the real comrade, and more than the joy I thought I had forever missed!

"We are pretty silly children, dearie, without the child's best quality, TRUST."

Just you let go of everything and everybody and apply yourself to doing THIS hour, with love, what your hands find to do; and trust the Law to bring you in due time ALL the good things you ever desired.

ACCEPT what comes as from the Law; meet it kindly and do your best.

The time came when I left my husband and secured a divorce. This may be your time to leave, or it may not. But NO one can know but yourself, and you will know as soon as you really want to know what is RIGHT, and get quiet enough to find the decision about which you have no doubt. "BLESSED is he that doubteth not in that thing which he alloweth." "He that doubteth is damned already." When you are sure, then go ahead; and the whole universe, seen and unseen, will work together for you and with you.

What is it that ties you to one man and not to another? Not the words of a priest or a justice of the peace. It is your thought about the matter, and his thought about the matter, which ties you. You may not have thought you were tied until the preacher told you; but not his words but your acceptance does the real tying.

If you are ever freed from a husband you must think yourself free—just as you must think yourself free from any other bondage. I thought myself free several years before I applied for a legal separation; so that when I did apply it was to me merely a technicality.

Divorce or no divorce you are tied to a man until you think yourself untied.

Be still and find your mental freedom. Then you will know what to do.

* * * * *

A year after I wrote the above letter to a young woman who wanted to leave her husband and go to her "soul mate," I received from her another letter in which she thanked me from her heart for my letter, which, she said, had saved her from a terrible mistake. She had let time try the new love; who was found sadly wanting. More than that she had come to love and respect her husband as never before. Many others, both men and women, have written me to the same effect.

Can you learn from the experiences of others—learn caution at least? I hope so. Be sure you are right before you resort to separation.

In the meantime make it the aspiration and business of your life to know that ALL things are NOW working for good to you and your mate, and all you hold in common.

Keep sweet, dearie, and let them work—at least until you know exactly what to do, and how to do it; and can feel sure in your heart of hearts that, whatever the consequences, you will never regret your action.

THE END