The Passing Scene Marriage a la Mode

1 The Passing SceneMarriage a la ModeJOANi. WRITE as one incurably addictedto the women's "service" magazines:Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, GoodHousekeeping. As such, I have longbeen schooled in certain tenets ofcontemporary life which may wellhave passed you ) Women's magEizines admit twokinds of women: Homemakers andHousewives. "Returning from PTAthe other night," cooed a JournalHomemaker not long ago, "I suddenlyrealized that, in a way, our houseis a lighthouse and I am still thekeeper's sweetheart .. Our livesare blessed with such freshening vari-ety!" "Freshening variety,'" snarleda Journal Housewife a few issueslater. "Spare us the mockery of that!Drag out of bed at 6:30 , preparebreakfast, pack lunches, wash eggydishes, make beds, wash clothes, ironclothes, scrub the floors, and thenever-ending battle with dust, dust,dust!

2 "But whether 2) Homemakers orHousewives, women carry on theworld's work. That work 2, A) isnever money 3) never bringshappiness, electrical appliances oftendo. "Stop being a patsy," one MaryHaworth reader advises another."Any family that can afford to eatcan afford a dishwasher." Women4) are frigid. To a recent letter froma lady who claimed not to be, theJournal affixed the title "The OtherSide of the Coin."Men 5) are almost as amusing aschildren, besides being a help aroundthe house, at least when they aren'tout Gambling, Letching at OfficeParties, or Taking Themselves any case 6), men can be handling, this marital know-how, is the basis of all women'smagazine Marriage counseling. Thesedays, since McCall's has gone allout on Dali illustrations and articlescalled "I am A Geisha," and GoodHousekeeping has missed the boataltogether (covers bearing photo-graphs of small girls in raincoats andthe words "Plastics Bring A NewDIDIONWay of Life" do not, I think, compelEiny but the hopelessly hooked, likeme), the Journal is more or lesssingle-handedly bearing the torch ofmarriage counseling.

3 The Journal hasGoodrich C. Schauffler, and"Tell me Doctor" (Intimate Prob-lems). The Journal has Clifford , and "Making MarriageWork." (The fact that I am unmarriedhas never deterred me from taking and, with relentless regularity, fsdl-ing the Journal's monthly "MakingMarriage Work" test.)A ND, above all, the Journal hasPaul Popenoe, and "Can ThisMarriage Be Saved?" Dr. Popenoe,a not-quite-professional man whopresides over the American Instituteof Family Relations out on SunsetBoulevard, has now collected withthe assistance of Dorothy CameronDisney, a Journal lady twenty ofhis Journal case histories in a singlememorable volume: Can. This Mar-riage Be Saved? (Macmillan, $ ).Out there on the Strip, the specialityde L'Institut is a rare, heady, en-chanting blend of penetrating in-sights (when "a husband tells hiswife that he no longer loves her andis desperately in love with someother woman," counsels Dr.)

4 Should "recognize that such adeclaration is frequently based onemotion rather than reason"), con-sidered warnings ("At the Institutewe are not enthusiastic about officeparties") and reliance upon real trick, be not deceived,is this savoir-faire. Good Manage-ment. Handling. Consider AndreaWeymer, whose husband, Dick, wasabout to leave her for The OtherWoman. Through counseling, Andreaacquired the know-how to flght forher man, a cool battle which involvedher losing eight pounds, learning"to choose smarter clothes in morebecoming colors," and, I swear toGod, joining the League of WomenVoters. "A couple of months afterjoining the League, Andrea surprisedher family by besting Dick in a din-ner-table argument. She convincedhim it was his civic duty to registerand go to the polls.

5 "Consider Elise Manning, who facedthe same problem. After a chat withDr. Popenoe, Elise "found time forswimming, hiking, and tennis, andinsisted that he [her erring mate]make time to enjoy these recreationswith his family .. She then beganto spend more on herself and thechildren and gave him the satisfactionof feeling like an extra-good provider.. Elise is sure there is no dangerof his ever becoming interested inanother woman. She and the childrenoccupy too much of his time." (And,although Dr. Popenoe leaves thepoint implicit, his money.) Althoughyou and I might think, a priori, thatElise has one or two surprises aheadof her yet. Dr. Popenoe thinks , consider Jill Lester, whocomplained: "Bob is two inchesshorter than me, and the two of uslook simply ridiculous together.

6 Howcan a wife be proud of a husbandshorter than she is? .. I don't caretoo much about sex. In my opinionsex is is messy. Mamma thinks thesame. And you should hear Alice[a sister] and my three aunties onthe subject." Watch the subtlety withwhich the Institute tackled Jill'sproblem: "We did not argue withJill. We did talk to her in a casualway about the possible disadvantageof her future without Bob." ( means M-O-N-E-Y.) "Butshe stUl could not endure the factthat Bob was two inches shorterthan she was .. This difficulty wassolved in a very simple way. Bobbought a pair of the so-called 'ele-vator' shoes and, so far as ordinaryobservers were concerned, became astall as Jill."Dr. Popenoe, however, puts mostof his faith in Talking Things it has been my bad luckand/or bad management never tohave met a man with whom thingsmight be Talked Out, I accept 's word that it remains themost reasonable of tactics.

7 "A cleverwife," says he (the crucial adjectivehere, I suppose, is "clever"), "canoften get action by approaching theproblem of her mother-in-law in-directly. Picking a quiet time, shecan say to her husband, 'I have beenwondering if you feel I am dominatedtoo much, in some ways, by my90 NATIONAL REVIEW mother? Tell me frankly, and youand I together can work out a solu-tion."'Although I can scarce believe thatthis gambit would elicit any responseother than a very fishy eye, claims otherwise. "Maybehe will reply with astonishment, 'Inever dreamed of such a thing!' May-be his reply will contain some sharpcriticisms. In either event he willprobably follow his comments with'Do you think I am paying too muchattention to my own mother?

8 ' Thenthe two can talk the matter out."Talking Things Out need not stop,according to the Institute, when noimmediate Mummy problems are athand. "In some families," coimselsDr. Popenoe, "It is worthwhile tohold a monthly fact-finding sessionto clear the air. These couples setaside the 'mensiversary' (not anni-versary) of their wedding for thepurpose. On the evening of thetwenty-third of each month, say,they go out to dinner and after apleasant meal in a quiet place theybring forth the topics they want todiscuss. They keep a list during themonth, probably eliminating a fewitems every time they add new the dinner table, calmly andcooperatively (it is to be hoped),they talk out and agree on how tosettle the various unsettled mattersin their minds.

9 "Calmly and cooperatively (it is tobe hoped), noli me tangere. IN BRIEFTHE GOOD YEARS, by Walter Lord(Harper, $ ). Walter Lord is themaster of the chronologically ir-relevant that has spawned so manybooks in the last few years andthat reached an amusing cinti-climax in Corey Ford's account ofa day when nothing happened. Ithink John Dos Passos, from ahigher literary level, may havestarted it all with his newsreeltechnique in But in anycase the formula is a simple one:copy all the odd details from thenewspaper files of the period andrewrite with-a-punch, tape-recordabout a thousand survivors, coverthe ground on foot or at least bycar (if possible), and trust to luckthat novelties may turn up. has turned up quite a fewthings, including the notes left bythe dying McKinley's physicianand the caterer's instructions forMrs.

10 Astor's Ball. His Good Yearsare those from 1900 to the out-break of World War I. He haschapters on the Boxer rebellion,McKinley's assassination, Teddyand the big stick, the San Francis-co earthquake, Big Bill Haywood'strial for the dynamite murder ofGovernor Steunenberg, the 1907panic, Peary's dash to the pole, thesuffragettes, the rise of Wilson,child labor, and finally the LastSummer. This assiduous compila-tion is entertaining if not exactlynovel. It gives one somewhat theeffect of looking through an oldpicture album, with nostalgia andat times a slight uneasiness at thetwo-dimensional efEect. The factsare all there, however, burnishedin modern frames, and one canscarcely quarrel with RUSSELLJUMBOS AND JACKASSES, by EdwinPalmer Hoyt Jr.