e seldom considers him as being the aggressive one of the
two. The mother of the girl feels the same way, and, in the lower
circles, there is occasionally an illuminating time when the two
mothers meet.

Each is made aware how the other's offspring has given the entrapped
one no peace, and how the affair has been the scandal of two separate
neighbourhoods, more eligible partners having been lost by both sides.

In the Declaration of Independence there is no classification of the
rights of the married, but the clause regarding "life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness" has been held pointedly to refer to the
matrimonial state. If the mother would accord to her daughter-in-law
the same rights she claimed at the outset of her own married life, the
relation would be perceptibly smoother in many instances.

When a woman marries, she has a right to expect the love of her
husband, material support, a home of her own, even though it be only
two tiny rooms, and absolute freedom from outside interference. It is
her life, and she must live it in her own way, and a girl of spirit
_will_ live it in her own way, without taking heed of the
consequences, if she is pushed too far.

On the other hand, the mother who bore him still has proprietary
rights. She may reasonably claim a share of his society, a part of his
earnings, if she needs financial assistance, and his interest in all
that nearly concerns her. If she expects to be at the head of his
house, with the wife as a sort of a boarder, she need not be surprised
if there is trouble.

Marriage brings to a girl certain freedom, but it gives her no
superiority to her husband's family. A chain is as strong as its
weakest link, and the members of a family do not rise above the
general level. Every one of them is as good as the man she has
married, and she is not above any of them, unless her own personality
commands a higher position.

She treasonably violates the confidence placed in her if she makes
a discreditable use of any information coming to her through her
association with her husband's family. There are skeletons in every
closet, and she may not tell even her own mother of what she has seen
in the other house. A single word breathed against her husband's
family to an outsider stamps her as a traitor, who deserves a
traitor's punishment.

The girl who tells her most intimate friend that the mother of her
fiance "is an old cat," by that act has lowered herself far be