ewife's neurosis one finds
previously existing trouble, though, as I have before this emphasized,
the neurosis may develop in the previously normal. This previously
existing trouble is the "nervous breakdown" in high school or in
college, or in the factory and the office, though it must be said it
occurs relatively less often in the latter places than the former. This
previous breakdown often appears as the direct result from emotional
strain such as an unhappy love affair, or the fear of failure in
examinations. It may have followed acute illness, like influenza or
pneumonia. But the original temperament was nervous, high-strung,
delicate; one learns of an appetite that disappeared easily, a sleep
readily disturbed, in short, an easily lowered or obstructed output of
energy.

This type of woman, neurotic from her very birth, is often the very best
product of our civilization from the standpoint of character and
ability, just as the male neurasthenic is often the backbone of progress
and advancement. But we are concerned with these questions: "What
happens to her in marriage?" "How about her fitness for marriage?"

As to the first question, we may say that all depends on whom and how
she marries. For after all a woman does not marry _matrimony_, she
marries a _man_, a home, and generally children. And if the neurotic
woman marries a devoted, kindly, conscientious man with wealth enough to
give her servants in the household and variety in her experiences, she
is as reasonably well off as could be expected. She is no worse off than
if she had remained single and continued to be a school teacher, social
worker, typist, factory hand the rest of her days,--and she has
fulfilled more of her desires and functions. But if she marries an
unsympathetic, impatient man or a poor one, or a combination, then the
first child brings a breakdown that persists, with now and then short
periods of betterment, for many years. Then we have the chronic invalid,
the despair of a household, the puzzle of the doctors. "Not really
sick," say the latter to the discouraged husband, seeking to adjust
himself to his wife, "only neurasthenic. All the organs are O.K." To
differentiate between a lowered energy and imaginary illness or laziness
is a hard task to which this husband is usually unequal. Though some
show of duty and kindness remains, love dies in such a household. And
the very effort to give sympathy where doubt exists as to the
genuinenes