my friends more than one man who is
large-souled enough to tenderly love and respect his wife's mother,
and several women who frankly acknowledge that their own special
mothers-in-law are all goodness and kindness.

It is natural that people brought up differently, and living
separately for a long term of years, should, when thrown into close
relationship, differ on many subjects, and clash in various opinions,
and that occasional misunderstandings should arise. Even with husband
and wife this is true. But if man and woman can, for the affection
they bear each other, forgive and forget these little differences, why
may not each, for the same sweet love's sake, and in the thought of
what maternal devotion is, pardon and overlook the foibles of the
other's mother?

One evil effect of pasquinade and sneer is to put the prospective
daughter-in-law on the defensive, and prepare her mind, unconsciously
to herself, to regard her future husband's mother as her natural
enemy. Many a girl marries with the preconceived notion that, to
preserve her individual rights, and to rule in her own small
household, she must carefully guard against the machinations of the
much-decried mother-in-law. Nine times out of ten, had not this
thought become slowly but securely rooted in past years, the
intercourse between the two women might be all peace and harmony. The
young wife's mind is, insensibly to her, poisoned before she enters
the dreaded relation (in law). She is on the alert, defensive, ready
to impute motives to the mother-in-law she would never dream of
attributing to her own parent, in like circumstances.

Yet, many a girl has never known what maternal love means until at her
marriage she was welcomed by the open arms and large heart of her
husband's mother. It is not only orphan girls who have this
experience, for some parents never bestow upon their children the
peculiar brooding tenderness which all young people need, even when
they have almost attained man's and woman's estate. Said one youthful
matron to me--"My own mother has been an invalid for so many years
that I have not felt that I could go to her with all my worries and
perplexities, for my annoyances only added to her troubles. Therefore,
never until I was married did I know what real "mothering" meant. Then
my husband's mother seemed as much mine as his. I was her "daughter."
When my first baby was coming, all the dainty little garments were
furnished by this grand