“I have read the correspondence department of ‘My Queen’ with a great deal of interest, and have decided at last to ask you a question. Has a poor girl a right to take money from a man when it is offered in the kindest and most gentlemanly spirit? I am working at present for six dollars a week and of course it is very difficult for me to live in comfort and still dress neatly. The young man whom I am engaged to knows my condition perfectly and until we are married he insists upon helping me. I have been roundly censured for accepting his aid, and that is why I ask my question.
“Carrie L.”
We are very glad indeed to answer this question. The man who professes to love a girl and then sits calmly by and watches her struggle without so much as an offer of timely assistance is in our opinion a “mental monstrosity.” Any lover with a heart in his breast will help the girl he loves, and the greater her necessities the greater will be his assistance. A self-respecting girl does not like to take financial aid, but she would be foolish to refuse it if it meant bread and butter. We are all “creatures of circumstance” and environment in great measure. Good positions are not to be had for the asking, nor is genuine worth and talent always rewarded. A true man always longs to protect the woman he loves, and no such man will ever be dissuaded from bestowing needed assistance because of the sickly twaddle of narrow-minded people. Of course, the indiscriminate practice of taking money from men is quite another matter, as some men are only too glad to place a girl under obligations to them. A good girl can usually determine the motive of the giver, and we would advise her to be very careful in accepting such assistance.
“I have been engaged to a young man for a year, and I now discover that he has an invalid mother that he expects me to take care of as soon as we are married. I am very fond of my lover, but I am not very strong. Do you think it is my duty to marry him and make a slave of myself for the sake of his mother?
“Lizzie C.”
No, we do not think it your duty, Lizzie. The man who loves you truly will never allow you to be a slave either to his mother or any one else. If his mother is an invalid, let him hire a nurse for her. A woman has quite enough to do to care for herself and her husband without looking out for any of his or her relatives. Too many homes have been spoiled already by these methods.
Talk to your lover kindly but decidedly, and let him understand your feelings exactly. If he says you do not love him you may depend upon it he is selfish. Ask him if he would be willing to do the same if the invalid was your mother. The average man does not seem to understand that it is quite enough for one woman to be a wife and keep her own little home in “apple-pie” order. You must educate him, but you will have to accomplish this with tact, else he will never admit it.