The Pittsburgh Press (March 10, 1942)
CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
18-year-old bride has her ‘say’
By Maxine Garrison
At the time of 18-year-old Gloria Vanderbilt’s marriage to 32-year-old Pat DiCicco, she was asked by reporters if she was excited.
The blushing bride said:
A first marriage is always exciting.
Really, now, isn’t that a bit thick?
Quaintly old-fashioned and set in my ways as I am, I nevertheless realize that the world does move. That manners change. That the younger generation invariably pulls a few new tricks to shock its elders. That the attitude toward marriage and divorce has radically altered. That sophistication comes young these days.
Still and all, isn’t it a trifle mad-hatterish, even today, for an 18-year-old bride to remark that a first marriage is always exciting?
Put that way, it strongly implies not only that second, third and later marriages will not be so exciting, but also that the first marriage is not likely to be the last.
Admitted hazard
It has always been an admitted hazard of easy divorce that any couple about to be married can say:
Well, if it doesn’t work out, we can always get a divorce.
Such an attitude is likely to keep them from working hard enough at the job of getting along with each other.
Before divorce became a commonplace, a bickering husband and wife did their best to keep peace in the family, to allow room for each other’s faults. They had to stay together, so they either made allowances or consigned themselves to utter misery.
Today’s husbands and wives aren’t a whit more faulty than their predecessors. But now they take their troubles to the divorce court, thinking to end them with finality, rather than learn the invaluable lesson of compromise.
The results of the new policy in such matters have been less happy than its perpetrators expected. They have found no perfect mates, yet still refuse to admit the need for compromise, still expect the next one to be perfect, and seem perfectly willing if need be to keep right on getting married until doomsday.
No illusions about it
Now we’ve reached the point of sophistication at which our sweet little teenage brides say coyly that a first marriage is always exciting.
Not for a minute do they have any illusions about marriage being important and lasting. They want a chic first marriage while they make plans for later ones, it seems. They’ve watched mama and papa go through a succession of marriages, so that it all probably seems quite natural. It isn’t very flattering to the first husband, of course, but then he’s probably not bowled over with the importance of marriage either.
There were many regrettable traits and woeful gaps in the training of girls 100 or even 50 years ago. But sometimes the thought of their genuine youngness, their faith and their dewy-eyed attitude toward life is mighty refreshing.
