The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-04-03
WORLD

i the table by some sleight of hand per-
| Torrance which il is no trouble for
! the woman to perform, and which she
! deserves no credit for doing
! For exactly the same reason that l,
as a woman. if | We're contemplating
! matrimony would search through the
4 length and the breadth OF the land for
a husband who was cooking school
graduate so if I were a man / would
I choose a wife who had some business
training in preference to one who had
lead nothing but a butterfly existence.
The reason that a business woman is
! a preferred risk in matrimony is too
obvious to need stating. For one thing
she would be more careful about
money. No woman who has ever
earned a dollar looks at it with the
same eyes as the woman does who has
had everything given to her. To the
one it means an added luxury, some
thing that comes easy and goes easy.
! To the other il represents toll and
WEAKNESS, sometimes the very price of
life itself. She knows how hard 1t is
to win, and how hard to keep, and all
the anxiety and humiliation that the
lack of it causes, and she spends it
prudently and judiciously.
Another thing that the man who
marries a business woman may count
on. is getting a sympathy in his work
that the other woman is incapable
through very ignorance of extending.
The average woman, deep down in her
soul, regards her husbands business
as a kind of picnic Her idea of hav-
ing thoroughly good time is going
down town, meeting a lot of other
women, and lunching at a restaurant,
and to save her life she can't help
feeling that this going down town of
her husbands is the same sort of hi
lariOus enjoyment. No woman who
has stood behind a counter all day,
or bent over a set of books, or taken
part in the grind of business-who
knows the anxiety and disappointment,
the nerve-w recklng strain of plans
that fail of fulflment, who has seen
the promising schemes that come to
naught-cherishes any illusion about
business being fun. She knows it
for the heart-wearing thing it is, and
this knowledge keeps her from In
flicting on her husband many of the
unconscious cruelties that women who
are ignorant of what men have to go
through practice upon their long suf-
fering spouses.
1t is this same knowledge that keeps
the woman, who knows life as a man
knows it, from burdening her already
over-burdened husband with the err
rands she can do herself, and 1t makes
her keep from him all the unpleasant
communications that he can be spared
She remembers that when she came
home at night with nerves fretted to
fiddle strings that She felt that just
one more calamity, however trivial,
would strain things to the breaking
point. You may be sure that such a
woman doesn't meet tired man at
the door with a glad announcement
that Jenny has swallowed a pin, and
the plumbing is leaking, and that the
steam heat won't heat, and that the
butchers bin is beyond reason, and
Aunt Maria is coming on a three
months visit. and that the housemaid
broke his pet meerschaum. Neither
does she expect a man. burdened with
Weighty affairs and whose time is
money to stop down town and rum
mage through a department store try
ing TO match spool of elephants
breath silk. All of these pleasing va
carries belong to women who do not
Intentionally make martyrs of their
husbands, but who do it through mere
ignorance. just as so many husbands
are absolutely brutal to their wives
about things they do not understand
and difficulties they do not appreciate.
A great deal of nonsense is talked
about men and women invading each
other spheres. In reality there is no
sphere in work. 1t is universal, and
there is no augury more hopeful for
the future than that women should be
taught the principles of business, and
that boys should be taught the rudi-
ments of domestic science. When that
rs done we have common plane of
mutual helpfulness and comprehension
on which the sexes can meet. Men
and women will not only understand
the trials and tribulations under
which each other labor, but will be
able to sympathize with them and re-
frain from adding to each others bur-
den. With personal knowledge, reform
will come and married life will be a
mutual sympathy and benefit company
that viii pay dividends in happiness.
Dorothy Dix.