The Washington herald., 1911-06-13
SUCCESSFUL WIFE IS
NOT ABJECT SLAVE
She Is Her Husbands Side
Partner,
WHO INSPIRES HIS COURAGE
Keeps a Comfortable Home for Him,
Is Thrifty, Industrious, sympa-
thetic, and Loving, Encouraging
the Best that Is In Him to Come
Always to the Front.
BY DOROTHY DIX.

"nat Is 6 successful wife?
A successful politician is one who Is
elected 70 office A successful fnancier
Is man who makes money. A success
full actor or author is cne who gets the
glad hand from the public By the same
token a successful wife is one who is
popular with her husband, whom ne
loves and adnires and enjoys more and
more as the years go by, and who looks
better to him when she is fat-and-forty
than she did when she was sweet-and-
twenty.
At any rate, this is the ideal Of wife
hood toward which all married women
aspire, and toward which they strain
with every nerve end sinew taut Few,
however, reach the goal. and why they
fail is the great unsolved problem OF the
feminine sex
This makes peculiar interest Of two
recent utterances on this subject. One is
by Nine. Maeterlinck, who, in a mag
Rzine article, has told How Became a
Successful Wife,
Nine. MaeterIinck's recipe calls for
superhuman self-abnegation on the part
of a wife On her own showing, the way
she succeeded was by feeding her hus-
band on the choicest tidbits, fattering
him out of reason, waiting on him like
z slave, hand and foot, never speaking
to him unless he gave indications that
he would condescend to hear her, and
then by only saying things that expert
ence had taught her would be pleasing
for him to hear.
In a word, Nine. Maeterlinck considers
that she became a successful wife.
Making n Doormat of Herself.
But, with all due regard to Nine.
Maeterlinck, even II a woman is willing
to make a doormat of herself before a
man, and 1atter and wheedle and cajole
him at every turn, is 1t the part Of good
wife to 10 these things? Is she doing
him a kindness or as deadly a wrong
as malice can invent7
She is cultivating in him petty tyranny
and egregious vanity, and filing him
with a contempt for her that must in
evitably blight his affection; for We can
not really love a person whom we do
not also respect.
Certainly the woman who encourages
her husband in selfishness toward her
by never making a demand upon him,
who lets nim swear at ner and abuse her
if he feels like IT, makes of the home
a hothouse to force all the weaknesses
of his character, and she who condones
drunkenness and immortality in her hus-
band does nothing TO reform him. She
actually encourages him in his vices.
Such a wife may possibly get along
with her husband without friction, but
ii is a low standard of domestic morality
TO which she subscribes.
According to my idea. a successful
wife is a woman who not only makes her
husband happy, but who helps him to
make the very best of himself and of
life. She isn't sugar and water She is
a strong tonic that puts iron in her hus-
bands blood and makes him able to do
the work of three. She doesn't get along
with her husband by plying him with
lying batteries. She helps him to act
the part Of reasonable man, not a vain
simpleton.
Must Not Be a MINIS slave.
She isn't her husbands slave. She is
his side partner. She never nags, but
she is not afraid to tell him the truth
even when the truth hurts.
The successful wife must know how
TO keep a comfortable home. She must
be thrifty and industrious. She must be
sympathetic and loving. She must make
her husband a better, a happier, and a
more useful man than he would have
been without her, or else she is not o
successful wife
Among recent instances Of successful
wives, no better Illustration can be found
than that of the wife of President Diaz
She married a man with great ability,
who was of lowly and half-savage anoes-
try, and she is said to have not only
taught him the very rudfments of civil
lied society, but always to have softened
his judgments and been the une influence
for mercy and kindness in mis- life She
vas a successful wife because Ehe made
the best Of her husband, instead of fost-
erinR the worst in him