El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-07-04
The FIirtatious Married Woman
By DOROTHY DIX.

aged married woman who still tries to
flirt, but il does not excuse her. Moth
ing excuses her except the assumption
that she has not enough gray matter
in her head TO comprehend the danger
she runs and the harm she does, and
the certainty that she has not enough
sense Of humOr TO perceive the figure
of fun she makes of herself.
For there is nothing under the sun
more grOtesque than the spectacle OF
the middle-aged mother OF a family
aping the airs and graces Of a debu-
tante, and trying to act kittenish and
cute when her antics are only those OF
a performing elephant. Yet how often
do we see this done, and how many
women do we know and laugh at, who
believe themselves to be fascinators
because they are surrounded by a
horde Of sycOphantic men who fIatter
them for the sake Of eating the din
ners and riding in the cars, and sit
ting in the opera boxes and spending
week-ends at the country places that
the women's husbands pay for.
Be sure that if any of these flirta-
lions middle-aged married women
could hear what their admirers say of
them behind their fat backs they
would be instantly and forever cured
Of the belief that they were second
edition Cleopatras, with weather and
age proof charms.
selves good women and pillars of So
city because they hold to the letter of
the moral law and only transgress the
spirit. But they judge themselves TOO
leniently. The wife who seeks the
admiration Of other men than her hus-
band. and who lures them on, as we'll
as she is able, into making love
speeches 10 her, is false at heart and
untrue to her marriage vows She
has no reason to draw her skirts away
from her sisters of the street. Indeed
they may he better women than she is,
for she. at least has not known their
temptation.
Her IniqCitOus Offence.
It is one thing for a woman to be
driven into wrOng-doing by hunger,
and cold. and want or some deadly
injury that has been practiced upon
her It is another thing for her to
deliberately daily with sin, the finery
her husband has given her on her back,
within the shelter of her home, and
with the tenderness and love of a
good man protecting her.
Yet that is what a flirtatious mar
ried woman does and it makes her
offence a particularly Ubiquitous one.
1t is hard on a woman to be married
to a man who flirts but it is doubly
hard on a man to have flirtatious
wife, because society pities and puts
halo about the head of the wife who
forgives her husbands amours; 1t
sneers at the man and calls him an
ugly name if he shuts his eyes to his
wife's faults in this particular.
For this reason, and because when
a woman marries a man and he gives
her his name she is more bound in
honor to keep it clean than if it were
her own, no married woman with any
sense Of decency has a right to en-
gage in a Irritation. Men friends she
may have. Charming she may be to
them in her truth and loyalty and
devotion to her family. but for her the
days of love dalliance are over. No
man may make love to her without
insult. She may not listen to it with
out degradation.
1.-THE supreme idiocy of risking
everything in the world worth while
for the sake of a handful of lying
compliments.
Delicious peach ice cream dinner
dessert. Elite Confectionery.