The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-08-04
Filtration, by Married
Women
BY DOROTHY DIX.
!. POOR, bewildered. DISCUS

A POOR. bewildered, disgusted
L y married man asks me this
question: Why do middle aged
married women firt?'
The answer is, because they are
fools.
Nobody with a grain Of sense in
her head would risk so much for
so little as the married woman does
when she engages in ? firtatiop.
On the one side are the love and
trust Of her husband, the respect
OF the community. home. children,
social position, an assured income.
On the other. the pleasure OF hav-
ing her vanity tickled by tn.
thought that she can still attract
the attention OF men; with the price
OF divorce and the loss OF every.
thing worth having for a woman.
There is no other such oue-sidcd
game in the world. and the marvel
or 1t is that any human being. out
side of the home for the feeble.
minded. could be found reckless
enough and silv enough TO engage
In IL. Yet there are thousands of
women who stake their happiness
on this desperate venture.
IL is incredible, but il is true.
that there are women who have
all the goods the gods provide;
who have kind and generous hus-
bands. luxurious homes, beautiful
clothes. lovely children; who are
not satisfied with all of these bles-
sings-but are never happy unless
they think they have secured the
admiration Of every man in sight.
such women carry on clandestine
acquaintancee with men their hus-
bands do not know; they write fool.
ish, sentimental letters that COM
promise them; they run after celeb
rites, and they form the following
and make the fortunes of all sorts
of false prophets and exploiters Of
new cults.
Without them the fashionable
preacher could not go to Europe
for six months in the year nor the
fashionable doctors roll around IN
limousines. Nor is there any ex-
tent to which they will not 90 in
their mad desire to attract the at
tention of men.
II there is nobody else about,
they will make eyes at the disrep-
utable old FOUNDERS that hang about
cafes and roadhouses. or the very
walters who serve them.
Age, that should bring intelll.
geDce and discretion, seems to
bring to these women ONLY an ad
ditional reeklessness and folly, so
that they are less careful of their
conduct than the hightiest girl
would be. Yet they know, il they
would only stop to think. that the
faults that the world excuses in
youth it does not excuse in sober
maturity.
II is curious fact that the most
susceptible time OF a woman g life
is not when she is sweet and
twenty, but when she is fat and
forty, and old enough TO know
better. But she doesn T..
A young glrl may suspicion
man IS motives and assay his com
pliments TO see how much OF
veracity is in them, and weigh his
vows of devotion as ascertain
how heavy they are with real feel
lngs, but the middle-aged woman s
vanity Is so hungry and so vo-
raclous that she swallows whole
every honeyed speech man
makes her.
Possibly this explains the mid
aged married woman who still
tries to flirt. hut it does not ex-
cuse her. Nothing excuses her
except the assumption that she
has not enough gray matter in her
head to comprehend tho danger
she runs and the harm she does,
and the certainty tkal she has not
enough sense Of humor to perceive
the figure of fun she makes of her.
self.
For there is nothing under the
sun more grotesque than is the
spectacle OF the middle-aped
mother Of family apinc the airs
and gTaces Of debutante. 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 fasciuators be-
cause they are surrounded bv
horde of sycophantic men. who
natter them for the sake of eating
the dinners and riding in the cars
and sitting in the opera boxes and
spending week-ends at the country
places that the women = husbands
pay for.