Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-06-28
By DOROTHY DIX.

TTAVE you ever considered the
II modern girl and how she diff
fers from the matdens of the
past? She's a new species of the
feminine sex, and no more like her
grandmother or even her mother.
than if she had been waited down
from the planet Mars instead of hav-
ing just strOlled out Of the nursery.
We haven't taken much account of
her, but you've got to reckon with
her in the future, and it's time we
sat up and took notice. Consider
these little stories as illustrations Of
the young person and her pAnt of
view The'first is on divorce.
The otber day I overheard two
young girls talking
Said one: When a girl marries,
she should be very, very careful IN
choosing her husband, and after she
is married she should do the best she
can to make a good wife and a happy
home, but If she finds out that she
has made mistake, and is miserable,
thank Heaven, she doesn't have to
stand it. She can always get a d.
vorce"
Said the other girl: "Oh, Of course.
that's the only thing to do under
such circumstances 1t won't be my
fault if my marriage turns out badly,
because I'm going to do everything |
can, and bring every particle of in
telligence I've got to making it 4
success, but none of that suffer-and-
be-strOng business in minei If my
husband isn't what he should be, or
treats me badly, or | find I've made
an error of judgment, I'm going to
correct it just as | would any other
mistake.
I'm not going to stick to it as peo-
pie used to do in the Dark Ages.
Aren't you thankful that you live in
these enlightened days, instead of in
our grandparents and our parents
time, when people thought that no
matter how miserable you were in
your marriage, or how much you
hated the person you were married to,
you had to endure it?"
An Unusual Remark.
The first girl smiled indmgently
They We're bound in the swaddling
clothes of superstition, all right" she
said
I gasped with surprise. These girls
belong to old, conservative, rather
narrow minded families, and they
themselves are sweet, modest, inteli-
gent, well educated young women
who haven't the faintest idea of being
revolutionary, or anything of that
sort. What they said simply voiced
the viewpoint of the new generation.
They didn't argue about the ethics
of divorce at all. They simply &C
cepted divorce as fact, modern
convenience, something that tended
to make life pleasanter, just as they
did in elevators in apartment build
ings, or electric lights, or running hot
and cold water in bath rooms.
If you had made a mistake in mar
riage and your life was being ruined
by it, you corrected it and took a
fresh start, just as you would do if
you found out that you had engaged
in a business that was bankrupting
you. They could see no more reason
for going on with a marriage that
meant daily misery than there would
be in going on with an enterprise in
which you lost money every day.
You can't argue the divorce question
with the modern young girl, because
she simply doesn't recognize the an
cient view of the matter, that there
is anything noble, or pious, or vir-
tuous in living with an individual
that brings out all the worst that is
in you, or in keeping together a fam