Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-11-03
HEAD OF THE
HOUSE" MANIA
Dorothy Dix Advises Wives to
Let Husbands Harbor
Delusion
BY Dorothy Dix

There is one supreme desire COM
mon to practically all men. 1t is to be |
the Head of his House.
This yearning to be the czar of the !
hearthstone Is mania that causes
men to commit countless follies, and it |
offers the true explanation of why so |
many of them pick out feminine fools
for wives.
A man sees clear-eyed, educated, |
sensible, practical woman who knows |
as much as he does, and is really fitted |
to be companion and helpmeet to |
him, but he does not ask her to be his |
wife because he is afraid that she |
would usurp the domestic throne.
Then he meets up with a little SIM
pering idiot of a girl without an idea
in her head, who looks as if she would
be wax in his hands, and he straight
way marries her because he believes
that she will never dispute his right
to reign supreme IN the household.
of course things don't always work
out according to this schedule In
deed. they seldom do, for reasonable
woman can always be reasoned with,
but fool can never be turned from
her folly, and there are no other such
grinding domestic tyrannies as those
established by weak, brainless wives
1t is, however, to mems fear that
the clever woman will oust them from
| their jobs as heads of their houses that
the smart girl so often owes the fact
| that she is a spinster.
Now, having obtained a husband, a
woman's chief business in life is to
keep him happy and pacified. and con.
| tent with his lot. In doing this moth
ing is more important than for her to
recognize this masculine fetch of be-
ing it in the home, and her failure to
do so, is potent source of domestic
discord
Let it never be forgotten that the
United States is the only country in
the world where the wife rules the
roost-and that the United States leads
the world in the number of divorces.
The correspondent who breaks up many
home is the wife wearing the trous-
erS.
The broad assumption that woman
is the weaker vessel and that the hus-
band is the more fitted by nature and
training to be the head of the house
and the arbiter of the family destiny is
lovely theory, but it does not always
hold water. Neither does the conten-
tlon that a woman should not marry
man whom she is not willing to
obey and to whom she does not look I'D. |
Many man is eminently lovable, |
and livable, and marriageable, who is
not qualified for the family pilot, and
is not fitted to steer the domestic bark
through single whirlpool. Neverthe-
less 1t is foolish wife who ostenta-
t1ously takes charge of the wheel and |
announces that she is running things. |
Since man loves to believe that he |
is the head of the house, it is a wise |
ure possible from it. Moreover, the re-
wards are great, for the average man
having had his authority recognized-
his technical right to decide domestic |
questions conceded-doesn't really care
a button what his wife does.
wife's place to foster the harmless H. !
lusion and let him derive all the pleas |
1t is the principle that he stands out |
for, and when you hear a man an
nounce that he is the master of his |
own house and that his wife never |
does anything without asking his per-
mission, you may be sure not only that |
he is happily married, but that his |
wife is working him to the queens |
taste. For in these days of emanci- |
pated women husband is so grateful |
to wife who acknowledges his au-
thority that she may do with him as
she will.
Yet in spite of this, the land is
crowded with women who not only
boss their husbands, but have no shame |
In making the poor creatures jump |
through the hoop in public to make a |
holiday for derisive onlookers.
is there any woman who has estab-
lished this kind of censorship over her
husband vain enough to believe that
he still loves her, or that he sticks to
her for any other reason than because
he lacks the courage to run away? If
there is she deludes herself.
The man who is subject to petticoat
government despises himself, and he
doubly and trebly hates and loathes
the feminine tyrant before whom he
trembles
1t is the part of good wife to helm
her husband save his face" as our di-
plomatic Chinese friends say, and to
foster by her outward Difference his
faith that he is boss. 1t pleases him
and it doesn't hurt her.
More than that, good taste demands
it, for there are few more unattractive
sights than that of the strenuous hen
proclaiming that she is the cock of
the walk. The husband has the right |
ofsthe one who pays the freight to at
least figure as the nominal head of
the family, and it is poor woman who
begrudges him this empty honor.