Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-10-12
WOMEN OR MEN
MORE HONORABLE?
Are They Long on Greater
Virtues and Short on
Lesser Ones?
BY Dorothy Dix


The assertion is often made that
women are more moral and less hon
orable than men-m Gaming thereby
that women are long on the greater
virtues and short on the lesser ones.
Chastity, for instance. is a virtue
Oh which women appear to have al
most monopoly. Women are also
far more punctilious about paying
their debts than men are, and that
they are more honest in the hand
ling of money is evidenced by the
continually increasing number of
girls behind the wickets of the CASH
iers' desks.
On the other hand, women are born
smugglers, and count 1t unto them
selves for righteousness when they
can cheat the government out of the
price of postage stamp. The ma
jority of them see nothing reprehen-
sible in bribery to aid good cause.
The most angel-faced maiden can
tell perfect whopper OF. fib with
out batting an eye. Few women
have any sense of the sacredness of
their pledged word, and mothers in
Israel, whose virtue is as incorrup-
tible as the Ten Commandments, have
no hesitation in using the arts and
wiles of Delilah to get what they
want from men.
Men profess to find this curious,
explicable, but it really isn't hard to
understand at all. It's the direct re-
suit of women having been a subject
people for centuries and centuries un-
til they have developed the vices and
the virtues, and the point of view of
the slave.
The Reason For It
Until this present generation of
self-supporting business women, ev-
cry woman has been dependent on
some man. She has had to wheedle
what she wanted out of father, or
brother, or husband. or lover, and
the amount that she got depended
upon her finesse and chicanery and
skill in working him.
The only people in the world, men
as well as women, who can be fear
less and frank and honest and above
board are those who are financially
Independent and in power. The
courtier must fawn and flatter, the
suppliant affects humility, the man
whose bread and butter depends upon
his job must seem to agree with his
employer.
That has been the case with
women. The domestic woman has
never been given anything as her
right. She has never had any inde-
pendence. She may do the work of
half dozen servants, but she is not
rated in the census report as among
he f11I
cupations. On the contrary, she is
said to be supported" by her hus-
band.
She has no pay envelope She
has no money of her own. She has
only what her husband chooses to
give her, or what she can cajole out
of him, or sometimes what she can
get from him by stealth by going
through his pockets, or raising money
on the grocery bill.
Double Dealing
Now experience has taught women
that the easiest way to get along with
men is by jollying them along and
playing upon their weaknesses, and
this has m e tn e sex adopts
in all the arts of double dealing.
Women have found that fiattery is
the open sesame to mems pocket
books, and this has taught them in
sincerity. They have daily occult
evidence of the fact that men actu-
ally enjoy being bamboozled by
women, and this has made them ex-
pert liars, for there is small encour-
agement in being Truthful Jane in
hand-me-down raiment when Menda-
cious Sapphira is dressed like Solo
mon in all his glory.
1t isn't a fact that reflects any
credit on either sex. but it is a fact.
nevertheless, that no woman can be
perfectly truthful and frank with her
husband and keep out of the divorce
court. Said prospective mother-in-
law to a bride on her wedding eve
my dear, have Just got one piece
of advice to give you: Never argue
with John. Never try to set him