Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-07-07
NAGGTNG WIFE
MARITAL THORN
Accomplishes Nothing, but
Leaves a Mighty Recon-
ciIed WidoWer
BY DOROTHY DIX

DN DAA
There is one passage in the Scrip
lures in which no woman, not even
the most devout, believes. 1t is the
declaration that we are not heard for
much speaking.
The feminine idea is the exact re-
verse of this. Women cherish an
words, and nothing ever alters their
conviction that the way to work
miracles and move mountains is to
talk enough about them.
Hence the nagger, and the fact
that, so far from regarding nagging
as a crime that ought to be punish
able by solitary confinement in a
counted unto themselves for right
eousness.
Never do the angelic creatures
feel so sure that they are doing
their full duty, especially to their
husbands, as when they are harping
for the millionth time upon some
subject that is as sore as a boil and
that is making their listeners hate
them.
Every women knows the danger
of nagging, and that she nags her
husband at the risk of her mar
ried happiness, and yet the one
who didn't do 1t who wasn't al
ways Sally on the lecture plat
form, reminding her husband of his
pretty poor, slack sort of a wife.
Why? No One Knows
Why women nag no one knows
Probably they do it because they
like the excitement 1t affords. 1t
gives them some of the fearful joy
We all feel In stirring up the man
eating animals at a circus to hear
them roar.
Certainly no wife of experience
deludes herself with the belief that
her continuous performance mono
logue has any benefcent effect upon
her husband. On the contrary she
knows that the direct result of for
ever reminding man of his short
conlings is to make him get his
back up and cling to his weak
nesses.
New, nagging is not the innocent
pastime that women seem to think
it is. 1t is a crime that is the run
ming mate with drunkenness and
infidelity, and it shares equally with
them in the divorce prize.
If the majority of men who have
become neglectful of their wives
were asked when loves young
dream first began to rrazzle out
around the edges, and when they
first commenced to dread to go
home instead of yearning to go,
they would say that the time COIN
cided to the minute with the nour
in which they first realized that
their wives could not mention a
mistake they had made and let 1t
go at that, but insisted on rehash-
| ing the same fault for breakfast,
dinner and supper.
4 great part of the glamour of love
and romance lies in the fact that a
L - l.
in a woman's eyes and a wife de-
stroys this illusion at her peril. Such
/ is human vanity that none of us,
not even husbands, enjoy listening
TO an account of the things we have
done that we should not have done,
and the things we have left undone
that we should have done.
Our Human Weakness
Still less do we enjoy the So
ciety of the individual who points
out our blunders to us, and this is
the reason why many a wife who
not only perceives her husbands s
faults, but tells him of them, finds
herself forsaken. He has gone off
after some other lady with less
clarity of vision and more discEe-
ton OF tongue.
No man was ever made any bet
ter or turned from the error of his
ways by nagging, but millions OF
men are driven from home into
clubs and saloons by the certainty
that the minute they cross theiI
own thresholds or settle down by
their own firesides their wives will
begin for the billionth time tc
thresh over some old grievance.
4 wise woman never tells heI
husband OF his faults at all, but the
unwise woman, who lacks the self
control to maintain complete silence
Ishculd, at least, have enough com
mon sense to mention a weakness.
but once. Let such a woman stan(
up and have a fight to the finish, anc
then let the matter rest withou
forever plaguing him by harpinl
upon the same unpleasant theme
So shall her husband rise up ant
call her blessed, for there is nothin:
that a man will not do for the wifi,
and grant him the right to have
few pet faults without forever try
ing to reform him.
The pathetic thing about naggint
is its utter uselessness. A woman
lteopardizes her husbands love, sh,
makes him perfectly miserable anC
all for nothing. In proof of thi
regard the experience of the womef
, you see all about you who hav,
fused for forty odd years abou
their husbands smoking or muss
ing the sofa cushions or tracking
mud into the house. without eve
or drink or teach man to wipe hi
feet on the doormat.
} The naeging wife accomplishe.
! nothing 7-t she leaves a might,
reconciled widower behind her wher
lshe dies.