The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-17
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
A Mans Place in the Home.

quires the united efforts of both
sexes.
No man can make a real home by
himself alone altho he lives in pal
ace designed by an architect who is
an artist, and puts a tidy on every
chair, and has a cook that is a chef.
No woman can make a home by
herself tho she smokes cigarets IN
every room, has g. parrot that swears
and cat that comes in late.
1t takes both man and woman,
working together, to create that IN
tangible atmosphere that changes a
house into a real home. This being
true, what should be the mans part
in the actual work of running homeF
If he furnishes the money which
maintains it, does that end his respon-
sibiIity in the matter or has his wife
a right to expect him to add the role
of handy man around the house to
that of financial hacker?
An interesting light has just been
thrown on this question by recent
decision by a judge of the domestic
relations court.
A man was tried for wife desertion.
He pleaded as his excuse for having
abandoned his own fireside that his
wife made him do all of the house
work in addition to supporting the
family He said that after having
worked hard all day as carpenter he
would have to cook the supper, make
the beds, sweep the floor, wash the
children's faces and often work till
midnight doing the family laundry.
For which reason at last this poor
/ downtro15 den domestic worm turned
and, in vulgar pariance, beat it.
The judge, being a just man, exon
Grated the martyred husband and de-
Hvered a severe lecture to the slave
driving wife in which he told her, in
substance, that when a man provided
the money to support a home he had
done all that could be reasonably ex-
pected of him and that his wife had no
right to burden him with the actual
work of running it. That was her
part of the business.
A most just decision. in my opin-
ion. Personally. 1 think that when a
man provides the money to support
house he has contributed his quota of
the labor and that the rest is up to
his wife. He should be considered an
honored guest who is not expected to
do any other work or face any of the
worry of keeping the household ma
chinery running.
This is, of course, if the wife is we'll
Naturally if the wife is an invalid the
husband would have to lend a hand,
but healthy woman who hasn't in
duStry and intelligence and executive
ability enough to keep her house
going without bothering her husband
or sending out S. 0. S. call for his
help ought to be ashamed of herself
She shows herself a poor incompe-
tent, and the thing she should do is
to buck up and get busy with her end
of the domestic Partnership.
The woman who expects her hus-
band to be assistant chambermaid and
cook and nurse girl at home, in addi-
ton to doing his own work outside of
the home, is handicapping him in the
race for success. In the fierce COM
petition that prevails now in every
kind of business the average man has
just about all the work, anxiety and
nervous strain that he can endure in
his own business. If when he gets
home he has to help with the dinner
and the cleaning up, and wash -the
dishes, sooner or later he will find out
that these domestic duties are the last
straw that broke the camers back and
he will collapse under them.
No matter how willingly he under
takes his wife's work in addition to
his own, or how beautiful the impulse
that prompts him to save her all of
the onerous and distasteful duties of
homework. a man who does it makes
a mistake. He is frittering away on
little things the energy that ought to
be bestowed on big things and is
| making overdrafts on his vital forces
that lessen his power to succeed, and
position by the man who has a wife
capable and energetic enough to do
her own work single handed
For an invalid every excuse-is to be
made but any able bodied woman who
makes a domestic drudge of her hus-
band, or who let's him walk the floor
with,a crying baby half the night after
he has done a hard days work, is
guilty of monumental selfishness.
Every now and then you meet
mother who boasts that she has never
gotten up al night with one of her
babies 1t fills one with wonder, not
only at the lack of sympathy for her
husband and affection for him, but at
| the lack of sense she displays. For in
| accepting the sacrifice the patient hus-
band has made for her, she has sent a.
man, dulled, weary and nervous from
| lack of sleep and rest, out to compete
next day with men whose every faculty
was keenly alive. And naturally the
man could not hold his own.
Many a wife who has wondered
why her husband did not get along in
business as well some other man
she knows who is in the same line,
| could find the answer to her problem
| in the fact that she makes her hus-
band walk the floor with the baby
with the collie at night, and that she
uses up his every ounce of spare
energy in making him do chores about
| the house all the time he is at home
OF course the woman will say that
the baby is just as much her hus-
| hands baby as it is hers and that he's
| lust as able to walk it as she is. Which
| is true put it is also true that house
work does not require the mental
a1ertness or the energy that money
making does, and so if any one is to
face their job with their mental and
physical ability a little under par it
| had better be the woman than the
man.
| Moreover there is nothing about
housekeeping that can't be put off or
sighted, and there is no day in which
a woman cannot find time to take a
! little rest if she needs it. The bust
ness man, on the contrary. is driven
from morning to night and has no mo-
ment in which to make up his broken
rest as his wife has.
Women do not Intentionally over
| burden their husbands. It is simply
| because they understand so little what