The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-05
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Helping the World to Happiness.


earth. There is no other sorrow equal
to the misery experienced by the mis-
mated, just as there is no other joy
equal to that serene happiness of the
man and woman who find in each 9TH
er perfect sympathy and companion
ship.
1t makes no difference to man
how hard he works, if he labors for
a wife who gives him love and graft
tude in return for it. 1t makes no diff
ference how poor the home is, if peace
and affection glorify it. 1t makes no
difference to a woman if she wears a
ten-dollar hand-me-down suit if she
knows that her husband grieves be-
cause he cannot buy her the finest i'm
ported gown on Fifth avenue
And it makes no difference how
many palaces a couple own, how many
limousines they ride in, how many
quarts of pearls and diamonds a man
bestows on his wife, if one or the other
is selfish and sharp tongued and
tyrannical. and if their home is a place
of strife and pickering.
When we are married our happiness
depends absolutely on our home life
and the kind of a husband or wife we
have. We cannot get away from that
1t is the thing that is ever present with
us. 1t is our own crown of glory, or
our hidden torment and the individual
who would be the greatest benefactor
that humanity could possibly have
that every man would get good wife
and every woman a good husband.
There is one such individual, an in
divldual who holds the happiness of
humanity in her hands. She could
wipe the tears from millions of eyes.
She could save millions of hearts from
being broken. She could stop divorce
and prevent the breaking up of mil
lions of homes, and the orphaning of
millions of helpless little children, and
she is so selfish that she will not
do it.
This individual, who callously re-
fuses to use her power for good, is
called Mother, and there is no other
fact SO strange and so sinister as that
she refuses to even recognize her re-
sponsibility for wrong that devas-
tates the world and strews it with
broken lives. She doesn't even see
that, with a fearful revenge, her sin
reacts on herself, and that the pitiless
cruelty she shows to others comes
back to slay her own.
Observation and experience have
taught US to speak of marriage as the
greatest of all lotteries. and to say
that no one is enough of prophet
to foreteH how a wedding is going to
turn out, nor what sort of husband
or wife a man or woman will be.
Yet it is within the ability of every
mother to change marriage from be-
ing a lottery into being certainty,
and to assure every man and women
who gets married of getting a good
wife or husband. 1t is strictly within
the power of the mothers who are
raising up children to stop , divorce
within one generation, and blot domeS-
tic misery out of the universe.
There is no mystery in what con-
stitutes a good husband or wife. 1t
Requires no marvellous gifts nor su-
pernal qualifications. Nobody wants
! to be married to an angel. The most
| that any of US ask IN our helpmeets
| is just a reasonable amount of self
| control and unselfishness and justice
and common fair play. And if added
to this we could get some real SYM
| pathy and tenderness and apprecia-
ton, we should consider ourselves
| among the most blessed of all mortals.
! Suppose, for instance. a mother
started out with the benevolent inten-
ton of raising her son up to be a
good husband for some unknown little
| girl She could teach him the ele-
mental moralities. and that a man is
bastard who deliberately wrecks a
woman's life by marrying her if he is
| drunken or diseased.
She could teach her son the chival-
rous attitude towards women. She
| could teach him to be generous and
| unselfish to his wife. She could teach
him all the little things, the little at
| tentions and courtesies that women
]
| husband as would make his wife's
| heart sing for joy.
But does she do this? She does not
Nobody ever even heard a mother
| talking to her son about being a good
| husband, or cons. .,Cring his wife in
any way The mother lets her boy
grow up selfish and surly and filled
! with contempt for women and their
ways. and he marries to be just as
tyrannical and inconsiderate a hus-
band as his father has been before
! him.
Nor is the mother any more con-
cerned about providing some hapIess
young man with a good wife than she
Is some unfortunate young woman
! with good husband. She raises her
daughter up to be spoiled and extrav-
agant and lazy and shiftless, with no
| consideration for any other human
| being on earth but herself
She doesn't even teach her daughter
now TO cook or to manage a house.
so that ner husband Will be sure of
a comfortable home. She doesn't
teach her daughter how to sew or
| now to save, or even how to spend
money so as to get the best out of it,
so that she may be a real helpmeet to
/ her husband.
On the contrary. nothing is more
common than to hear mothers say,
| Il m not going to teach my daughters
how to cook. There's be time enough
1or them to learn that after they get
married" or I'm going to indulge my
daughters in everything I can. 1t will
be time enough for them to do without
things after they are married" and
the mothers dump these selfish I'M
disciplined, incomr girls on I'M
suspecting men without a pang of re-
morse for the misery they are inflict-
| ing on the poor husbands.
Among my acQuaintances is a SPLEEN
did young fellow full of ambition and
energy and talent. who would go far
except for the handicap he carries in
tbs shape of a wife, whose mad ex-
| travagance keeps him continually IT
debt. Whenever his wife is denie d
anything she howis and shrieks. and
makes such scenes that the poor hus-
band gives in at least thru sheer ex-
Ihausron. And her mother backs her