The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-03

hear the truth from them.
Recently a distinguished English
woman novelist, giving her views on
various matters, said that one of the
greatest shocks a woman ever got was
when she discovered that she could
not tell the truth to her husband He
simply would not stand for it. He de-
manded that she should lie to him.
This statement is astounding simply
because it is the plain, unvarnlshed
truth. 1t is one of the few occasions
upon which a woman has permitted
herself the luxury of handing man
a large hunk OF strict veracity instead
of the nice flub-dub terra diddle that
he is accustomed to receive from her.
1t is a fact that all women are liars,
and that men make them so@
A girls education in dupl1c1ty be-
gins in her cradle. A boy is permitted
to be the elemental savage that nature
made him. He is allowed to act out
himself, and to compcrt himself to-
wards the feminine sex, in especial,
lust in accordance with his true senti-
ments. If he doesn't like girl, he
lets her alone. If he doesn't want to
make himself agreeable to an old lady,
he simply vanishes from the scene,
or else is grlff or silent, or freezes
her Off in some other way.
On the other hand, the little girl
is taught that no matter how i'll tenn
pered and selfish and catfish she may
be, she must act like a little angel
and be all sweetness and amiability
and unselfiShness, because, if she
doesn't, people won't like her and they
won't give her things and ask her to
their parties.
She has it also grounded into her
juvenile consciousness that woman's
mission in life is to always rub the
masculine fur the right way. No mat
ter how much a stupid boy bores her,
she must sit up with rapt express
sion as if she were having the time
of her life. No matter how much the
love making and compliments of some
dOddering old beau may disgust her,
she must smirk and smile and affect
to be tickled to death; no matter what
a fool she thinks some egotistical
braggart is, she has got to patiently
work the bellows.
She can't cut herself away from the
men who weary her beyond endur-
ance, or whose presence makes her
very flesh crawl with loathing, be-
cause if she did she would get the
reputation of being peculiar and diff
ficult and hard to please and men
would avoid her as they would the
plague. So, in order that she may
have the pleasure Of the society of
few men she likes, she is bound to be
a hypocrite towards the many that
she doesn't like.
married as to a time when she can
drop the double life and be sincere
and fra 1k with the one man that she
loves. Alas, it is a vain hope, and the
few brides who attempt the truthful
Jane theory soon find themselves in
the divorce courts.
The first minute the wife attempts
to insert few planks of veracity into
the domestic platform she finds that
for some unaccOuntable reason she is
about to upset the whole structure of
her domestic happiness, and so, if she
is wise woman, she abandons the
task and falls back once more upon
the soothing and salving white lie.
1t is a cold, hard fact that every
married woman knows, that a wife
cannot deal with absolute frankness
as she would like to, with a husband
without him thinking that she is a
human icicle, and a brute, into the
bargain. For a man doesn't want the
truth from any woman, still less from
his wife, and if she hands it out to
him at home, it doesn't take him long
to scamper away to some one who is
a graceful and cheerful liar.
Every man wants his wife to fiat
ter him and tell him continually that
he is the wisest and greatest of his
sex and a perfect oracle, and the
women who hold their husbands and
keep their husbands in love with
them are the mendacious ladies who
keep up this polite fction.
In his secret soul the man is bound
to know that his wife is lying to him.
because he knows that she is crea-
ture possessed of ordinary intellieence
and that she is bound to perceive his
limitations and weaknesses, and how
ignorant and narrow and prejudiced
he is. All the same he wouldn't stand
Tor minute for her telling him that
she knew Just what sort of a man he
was, but that she loyed him in snita
of his Weaknesses
Nor, no matter how intelligent. nor
what good judgment wife has, is she
! permitted to abandon the pose of a
1901 Sne mas to always pretend to sit
at her husbands feet and ask his
| opinion, and defer to his great wis
| dom, altho both of them may know
that she's got more sense in a minute
than he'll have in lifetime, and that
he leans upon her, and not she upon
MIN; But, my! what rumpus there
would be in the family if she didn't
do her little kow-towing before she
went ahead and did as she had in
tended doing from the first.
And take the ever acute money
trouble suppose woman should say
| to her husband =
Now, see here, John, want fifty
| dollars for a new dress. I've earned
the money doing homework. and sew
| ing ana patching, and mending, and
baby tending, and L expect you to
hand it over without a word of pro-
test because it's my due as my part of
the proceeds of our joint partnership
as husband and Wife
Wouldn't John go up in the air
| Wouldn't he consider any wife who
would speak like that as lacking in
all natural feeling? And wouldn't he
| hang on to the coin until she came to
her senses? And don't all women
know that? Ard doesn't the woman
who wants new hat find that the
easiest way to get it is to cajole it
out of her husband by telling him how
good and dear and sweet and gener-
Gus he is, and what a lucky woman
she is to have a great big, strong,
noble husband who gives his wife her
/ clothes?
Thus are the amenities of domestic
life sustained, and the more gifted a
fabricator the wife. the bett heloved