The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-07
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
The Bond of CongeniaIfty.

Tor breaking her matrimonial letters,
that when she pointed out beautiful
ana inspiring bits of scenery to her
husband his only response was just to
grunt.
Considering the tragic grounds on
which most divorces are asked q hus-
bands lack of taste in views seems a
trivial cause for breaking ones mar
riase vows, but in reality the very
essence of domestic misery is sum-
med up in the simple circumstance
1t is uncongeniality, and we can for
give another for every sin on the cal
endar quicker than we can that I'm
congenialfty is the stone wall between
husband and wife, between brothers
and sisters. between parents and child
effort of will can break down, and
that can separate those who live so
close together that they can touch
each other more widely than if all the
seven seas flowed between item
So far as the happiness of the home
lis concerned, it depends absolutely
upon husband and wife being tuned
in the same key, and having the same
general viewpoint on life. There can
be nothing more maddening than for
an enthusiastic man or woman to be
tied to a cold blooded, emotionless
clam of a life partner without a single
thrill in his or her system. Nor is
There anything more calculated to get
upon the nerves of an optimistic man
or woman than to have to live in close
daily companionShip with dark blue
pessimist who feels it to be her or his
sacred duty to be u perpetual domestic
wet blanket in the household.
There are millions of perfectly good
men who only grunt when their wives
point out to them the rose flush of
sunset on the top of a snow capped
mountain, or the rainbow in the water
! falls; who sit stolid as blocks of wood
while the music wrings the heart out
of your bosom at the opera. or some
actor grips your very soul in play;
who never get the real message of
book; who never see anything in
crowd but just a lot of people gath
cred together. and these men are mar
ried to temperamertal women who are
as finely attuned as an aeolian harp,
and who respond to every breath of
sentiment and feeling.
And there are men of high and
generous souls. men with ideals, men
with a passion for humanity, men
who love big simple things, men with
plans and hopes. and aspirations and
dreams; great men who are married
to narrow little two-by-four women
whose world is bounded by the few
people they know, whose aspirations
reach no higher than being invited to
walk under fashionable awnings, who
are standing objections to everything
| their husbands desire to do, and
prophets of woe to their every scheme
| There is nothing more terrible than
for two such people to be equally
yoked together, to have to go thru
life each pulling a different way. Each
is desperately lonely, as only a
stranger can be in a foreign land, sur
rounded by those whose language he
does not speak nor understand.
Happiness is made up of very little
things. 1t is principally made up of
the things that we share with another.
The lovely vista that we behold with
someone who thrills to its every light
and shade as we do; the book whose
subtle points we may discuss with a
kindred mind; the play that appealed
| to another as it did to us, are among
the great joys of life. And on the
contrary, among life's chief afflic-
tons is the enforced companionship
of one who never understands, and
never could understand the things
that appeal to us, and with whom we
have not one thing in common.
The great and amending search OF
every man and woman in the world
is for someone who thinks their
thoughts and has their point of view
who, as we say, understands them
but the curious thing is that they ap-
ply this test only to their friends
whom they see occasionally, and not
to the individuals they are picking out
for wives and husbands, and with
whom they must spend their lives
People are actually more careful ir
selecting a companion with whom t.
go on a weeks excursion than they are
in choosing the one with whom they
expect to make the forty or fifty
year long matrimonial journey
In one of Oscar Wilde's plays. a mar
proposes to a woman and she replies
I cannot marry you, but 1 will be
your friend" To which the man re-
turns, Il do not know you we'll enough
to make you my friend. 1 only know
you well enough to make you my
wife"
That is why divorce is common
Men and women marry each other be
cause of a little physical attraction
This is the shortest lived thing or
earth. and when it is over they have
nothing to hold them together. They
could be husbands and wives, bu
they can't be friends because the,
have no common tastes and sym
pathies. and interests on which II
build friendship. The man grunti
when his wife points him out a beau
tiful view. The woman yawns wher
the man reads her the poem that 1,
the very cry of his soul. And both o
them are bored to extinction and de
, clare that marriage is a failure. Which
it is. so far they are concerned.
We could practically do away will
domestic misery if before marrfag,
, men and women would stop askins
. each other, loose ducky is oo?' anC
lis 90 utterly. puffectly certain tina
90 neved loved before?" long enough
TO find out if they had any rea
thoughts and enthusiasm in common
; A great poet gave as a love tes
the ability to muse in a crowd all da,
> on an absent face that has fixed you.
Stuff and nonsense. Anybody car
muse on an absent face. The real tes
! of the affection that will stand tn.
wear and tear of everyday life il
? whether you can talk all of long. no
summer day with another on subject
that range from cabbage to kings. arC
still feel that you haven't half saiC
= all that you've got to say on thes'
T. topics.