The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-05
Dorothy Die Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
MatrimOny has enough chances of
misery In II without turning it into u

reform school.
have received letter from a man
who writes:
Il have read and reread your arti-
Gle on The Folly of a Girl Marrying
Man to Reform Him" Is the girls
folly as great as that of the man who
marries a girl to reform her?
II am in love with a beautiful and
fascinating young woman who has lax
ideals of morality, and WI permits
familiarities from men that no re-
spectacle girl should tolerate. If
marry this girl do you think that i
can correct her faults and change her
into being the kind of woman 1 woul1
want for a wife and the mother of my
chilGren?"
Frankly, no. Such a miracle might
happen once in a million times but not
oftener, and the odds are too great
against such marriage turning out
well to make it even a gamblers
gamble.
1t has been said that the woman
drunkard, or drug fiend, or the i'm
moral woman never reform This is
not true. but undoubtedly it is much
harder to win he woman who has
taken the wrong turn of the road
back INTO the straight and narrow
path than it is to win a man back.
This is because when a woman falls
she not only goes deeper down into the
pit than a man does, but all the forces
of society push her down farther and
farther into the mire, while they hold
out helping hand to the man We
condone the offense of the man who
has sibned and repented, but we hold
the womans slip against her to her
dying day. We STAY the fatted calf
when the prodigal son cleanses him
self Ard returns home, but nobody
even hands out a Dreaded veal chop
to the prodigal daughter when she
comes back.
And the man who is proposing to
marry a woman whose skirts have the
mud of the street on them will do we'll
to remember that while he may be big
enough, and noble enough, to forgive
and forget her past, the world never
will. Society has a short memory for
n woman's virtues, but long one for
her frailties.
In discussing the possibility of re-
forming a woman, it is well to bear in
mind that there are two distinct types
of feminine sinners. There is the girl
hwho has Numbered into wrong doing
thru ignorance, thru innocence, thru
loving not wisely but too well. thru
some desperate need of poverty or
want. Many a girl has been betrayed
by the highest and best and tenderest
impulses in her whole nature.
Such girls as these keep their souls
white in spite of the lack stain on
erything that even savors of immoral
ity, and they yearn with an unspeak-
able longing to be within the fold of
conventional and respectable society.
No man need be afraid of how such
d woman as this will conduct herself
after her marriage. She will need none
of her husbands reforming, for she
will reform herself. Her horror of
what she has been thru will make her
like Caesars wife.
N 10 of iG a
who is bad at heart, all of whose i'm
pulses are of the flesh, fleshy, and who
drifts just as naturally downward as
water rolls down a hill. She needs no
temptation to lure her because in her
own nature she possesses every tempta-
! ton to evil.
You cannot reform such woman
| because she does not. want to be re-
formed. You cannot protect her
from evil men because she is a mag
net that draws them to her. You
cannot teach her to run straight be-
cause her very nature is crooked.
| Every curve of her body is the line
of least resistance.
A man is a fool, and worse than a
fool, if he deliberately lets himself
into lifelong misery by marrying wo-
man of this type. He delivers himself
| over to shame, for, sooner or later, her
name will be a hooking in the mouths
of men. and in the meantime he is a
/ prey to the gnawing jealousy that eats
out our hearts when we are filled
with suspicious of one we love and
| whom we know that we cannot trust.
Just notice, the look of furtive
watchfulness on the face of the wife
| of a reformed drunkard when the
cocktails are passed at dinner. 1t is
enough to make you weep, it is so full
of anguished anxiety. Watch the
| black scowl on the face of the man
whose wife has been talked about"
| before they were married, as she en-
cages in a whispered conversation
/ with some good looking man. There is
! murder in the look.
There is no peace nor happiness
! there, and there never is in the house
| hold where either the husband or wife
! has been reformed, for there must be
| honor and faith between husband and
| wife to make an ideal marriage, and
| that does not exist where either one
has a past that has had to be for
given. and habits and ideals that have
! had to be changed.
/ After all, the same argument applies
to the man who thinks of marrying a
girl to reform her that does to the girl
| who marrieS a man to reform him.
Why do anything so useless as we'll as
/ dangerous? Why pick out a specked
/ peach when the basket is full of sound
| ones? Why not choose the kind of a
wife or husband you want. to start
/ WITH, 1nSLodu Ol ldhlIS lIbI0TlOF ar
ticle on the chance that you may pos
sibly be able to alter it over into some
thing of which you approve?
| Matrimony has enough chances of
misery in it without turning it into
reform school, and while it may be
good for our souls to have our faults
corrected and our weaknesses elm
mated and our habits changed, it is an
almighty unpleasant process for the
poor victim who is being raised UP to
| the higher life.
| Finally, this cold hard fact is recon-
mended to the consideration of the
/ foolhardy who are marrying life part
record that the inmates of reforma-
| tories entertain any very ardent affec-
ton for those who are attempting to
reform them.