The Washington herald., 1917-07-04
PLAYING THE GAME
By DOROTHY DIX.


/, incompetent girl than to stand for her
wounded feelings while you are tryins
to teach her, and that's where the
young business woman loses out,
through not having the sporting spirit
-one OF the most valuable assets that
her brother has.
And it's women's lack of gameness
that's at the bottom of half OF the
domestice misery in the world. Stats.
tics show that more than three -fourths
of the divorces are asked for by wom-
en-. This is not because men make so
much worse husbands than women
make wives. but because the average
man is a pretty good loser. and the
average women is a bad loser.
There are just as many men who
have made fatal mistakes in their
choice OF a life partner as there are
women. There are Just as many men
married to women who do not under
stand them, women who make their
lives unbearable by temper or nag
3ing, women who are lazy and shift
less and eXtrsvagant as there arc
women married to men who are
brutes, but the man generally shuts
his teeth on his misery and bears #,
while the woman tells her troubles to
all who will listen or goes with them
to the divorce court.
And look at the way women plunge
into matrimony. and the way they
back out of their bargains when they
get just exactly what was coming to
them! There are the women who fall
in love with poor men and who marry
them knowing perfectly well how little
the men earn. But is such a woman
game enough to accept her man on
the plane on which she married him
and go cheerfully to work to do her
own cooking and housework and be
perfectly happy though wearing a last
years suit and riding in the street
cars?
Not once in a blue moon. She
frets and fumes because she can't
have Paris gowns and motor cars like
her rich acquaintances have, and
nags the poor fellow because he don't
know how to make money, which is
playing the matrimonial game pretty
low down. in my opinion.
Consider also the women who de-
hberately pick out drunkards for hus-
bands and then considCI Themselves
poor prosecuted martyrs when their
spouses come home intoxicated. II 1
were a woman who married a man
who. / knew, drank, I'd be sport
enough never to say a word 10 him
in reproach. and I'd spend my time
applying wet cloths to his fevercd
brow and mixing him bromo settlers.
And there are the women VINO
are married TO good. ordinary fellows.
the sort of men who are working like
slaves. trying to do the very best that
is in them for their families, but who
have all the heart and courage in
them taken out by the ceaseless com
plants and whines of their wives over
the hardships OF their lives. These
women could change their husba nds
from failure to success, and their
MONIES from places Of torment and
gloom to sunshine and happiness II
they only had enough spirit to buck
up and take a fighting chance at life.
"Of course there are exceptions TO
all rules. There are many women
who are game to the core: women
who take their chance and lose and
pay; women who marry worthless
blackguards and stand by them 10 the
bitter end without a complaint ever
crossing their lips.
And when you find a woman like
this with sporting blood I'm her veins,
you have found the superwoman."
Dorothy DiN's articles appear regv-
!arly in this paper every Mondav-
Wednes sday and Friday.