The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-24
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer


A good, thrifty, Industrious devoted
woman of my acquaintance has the
misfortune to be married to a man
who has perpetual crouch. The man
is one of those domestic wet blankets
who can beat any patent fire extin-
guisher in putting out the fire on the
hearthstone of 4 home. The very
sound of his key in the lock sends the
temperature of the house down to the
freezing point, and rubs the smile off
of every lip.
ever pleases him, altho she is an ex-
cellent cook and wonderful manager
and no man comes home at night to 4
cleaner house or a better dinner.
He srowls like dog over his food.
He growls when his wife is forced to
ask him for the necessary money for
daily expenses. He growls at the chill
cren, and he makes the home so dis
agreeable by his surliness that all of
the woman's old friends have dropped
away from her, and the neighbors
avoid the house as if it were plague
spot
The woman lives in a state of dread
and terror of her husbands tempe.
that makes her life nerve racking. She
never knows what chance word of hers
may send him off into one of his abu-
sive RACES, or plunge him into a frozen
silence that is equally hard to endure
She must forever walk on eggs, trying
automatically to propitiate him.
apologizing for things she has never
done; trying to keep out of sight
him, and to steer the conversation
away from subjects that irritate him.
But all in vain is her trouble. He
IS always looking for faults, and he
discovers them He is always seeking
causes of offense and he finds them
in her simplest word and action, and
then there ensue scenes that leave the
woman exhausted in body, bruised in
spirit. and soul sick.
And she has grown tired of it all
She is only 80 years old, and the pros
pect of spending the balance of her
life under such conditions is a horror
that she cannot endure, so she is go
ing to take her children and leave this
miserable husband.
In my opinion she can't do it too
quickly nor go too far from him. If
women ever have q hand in making
the divorce laws they will pass blithely
and gaily over such trivial matters as
unfaithfulness and drunkenness in
which divorces shall be granted habit
ual grouchiness, and i'll temper and
Ilncurable stinginess.
These are the vices in husbands
that break women's hearts, and turn
life into dust and ashes in their teeth
These are the things that make mar
riage a failure. and women look for
| ward to the peace of the grave.
There are wounds to the heart that
hurt worse than any bruise to the
flesh; there are mental cruelties great
er than any physical ones, and there
are many women, supposedly well
married and happy, who are daily
put thru tortures more terrible than
any the Inquisition ever devised. And
the torturers are their husbands.
he Ja+
they provide their wives with a home
and clothes and food gives them a
perfect right to be as disagreeable as
they please and to shower upon the
poor wretches who are married to
them all the temper and tyranny and
meanness that they are afraid to ex-
hibit to other people. Hence, they
indulge themselves in their crouch
in insults to their wives that they
would not dare to offer to any female
employe who could give notice and
leave. or any woman who had an
able bodied brother.
The man who does nothing but
crouch and grumble around home has
yellow streak in him a yard wide
because he deliberately takes advan-
tage of his wffe's helplessness. He
has her absolutely in his power be-
cause she has to endure any sort of
| treatment he accords her, or else take
her troubles to the divorce court A
thousand things keep her from doing
this Religion. pride. the welfare of
| her children, her own financial de-
pendence on him. all combine to keep
| Ter nailed to her post as a domestic
martyr, while her brute and coward
of a husband amuses himself by fay
| ing her alive with his temper.
Thousands of women stand this
sort of treatment from grouchy hus-
| bands, hoping by patience and sweet
ness that they can change their hus-
| bands dispositions and win them to
| better ways. but they never do.
| Grouchiness is incurable. 1t is con-
stitutional meanness, and the only