Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-11-02
10y DOROTHY DIX
tThe Worries Highest Paid Woman
- Writer.)

young woman who evidently haG
A no faith in the science of euge
~ MICS as it is being eXpounded to
US writes me that she is in love with
I man who is inflicted with an incur
able malady and that she wants to
marry him. Her parents naturally
object to the match, but she is going
on with the wedding on the principle
that year or two of marriage with
him is better than lifetime of mat
rin,ony with any other man,
This would be a plausible argu-
ment for doing a fool thing if the
girl had only herself to consider. But
there are her father and mother, who
may not relish having a widowed
daughter thrust back upon them to
support in the course of time. Above
all, there are the possible children
that may be the result Of such mar
rage. and who are pretty sure, under
such conditions, to come into the
world handicapped by feeble bodies
or brains. A woman may <have the
i right TO take any sort of husband
she wants, but she hasn't right to
give her children a sickly and neuro-
tic father
1t is easy to see how a sentimental
and sympathetic girl can be willing
to marry man who is an invalid. In
addition to whatever charms of man
ner and mind he may haye-and some
OF 1.-THE most delightful men on earth
are cursed with weak bodies-he ap-
peals to the eternal maternal that is
IN every good woman.
She wants to mother him, to fuss
over him, to take care of him; to do
for him the thousand little things by
which a woman delights in showing
her love. His very dependence upon
her fills her with an Overlooking ten
derness towards him.
In spite of all this, for woman to
marry a delicate man is nearly al
ways a terrible mistake. In fact, 1t is
not too much to say that it is inyar-
iabIy a mistake unless the man is
rich enough not to be dependent on
his own exertions for a living, for OF
all places in the world where money
is needed it is in the sick room.
{ The lot of no woman is SO foflorn
and piteous as that Of the wife whose
husband is too i'll and feeble to even
attempt to fight the wolf away from
the door; and who has to see him not
only dying but in his dying hours tor
tured with anxiety for those he is
leaving behind.
Nor is the woman who marries the
sickly man always the benefactress
to him that she expects to be. Just
as often she is Surden that brushes
him down the sooner into the grave.
Having to support family may force
him to have to work longer hours
than he otherwise would, or keep at
a job that is injurious to him. With
q wife a man may not take chances
at employment that the single man
may, and so the invalid who has given
hostages to fortune cannot indulge in
the rest, or the roaming about from
climate to climate, that would pro
long his life.
3 So far as happiness is concerned,
the woman who marries an invalid is
taking the longest shot on earth at
connubial bliss. Husbands are kittle
cattle to get along with at best, and
sick one can make sore-headed bear
look like a living model Of suaYity
and amiability.
The truth is that illness does not
improve the disposition and agree
ability of any of us. 1t is only in the
novels that invalids are patient and
gentle and always rewarding their kind
nurses with a sad. sweet smile. In
real life an invalid is a creature of
raw nerves and vilIainous temper
and monumental egotism, who never
thinks about anything but himself or
herself, and who is of the opinion |
that nobody can possibly do enough !
for him or her.
zy The early Christian martyrs had |