The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-10
Dorothy DiT Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer


Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
The wonder is not that married PEG.
pie spat, but that the melting pot of
natrimony turns out as good a prod
uct as it does.
People often wonder" said the wo-
man in gray, why SO many married
couples, who really love each other
and try to do their duty, get along so
inharmoniously together, and particu-
larly why in-laws may always fight
like cats and dogs
Il think that the wonder is all the
other way about, and that the amaz-
ing thing is that man and woman,
coming of different blood and tradi-
tons and brought up with different
ideas and tastes, adjust themselves to
each other well they do in the
close confines of matrimony. And
it's a marvel that any woman can
ever come into another family without
causing friction.
It's one of natures grim little
jokes, that while our opposites attract
pei us alter marriage. We fall in love
with a man or woman because he or
she is entirely different from the kind
of people to whom We are accustomed,
but after we are married this very
difference irritateS US and gets on our
nerves. ana makes persona AOH
grata, as the diplomats say, to our in
laws.
1T might not make for the good of
the race for each of to marry
our double, so to speak, but it GER
tainly would make for peace and hap
piness in the domestic circle. Also, it
would stop divorce and make matri-
mony one glad sweet song, for, after
all, the people we really enjoy are not
those with whom we are in a perpet-
ual argument, but those who think
as we do from politics to pie, and who
look at life from the same point of
view that we do.
But we don't marry our likes.
When a young fellow goes to pick out
a wife. instead of selecting girl of
his own circle, he hunts around and
finds one who differs in every re-
spect from his mother and sisters, who
really represent his ideal of woman
hood and he marrieS this outlander,
pumps her down among his own folks
and expects them to fall on each 9TH
er's necks and for everybody to be
happy and cOngenial
us it surprising that a man and a
woman. who see everything in the
world from a different angle, clash !?
Or that women of different families,
with different ideas on every subject
under the sun, when suddenly thrown
into the intimacy of family life, jar
on each other? The wonder to me is
that the melting pot of matrimony
turns out as good a product as it does.
Take my own case, for instance. I
come of reserved New England fam
| lily, where Individuality and personal
liberty amounted almost to a fetish.
From the ime l can remember l had
my own room, my own desk, my own
clothes, my own books, my own be-
longings.
MY privacy was sacred My mother
would no more have thought of open
ing one of my letters or rummaging
thru my desk than she would have
taken such liberties with the president
of the United States. Nor did she
| ever catechise me about where I went
or what 1 did. She welcomed my con-
fidences, but she would have thought
it beneath her dignity and mine to try
to find out anything that 1 did not
voluntarily tell her
We'll, along comes John, a young
Lochinvar out of the west big, hearty,
| expansive, with not a single reserve in
his whole makeup. OF course we fell
| in love with each other because we
were the different poles of humanity,
and we were married and went west
to live among his people.
His sisters received me with open
arms, and, what was to me, a shock
ing and vulgar curiosity. They asked
me a million intimate questions that
made me feel that 1 was being put
thru a third degree, but which 1 now
know was inspired by only a friendly
and affectionate interest in me. They
| paved over my trousseau and tried on
my hats and gowns and even borrowed
such of my finery as suited their
| tastes.
| II cannot tell you with what re-
pulsion this filled me. 1t made them
20 Il
offended them by giving them the
things they had worn, because 1 could
no more have put on a garment that
had touched somebody else's flesh
than I could have used another per-
sons toothbrush.
AT first my in-laws were Just be-
wildered. Then they became indig-
nant, and to this day they dislike me
and think me stuck up and proud
when there's nothing the matter with
either of us except that we were just
raised so differently.
"And my experience with my hus-
| band came near to being a tragedy
Never shall 1 forget the morning ]
came into breakfast and found thai
| he had opened one of my letters and
was reading it. I famed into a sud-
den passion at what 1 considered the
indignity, and we had a scene tina,
left scars that ache to this day. I felt
that my rights as an individual were
being outraged. He felt that a wife
had no individuality aside from her
husband.
| "'But there are things that my
mother and sisters write me that are
not intended for anyone but me tc
know.
I'D tell you anything about mine
he replied.
"'You shouldn't tell me- 1 protest
ed.
But he couldn't understand, and
for r11ar1V wears the latfar DrOnoSitior