Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-10-08
WIVES AND BUSINESS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Tho Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writer ~ .,.

N band for divorce, gives his occu'
II patton as her reason for asking
for a separation from him.
My husband Is fine and noble
man." she testified on the witness
stand. 'fHe has been kind and, so Tar
as | know, has been faithful, but he
is a concert singer and cannot stand
to see the way in which women make
fools OF themselves over him. u
drives me mad to look az them hang
ing around him, and adoring him after
he has sung some pathetic and heart
touching song. or course | know that
women are the chief patrons at con-
certs and that his success depends
upon his pleasing them, but can no
longer endure witnessing them max
ing eyes at him and trying to flirt
with him." ....-
This woman's action illustrates one
OF the most peculiar and ine&pllcable
OF all feminine vagaries OF tempera-
ment, and that is the almost universal
jealousy that wives feel Of their hus-
bands business. Naturally this Is,
most pronounced in the cases where
a mans occupation throws him in cod
tact with other women, but IL extends
through every ramification OF employ
ment, even to the work that men DO
solely among ether men. A vile
can be Just as jealous Of her hus.
bands Job il he is lone fisherman
as she can be of his being probes
sional connoisseur OF feminine pol
chritude for Broadway girl show.
The thousands OF matrimonial
wrecks that strew the theatrical
shores, for instance, are the direct
result OF foolhardy actors having
taken unto themselves wives without
giving heed to this fdiosyncrasy OF
the fair sex. The result was disaster,
for no amount OF argument or logic
or proof could convince the man Q
wife that stage business was purely
HaSe business and nothing more, and
hat the passion that he threw into
the wooing of the beauteous heroine
had no more real significance than
would have had the eloquence he
would have extended in persuading a
lady to buy a silk dress had he Teen
in the dry goods line.
Nor can the singers wife be 2e.-
suaded that when her husband IS
singing to the hearts of an audience
of women his efforts are really II:
rected at their pocket books. Sizes
no believer in art for arts sake. She's
bound to make il personal and indigid-
ual. and connected with women Who
are no better than they should be,
and thereby enabled to torture her.
self, whether she has any reason to
or not.
In any green-eyed contest actors
and singers wives would lake the
first prize. The second prize would
20 TO doctors wives, who are so filled
with jealousy and suspicion f their
husbands occupation that they scars
many young physicians off from enter
ing the holy estate at all.
"when think Of my husband
spending his days going from one
woman dressed up in pink and lace
Oegligees to another, and holding
their hands and having to look sym.
pathetic and jolly them along. and
listen to them tell things they
wouldn't tell their own husbands and
mothers. il drives me Wild said the
pretty young wife OF doctor not long
ago. And then she added bitterly, Il
know it's business, and that II he
didn't do II we would starve, but
sometimes think ! would rather
starye than have him do 1t"
And that was why women as 3
whole sympathized with Mrs. Car.
man, when she put photograph in
her husbands office so that she CO ila
listen to what he said to his patients
and what his patients said to him.
They could understand the gnawing
jealousy that drove woman TO do
any act TO find out what went on in
that secret and mysterious place de.
voted to the exercise of mans pro.
fession, and into which mere affe
could not penetrate.
But II is not only the professions
in which mems patrons are chiefly
women that inspire the JEALOUSY of
wives. It's any and all business. Lis.
ten TO the talk Of wives. They most
always refer in inyidious terms 70
shat hateful old office or that hor.
rid old shop in which their husbands
earn their living, and their tones drip
venom when they speak of their nus.
bands being so absorbed in their bus.
mess that they have no time or
thought for anything else and can't
be dragged away for winter trips and
summer excursions.
When a man is late FOR dinner, or
has to break an engagement with IFS
wife, and gives some cxigency OF
business as his excuse, she feels Just
as much injured and that she has
lust as much of grievance IS il
he had been detained by some fas.
cinating siren
1t is business that takes UP her
husbands time and thought and keeps
him away from her. that absorbs him
so in the market report Of morning
that he does not notice that she has
a headache and looks pale, and that
exhaust him SO that he's too tired to
amuse her in the evenings. Obserya-
tion teaches her that no woman who
has been married TO man i've years
can raise the thrill in his bosom, or
bring the light to his eyes that a
ten point rise in stocks does. And
so the wife unconsciously comes TO
look upon her husbands business as
her deadly foe.
IA r.. ANrrN