The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-06
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
American Wives.

Whenever foreigners or expatriated
Americans run out of anything else
to say, they take a few whacks at
the American Wife, whom they accuse
of heartlessness, extravaganza, lazt-
ness and general triflingness.
The latest individual to heave few
verbal brickbats at his ex-country-
men is a preacher, who has just
come home after living in Munich
for twelve years, and the things
he has to say about American wives
would raise the very hair on their
heads with horror and indignation if
they weren't so accustomed to 1t and
hadn't heard it all so often before.
The reverend gentleman's remarks,
however, have greatly impressed a
man, who writes me a letter in which
he echoes the preachers charges, and
tells a pathetic story of a friend of
his whose wife deserted him because
he lost his money. This is the way
the selfish American wife treats her
husband in the day of adversely" says
woman, devoted only to her husband
and family, would not act So"
Piffle. Also, nonsense. There are
good wives and bad wives, faithful
wives and unfaithful ones, the world
over. Loyalty has no geographical
limitations. One swallow does not
make a spring, nor should one selfish
American wife queer the whole race
of Patient Grizeldas in this country.
Judge womeR by the majority and
not the exception. One, American wife
may have left her husband when he
lost his property, but how many
thousands of women have you seen
roll up their sleeves and go to work
to help their husbands under similar
circumstances? Don't you know doz-
ems of women who have converted
their fine houses into boarding houses
after their husbands failures in bust
ness7
Can't you recall plenty of women
who have dismissed their servants
and gone into their kitchen to do the
work, who have made over their old
clothes, and trimmed their hats. and
pushed their own baby carriages when
their husbands came cropper in
business. and who not only turned a
smiling face upon the world, but kept
their husbands courage so that the
men were able to make a fresh start
in the world?
For any one American wife who is
/ a milestone about her husbands neck
YOU can find a thousand who are the
power behind the throne. who are
making of their tender shoulders a
ladder on which their husbands are
climbing to success.
Some extravagant American wives
there are, but the great majority are
far more thrifty and economical than
their husbands, which is abundantly
proven by the fact that not one man
i in ten ever saves am money until he
gets married. A great many salaried
men turn over their entire pay en-
velop to their wives, not because the
wives demand it but because expert
ence has shown the husbands that
their wives can take better care of
the money and get more out of it than
they can.
As for the American wife not being
as good a wife as the foreign woman
is, that's all tommy rot. At any rate,
she suits the American man better
than any other wife would because
she has been evolved according to his
tastes and needs That she fills the
/ bin to his satisfaction is amply shown
by the fact that while the American
woman often marries a foreign man,
1 the American man very rarely marries
a foEeign woman
The clergyman referred to at the
! beginning of this article criticises the
American woman because he says she
I is always gadding about instead of
spending her time in the kitchen as
does the German hausfrau- Well,
what of it? If the American woman
/ is clever enough to plan her work
i better, to have more kitchen conven-
/ fences, and to get thru her domestic
4 labors so that she has time for clubs
and reading and outside interests she
should be praised for it rather than
/ blamed.
Certainly, nobody will claim that