Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-11-09
cLAsHiNG EGoEs
BY DOROTHY DIX,
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writer

ff1 Pc hear great deal about mar.
" rage being a failure and the
w frequency of divorces, said
the Woman Philosopher, "but when
YOU sit d,Wn calmly and contemplate
Che mira1ie that has to be wroIgb' IN
human nature before any two pc aHle
can adjust themselves to each other
SO that they can live together in COM
narrative harmony, the wonder is that
any marriage is a success and that
divorce isn't universal.
THE reason why nearly all mar.
riages are the marriages of the young
is because it is only the young and
ignorant who have foolhardy courage
to believe that a man and woman with
different strains of blood in their
veins, who have been brought up In
different environment, who have been
bred to different habits, customs and
ways of looking at things, who have
different tastes and different stand
ards. can have a. magic formula pro-
nounced by a preacher over them in a
church and be really made one and so
home and live in peace ever after.
Those of us who are older know
better. and that's why very few people
over 40 years old have the courage to
try the matrimonial experiment. We
know that it is as hard for the leopard
to change his, spots as it is for US to
get away from our family ideals or al
ter the custom that we have followed
all our lives. OF course most Of us do
manage to achieve the transformation
to some extent, at least, but no one
can DENY that it is an unpleasant
process, full of pickering, misunder-
standings and hurt feelings on both
sides.
Particularly on the brides part
Most women salt down the first two
or three years of their marriage in
brine and never think of them without
p gulp in their threats.
For you see that attraction OF oppo-
sites that draws a man and woman
together in the first place and makes
them want to marry each other works
the opposite way as soon as they are
married and makes them antagonize
each other at every turn.
"The cold, hard. stern man, for In
stance. has fatal fascination for the
warm-hearted, loving woman to whom
affection is the very breath of life.
She marries him and dies of starvation
for the tenderness it is not in his ma
ture to give. Or the cultivated, schol-
arly man is irresistibly drawn to the
little doll baby girl who has nothing
on her mind except the latest thing in
hats. He marries her and spends the
balance of his life op a mental desert
island perishing for intellectual com.
partnership.
"Or the girl who is nothing but an
animated fashion plate and who cares
for nothing but the gaiety of restau-
rants. theatres and parties, marries a
man whose heart and soul and life are
bound up in SOME uplift work. Or
the man whose dream of domestic
bliss is suburban home with a peram-
bulator on the front porch and hot
dinner awaiting the Gas, deliberately
picks out a professional woman for a
wife who is more unalterably welded
to her own latehkey and pocketbook
than she ever will be to any man, and
to whom all babies are brats.
"Old Dame Nature, who is the most
constituencies matchmaker on earth,
and whose activities are. carried on
for the good of the race and not the
happiness of the individuals concerned,
precipitates Iuckless couples into such
incongruous marriages every day. You