The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-26
Dorothy DlI Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

ponds upon the individual man. Some
men are easiest domesticated if
caught while young and tender. 9th
ers can never be tanned until age and
rheumatism make them feel that they
would like to eat out of a good kind,
motherly wife's hand. And there are
other men who can never be thoroly
house broken at any age.
Generally speaking, however, pru-
dent woman who desires to be happy,
tho married, will avoid the two ex-
tremes of age in selecting her hus-
band, and will say no to both young
Romeo and tottering Grandpa when
they come a-wOoing.
OF course there is no denying that
there is something peculiarly appeal
ing and alluring in a boys lovemak-
ing. He is so impaSsioned so deadly
in earnest, SO convinced that love is
the only thing in the world, and that
no human being in the whole history
Of humanity ever experienced the
same emotions that are surging thru
his soul, that it is no wonder if a
foolish girl is swept off of her feet
by it. and lets him persuade her to
make the fatal journey to the altar
with him.
Alas, it is the undoing of both of
them. Cold statistics show that most
of the marriages that end in divorces
began in calf love romance and were
entered into by boys and girls who
were too young to know their own
minds or what they really desired in
a life partner. Common observation
bears out the danger of early mar
riages. especially the marriages of
boys.
It is a sinister and significant fact
that in almost every scandal in which
a married man and woman figure
you will find out that the man mar
ried when he was mere lad. Also
when you see faded, washed ou:,
neglected woman sitting alone at
home while her good looking and
fascinating husband roamS around in
society. and is pitied by all who know
him for being tied to a dowdy wife
whom he has outgrown, you will
ascertain, if you investigate, that he
picked her out when he was an I'M
formed boy and is spending his ma
turity repenting his salad days tastes.
There are no such unfaithful nus
bands as those who qualified in the
husband class too young
The truth is that nothing equals the
ease with which Il boy can fall in love,
except the facility with which he can
fall out of love. Youthful passion in a
masculine breast is fierce flame that
burns itself out so completelylt doesn't
even leave a cinder on the hearts
hearth to remember the girl by.
The kind of a girl boy adores in
the early twenties bores him in the
late thirties. This is the case whether
he is married to her or not. That is
why a woman is nothing short of an
imbecile to trust her fate to a man
before his tastes are formed; before
he has seen enough of women to know
what he is doing when he selects
one for keeps, and especially before
he has tasted enough of romance to
have had his fill of it, and to be will
ing to settle down to a daily diet of the
domestic brew.
Another reason why girl is taking
a long shot at happiness if she marries
a very young man is because a boy is
almost invariably selfish. undisci-
plined and egotiSticaL. He lacks the
patience to bear with another's faults
and weaknesses; the wisdom to steer
the matrimonial ship into a safe port,
and when he finds out that marriage
doesn't mean billing and cooling, but
bills and bad cooking, and heavy re-
sponsibilities, why, he's mighty apt to
turn surly and grouchy and blame
his wife for the hardships he has
brought down on his own head.
He's just too young and weak 10
bear the load he has shouldered, for
ma trimony is a grown mans job, not
boys
But if a young boy makes a selfish
and tyrannical husband, an old man
makes a worse one. Never was there
less truth in any adage than the one
about it being better to be an old
mans darling than a young mans
slave
The young woman who marries All
old man in the fatuous belief that she
is going to be able to twist him around
her little finger, finds out that she
has made the mistake of her life, par
ticu1arly if he is an old bachelor He
is encased from head to foot in a life
time of selfishness that she can no
more break thru than she could break
thru armor plate. He has habits fifty
n Il oa
&cter about as pliable as granite, and
that he could not change if he would,
and he wouldn't for any living woman.
Moreover, the old man is old. He
has exhausted all of the pleasures of
youth. He's tired. His old bones
yearn for the comforts of red flannel,
and the chimney corner when night
comes, instead of the fox trot and
draughty theaters and ball rooms. He
wants health food instead of lobster
Newburg for dinner and he expects
any chit of a girl he marries to fall
into his ways. At his time of life he
isn't going to bother to change them
to please her.
So the girl who had expected to be
an old mans darling finds herself his
slave and nurse instead, with always
the barrier of age between them that
grows higher and higher as he sinks
into senility and she approaches her
full maturity.
What then, is the best age at which
to capture a husband? When he is
around thirty. He is then man grown
He has then come to himself and
taken the measure of his desires in a
wife, and the one whom he picks out
may rest satisfied that he will not tire
of her or cease to love her He has
seen too many pretty faces to marry
just for the sake of dimple that the
first spell of sickness will wipe out,
or a curl that will lose its gloss with
the passing of a few years.
A man of thirty. or Whereabouts.
thinks of something else besides a wo-
mans looks when he marries her He
considers her soul, her mind. her
heart, the sort of companionship she
can give him, and the kind of a help
meet she will be to him. and maria ge
founded on that kind of a basis never
foil