The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-21
dorothy Dir Says
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
The Stacker and Matrimony.


The Stacker and Matrimony.
Ever since the report went forth
that a dependent wife would save a
man from the consumption draft the
wedding bells have been overworked
by slackers who thought that they
would find a safe refuge from war
in matrimony.
A marriage minute was the record
for space of time in New York at
the matFim onial bureau. And such
marriages as many of them were.
Boys marrying women old enough to
be their mothers, or almost their
grandmothersi Men marrying girls
with whom they were so little ae-
quainted they had to ask the girls
names in applying for their marriage
licenses. Furtive eyed fellows leading
painted faced, bleached haired wo-
men to the altar-men marrying any
body with enough skirts on fof them
to hide behind. And they all went
away to live scrappily ever after.
For what chance of success could
such marriages possibly have? What
hope of man making good husband
VINO entered into the most scared obli-
cation of life from the basest motives,
and who showed by his very act that
he was without loyalty, gratitude or
any sense of his obligations and du-
ties? You can't build a home on sch
=
If it were not such sordid and
contemplate sight, the spectacle Of a
man getting married to avoid going
to war would be one that was sar-
donically humorous. 1t is jumping cut
of the frying pan into the fire with
vengeance, and the Stacker bride
groom will find his case similar to
that of the circus man who, fleeing
from his wifes wrath, took refuge
in the lions cage before which she
stood and shook her fist and tainted
him with, Come out of that, you cow
ard, if you darer'
Certainly the man who thinks he is
going to escape fighting by getting
married has another guess coming to
him He will find that matrimcny
inclination, of temperaments, of
! tastes, of habits, fight of all that
goes to make up two different Der
sonalities-a battle royal over The
laIch key, over the pOcketbook, over
the way the potatoes are cooked over
the mult1tud1nous details that consti-
| tute daily life, out of which few come
alive and none UNNAMED
or coulse the Stacker who is afraid
TO go to war thinks that he would
rather fight a woman than a man his
own size. Alas, here, too, he is due
to have a bitter awakening from his
dream of SAFETY. A wife fights with
per tongue, swifter and more fatal in
It's action than any machine gun. And
! sne aims every time with deadly and
Ger.ain knowledge at some weak spot
4 IN ner husbands character and every
shqt goes home. And against that
1uslliade of inVective there is no bar
rage of fire to protect him.
many husband, coming home late
| at night, and exposed to the bonn
pardment of the family circle when
MS wife turns her Big Berthas upon
| MIN and lets him have a broadside of
all the burning thoughts she has been
| thinking while she waited up for him,
mas wished himself safe in the
trenches where there was nothing but
a little shrapnel and bombs and things
10 disturb mans peace and quiet
i another thing that the Stacker who
| would rather marry than enlist will
| find out to his cost is that to avoid a
| little trouble he has jumped into life
long trouble. To escape doing his
| duty to his country for a few months
he has made himself responsible for
duties that he will have to do to the
end of his days. To avoid bearing his
| part of the burden of citizenship he
has taken upon his back a burden that
| he can never lay down.
For the war, at worst, can only last
a very few years, possibly it will only
last few months, but when a man is
| married he is married for long, long
time, and when he makes a cowardly
and dastardly marriage, it seems
longer.
The Stacker who thinks that ne Is
getting out of doing his bit by getting
| married is as sure as there is God
| of Retribution to get his punishment
that fits his crime. Something with
| boiling oil in it, you know. He may
save his worthless skin, but he cannot
save his soul from torture at the
shands of the woman to whom he il
married who knows his shame and
who flags him with it.
\ AS for the women who marry slack
ers. they get what they deserve. an6
worse fate than that there is none.
l. The man who has no sense of obi
| cation to his country will have nc
sense of obligation to his family. He
| will never feel that, because he ha:
! married a woman and brought chill
dren into the world, it is up to hin
| to work and support them. Not he
He will make the kind of a husband
who says let George do it, and who
goes with his wife back to her home
to live on her folks.
| The man who will not do his bit fol
his country will not do his bit for hi.
family He is lazy and shiftless an6
worthless and self indulgent and self
ish-the sort of man who always de
velops chronic invaIdism when there
is any real work to be done and who
lies down on the job and lets his wife
take in boarders to support him.
The man who is afraid to go to the
front in battle will always be the mar
who is afraid to go to the front in
life. He is born piker. He lack:
grit and courage and initiative. ant
the woman who marries him will al
ways have q straw man that she viii
have to hold up.
The man who hides behind a WON
ans skirts when his country calls hin
will make the sort of a husband WHIT
follows in Adams footsteps and lay
all of his sins and weaknesses on hi
wife's shoulders. If he is drunkarC
he will say that his wife drove him t.
drink If he fails in business he vii
declare that his wife's extravaganza
ruined him. His wife will be a scape
goat offered nm for his sins as we'll a.