The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-17
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Giving the Girl a Square Deal.

is highry indignant because a young
man with whom she has been playing
around has served notice on her that
his attentions are without intention,
and that while he likes her as a friend
and enjoys her society, he is not in
love with her and has no notion of
asking her to marry him.
The conceited thing!" she ex-
claims. How does he dare to think
that l want to marry hini L suppose
he thinks that 1 am sitting around
with my fingers crossed for luck, hop
ing and praying that he will pop the
question. 1 like to 90 to the theater
with him and out to dinner because
he's good company, and ike to
dance with him because his step
matches mine, but as for marrying
him-no, thank you! When 1 go out
sleuthing for husband I'll be looking
for a very different man from him,
and he needn't have troubled himself
to warn me against cherishing any
false hopes about getting him. The
very idea!'
The girl is wrong. Instead of being
angry at the young man and thlnk-
ing that he displays a virulent case
of swell head in telling her plainly
and fatty that there are no wedding
bells on the program so far as ne Is
concerned, she should admire him Tor
consideration for her.
1t isn't egotism that has made the
Young man explain to the girl exactly
where he stands on the matrimonial
platform. It is chivalry, the new chlV-
airy of men that, for the first time
in the worlds history, really CONSIDERS
the woman and gives her square
deal
Getting married is a girls business
"A sentimental business, If you Ike
but still a business. 1t is the means
by which the average woman not only
| has to secure her happiness IN h1e,
but also her livelihood. Wifehood ana
motherhood are the career for winch
nature destined her. Whether inns
| career is brilliant or humble; whetn-
or she shines in society or takes IN
Washing whether she is rich or poor,
depends upon the kind of huspanu
she gets.
Moreover, generally speaking, sne
has only a very few years, the snort
period of her youth and beauty, IN
which to achieve this career of Wife
hood. She must literally make her
hay while her sun shines. rms makes
| it all important to her to know the
exact attitude of every man WHO comes
about her ,.
She must know, to protect herself,
whether he is a probability or a pos
| sibility as a husband, or whether he is
merely a cumberer of parlor chalrs
who, as a homely old lady once eX-
pressed it, Comes and comes, and sits
and sits, but never courts
Girls are too ignorant of the world
to realize it, but every man knows
| that a Young woman can have no
worse enemy than the man who is a
social dead beat, who takes up her
time and monopolizes her society, who
lets her waste her youth End fresh
ness and beauty upon him when ne
| has no intention whatever OF asking
her to marry him.
| He knows that his attentions are
without intention. He knows that he
| is keeping away other men who would
like to marry her. He knows that he
| is in all proba bility booming her to a
spinsterhood in which she VIII have to
earn her own bread and butter instead
of having a good husband to provide
her with cake and ale, but, because
| the girl is attractive or amusing or it
with the prettiest debutante of the
year, this monumental egotist sacri-
| fees her whole future to his own
selfish pleasure.
Sometimes such a man will even
deliberately set himself to win the
girls heart. He talks sentiment to
her by the yard. He beguiles her
along all the flowery paths Of romance
to, the very brink of the proposing
point, but he never goes over that. A.
the very edge of it he stops short and
backs away to safety And after
awhile he fits away, like gay butter
| fly, to some other bud in the rosebud
garden of girls.
| Sometimes a trifler like this has
done the girl an irreparable harm be-
cause he has filled her heart so full
of him 1t never has room in it for an
other man. Always he has hurt the
girl to this extent that he has brushed
some of the freshness from the flower
of her faith in man. He has left her
cynical, disillusioned, bitter
| Now, in iudging of a mans senti-
ments to her young and inexperienc-
ed girl is absolutely helpless. She has
no way of even guessing what his in
tentions are. She has no scale of
values by which to measure the worth
| of his courteSieS, no acid test to apply
to what he tells her, so as to ascer-
tain what is truth and wha1 is lies
| She is even credulous enough to de-
ceive herself into believing that mere
compliments indicate love, and that a
man would not hang about her, and
be eager to take her to places, and
furious if she danced with another
man, unless he meant to ask her to
marry him.
Workings know, as the girl ,.oes
not, that what a man does for a wom-
an or what he says to her, mean moth
ing, or everything as the case may be.
OF themselves they have no value as
an index to his intentions.
| A man may visit a girl seven times
a week. He may take her about to
theater and restaurants and cabarets
and spend money like water upon her
because he enjoys her society, because
he is lonesome, because she attracts
attention in public places and he likes
! to see people stare at her, because he
wants to make some other man jeal-
Gus, because of a thousand reasons
that have no earthly connection with
a wedding ring and that never lead to
the altar.
| But the girl can only keep guessin q
what these things mean. She doesn'e
know whether, in accepting the mans
attentions. she is following a blind
trail that leads to the no mans land
of old maidenhood. or a paying lead
that ends in a church wedding. She
doesn't know whether to encourage
the man or show him the door. That
/ is why 1t is such a kindly and honor
able act for young man to let a girl