The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-11
Dorothy Dir Says
Is an Old Maid Only the Fourth of a
Woman?
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

Not long ago a clever writer declared
that an old bachelor was only half
man.
An unmarried woman says: Bach
elors stand in higher esteem socially
than spinsters do, so if bachelor is
only half a man are we old maids only
a fourth of a woman
Nonsense. There is no spiritual
Bertilion system of measurements by
which We can gage the essence of the
individual and tell what he or she is to
himself or herself or what he or she
gives to the world or gets out of life.
And that constitutes the man or wo-
mans value and is his or her num-
ber
Many of the biggest Drained, big
gest hearted, biggest souled, tenderest,
most sympathetic and helpful people
never marry, and to say that these are
half Or quarter Nsize portions of hu-
manity is folly.
This is particularly true of women
for the reason that most old maids are
old maids because they were finer and
more discriminating than the ma jol ity
of their married sisters. Any woman
VINO is not an actual mOnstroSity can
acquire a husband if she will take any
sort of one that she can get. 1t is
the women who have the courage of
their convictions not to marry at all
unless they can find a man who comes
up to their ideal of manhood, who fill
And it is these women who are in
the forefront of every movement for
the public good and who in private
are the self sacrificing props that keep
millions of other peoples homes from
topping into ruins.
1t is the daughter who never mar
ries who takes care of the old father
and mother and humors their whims
and crochets. 1t is the old maid sister
who teaches school and gives the
younger members of the family r
chance in life she never had. 1t is the
old maid aunt who buys the baby
shoes, and sends Johnnie to college,
ana gives Mamie pretty dresses, in
million families where the husba nd
and father fails in business. And it is
and organization charities and is a
power for civic Righteousness in every
community in the land.
If the average old maid is only one
fourth woman the other three fourths
are plain unadulterated angel To
think of her or speak of her as one
who is set apart from ordinary in
terests of life is to show that one has
little knowledge of the modern wo-
man and her activities.
OF course it is not to be denied that
marriage and parenthood are the most
vital of all human experiences, and
perhaps no man or woman has lived
perfectly full life who has not been
thru both and known the joy and suf-
fering they bring. Ones heart chords
must have been played upon by the
hand of husband, or wife. and child
before one has run the whole gamut
of emotion. And perhaps those who
have missed that do lack something
of complete development.
These things; however. do not make
necessarily for individual happiness
or even for the rounding out into
beautiful symmetry of the individual
character Even parenthoed does not
invariably bring joy and tenderness
with it, nor act as tombstone that
calls out what is noblest and best in
man or woman.
Many children come unwanted into
the world and are regarded as a bur
den by their parents, We hear women
complaining because they are tied
down at home by baby haEds and be-
cause they have to slave over darn
ing socks and washing dirty little
faces and answering ceaseless calls
for mother. We hear fathers grumb-
ling at the bills for food for hungry
little mouths and for the clothes to
cover restless little bodies.
Still whether they have borne glad
ly or sullenly the burden of the help
less babe that has been lsid in their
arms, the man and woman who have
felt the clinging of feeble little fingers
to theirs have had something wonder
and old maid never know, and that
must needs make them either better
or worse.
Pretty much the same thing may be
said about matrimony. Marriage is
the crucible in which character is
tried out and no man and woman
come out of that fiery furnace the
same as they were when they went
into it.
Marriage brings out the best and
the worst that is in human nature. 1t
is the great enlightener. 1t not only
reveals to the man or woman unimag-
ined heights of nobility to which the
soul can soar. but depths of meanness
into which it can descend. 1t teaches
not only how one can love but how
one can hate. for only in marriage
with it's incessant and forced compan-
ionship does the human relationship
reach it's climax of perfect congenia1-
ity or utter repulsioR
This explains why we invariably no
tice that people change after they
marry. Som etimeS a man who has
been hard and surly and cold will
soften and become genial and sympa-
thetic. Sometimes man who has
been kindly and generous in thought
and words will become silent and mo-
rose and grouchy Sometimes friv-
olous and light minded girl will change
into a tender and sweet and serious
woman. or a girl who has been gentle
and cheerful will turn peevish and
disgrunteld and whining.
1t is the way they have reacted to
matrimony. 1t shows how they have
stood the discipline, whether they
have had the strength and courage
to bear disappointment and disillu-
sion, and TO make sacrifices, and let
the experience make them bigger and
better men and women. or whether
they were weaklings who soured un-
der the process.
Undoubtedly marriage is a forcing
house that develops good or evil in
people 1t furnishes the environment
in which virtue and vice find their
perfect habitat. Nowhere> else on
earth are people SO unprotected as in
the home circles In no other place
have selfishness and brutality such a
field in which to work.