The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-07
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

The man or woman who marries an
valid is taking the longest shot on
earth at connubial bliss.
A young woman who evidently has
no faith in the science of eugenics as
it is being expounded to us, writes me
that she is in love with man who is
afflicted with an incurable rnalady
and that she wants to marry him. Her
parents naturally object to the match.
but she is going on with the wedding
on the principle that year or two
of marriage with him is better than
lifetime of matrimony with any 9TH
er man.
This would be plausible argument
for doing a fool thing if the girl had
only herself to consider But there
are her father and mother. who may
not relish having a widowed daughter
thrust back upon them to support in
the course of time: Above all, there
are the possible children that may be
the result of such a marriage, and who
are pretty sure, under such condi-
lions, to come into the world handi-
capped by feeble bodies or brains A
woman may have the right to take any
sort of a husband she wants. but she
hasn't right to give her children a
sickly and neurotic father.
1t is easy to see how a sentimental
and sympathetic girl can be willing to
Il q
addition to whatever charms of man
ner and mind he may have-and some
| of the most delightful men on earth
/ are cursed with weak bodies-he ap-
peals to the eternal maternal that is
| in every good woman.
She wants to mother him, to fuss
over him, to take care of him. to do
for him the thousand little things by
which a woman delights in showing
her love. His very dependence upon
| her fills her with overlooking ten
! derness towards him.
In spite OF all this, for a woman to
marry delicate man is nearly always
a terrible mistake. In fact, it is not
too much to say that it is invariably
mistake unless the man is rich
enough not to be dependent on his
| own exertions for a living. for of all
| places in the world where money is
needed it is in the sick room.
The lot of no woman is SO forlorn
| and piteous as that of the wife whose
| husband is too i'll and feeble to even
attempt to fight the wolf away from
the door, and who has to see him not
only dying. but in his dying hours
tortured with anxiety for those he is
leaving behird.
Nor is the woman who marries a
sickly man always the benefactress to
him that she expects to be. Just as
| often she is a bu, den that brushes him
| down the sooner into the grave. Hav-
| ing to support a family may force
him to have to work longer hours
than he otherwise would. or keep at
a job that is injurious to him. With
a wife, a man may not take chances
at employment that the single man
may, and so the invalid who has given
hostages to fortune cannot indulge in
the rest, or the roaming about from
climate to climate, that would prolong
his life.
So far as happiness is concerned,
the woman who marries an invalid is
taking the longest shot on earth at
| connubial blis~. Husbands are kittle
cattle to get along with at best. and a
sick one can make sore headed bear
look like living model of suavity
and amiability.
The truth is that illness does not
improve the disposition and agree
ability of any of us. 1t is only in
novels that invalids are patient and
gentle and always rewarding their
nurses with a sad, sweet smile. In
4 real life an invalid is a creature of
raw nerves and villainous temper and
monumental egotism. who never
thinks about anything but himself or
herself, and who is of the opinion that
nobody can possibly do enough for him
, or her.
| The early Christian martyrs had
nothing in the martyr line on people
who are married to invalids, and any
| DOuy VINO WOulu
for this role is entitled to a nice
padded cell instead of a marriage ring.
The man who marries delicate girl
does just as silly thing as the woman
who marries sickly man. OF course.
| it seems very romantic TO him to think
of taking a frail little creature and
cherishing her and protecting her. and
she calls forth in him all the best and
most altruistic in his nature. just as
the invalid man does in the woman.
f11ra fealx- I1nxx 60 I,
] a way of dissipating halos. and the
man who acquires invalid wife
finds out that he has sold himself into
| slavery to the doctor, and the sani-
store.
All that he can make goes to support
| her invalidism and instead of pleasant
| evenings at home, he finds himself
walking on tiptoe to avoid disturbing
sick wife whose nerves shrek out at
the slightest noise. Also he ascertains
| that it takes husky and able bodied
woman to wrestle successfully with
| bills and servants, and be a Jolly COM
panion, and that the conversation of a
| neurotic wife is one long wall of COM
plant.
! OF course, if invalidism comes after
marriage, either a wife or husband is
miserable gutter and bastard not
| to do his or her full duty towards
| loving and cherishing and nursing the
afflicted one, but between having in
vahdism thrust upon you and DELHI
erately espousing it is the difference
| between the brave and the foolhardy.
| A lot of nonsense is talked about
the science of eugenics, and impossi-
bic claims made for it. but IL out of
all the discussion it impresses upon
| people the fact that marriage is only
for the healthy, it will have added
UNNECESSARILY to the happiness of the
human race.
"A
A~& 81