Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-02-20
DOROTHY
DIX SAYS

a WOMAN writes me a pathetic let
u ter i'm which she asks why she
L should be the drudge Of her fam
ily while her sister gets all the cakes and
ale. She works from morning until
night i'm 4 store, yet when she comes
home she is expected 20 do the house
| hold tasks that her sister has left UNI
done She is not only compelled to con-
| tribute her earnings to the family sup
port. but her money is taken without
appreciation or gratitude. while her SIS
ter is one of those who receive but new
er give.
Above all. the brave, weary toiler is
blessed with not tithe of the love and ten
derness that are poured out upon her
sister, who does nothing to deserve
them. and she desires to know, as many
of the other Marthas of life have, why
Mary is preferred before her.
I wish that I could answer my cores
pondents question, but no human being
knows by what process of selection one
member of the family is elected to the
post of family martyr, while another
succeeds to the lucrative office, full of
emoluments and perqu.'tc of Poor
Thing Yet. there are Nv households
in which this 'invidious distinction does
not obtain.
and hardships. She does all the dis
agreeable things. She entertains the
bores. She nurses the sick. She gets up
and prepares the early breakfast. She
helps the children with their lessons. Ev-
cry member of the family dumps his
troubles on her.
If there is anybody to be denied any
thling, she is slated for the sacrifice. IL
her sisters quarrel with their husbands,
they come to her to pour out their woes.
If her brothers play the races, and get
in trouble, they expect her to borrow
the monew for the somehow. In a word,
everything that is too disagreeable for
other people to do. falls to her lot. She
is just sort of clearing house for fam
lily difficulties
OF course, there is no justice in this
state of affairs. 1t merely exists, and
there are no tragedies in life bitterer
than those of the women who are daily
sacrificed on the altar of their families.
and who receive neither honor nor affeC-
ton for 1t. l have known women who
literally made burnt offerings of them
selves on the cooking stove, in order that
the various members of their household
might be INDUCED in the dishes that
they liked, and who wore themselves TO
skin and bone picking up and putting
away the things that other people drop
ed, that the house might be tidy, but
nobody ever appreciated it. So far from
il, Martha's domestic tastes were a
family joke, and the very people that she
shaved to make comfortable would sigh
and say how sad it was to see one vast
ing their lives on the pursuit of tri-
files!
Sometimes the family martyr is a
young girl who bravely shoulders the
,1f ha- 70 nd ma
money! she earns in giving her brothers
and sisters the advantages that she can
never have herself, and they take her
sacrifices without question or thanks.
They never ask themselves why she
should give up her life for theirs. They
never consider that the money she spends
on them would give her pretty clothes,
pleasures, perhaps opportunities to mar
ny, that she can never have, while, like
Cinderella, she sits in rags on the
hearth at home.
They never think that when a girl
gives up her youth she is giving all that
life can ever offer her, for when wom-
an sacrifices her youth for her family,
she has broken at their feet the ala
baster box that contained all the posi-
bilities of love and romance that might
ever be hers.
Sometimes the family martyr sacrifices
the talents that would have made her
famous. The saddest story l was efer
told a woman whispered to me between
her sobs. She had written a first novel,
strong, virile. original, full of promise,
and on the strength of that she had re-
ceived an offer from a big New York
newspaper to join it's staff. Her ticket
was bought, her trunk checked, bril-
liant and prosperous future stretched
before her, when the very night before
she was to start for New York, her Sis
ter died, and dying, selfishly demanded of
the family martyr that she should give
I'D her career and rear the six orphan
children she left.
Martha accepted the burden, as every
Martha heroically has had a way OF
doing since. time began, and the door
nj hope shut in her face. For twenty
Years her life had been abject slavery,
toiling day and night to make insult
ficient means meet the needs of a grow
ing family her genius dulling itself ut
uncongenial tasks-for you cannot con-
vert Pegasus into a dray horse with
out breaking his spirit-until, at last,
she knew that the opportunity of life
was gone for her, and what she might
have been she could never be. What
was left, to her of life was just the
dust and ashes of the sacrifice she had
offered up TO her family.
Martha's family never appreciated her.
They never will They speak of her
with tolerant affection, as one who you
deserve credit for loving, although she
is neither successful nor brilliant, and
has done nothing to deserve it, and
when the time comes that she, will have
to live with them, the sisters and
brothers for whom she has sacrificed
her life will consider her burden.
There is no help for Martha. She
will go on to the end of time sacrificing
herself. but whenever 1 build a monu-
ment to woman the lady who is going
to be invited to occupy the top seat is
the poor, unappreciated, prosecuted
family noartVr