The Washington herald., 1918-07-26
THE LOVERS LITANY
By DOROTHY DIX
THE WORLDS HIGHEST PAID WOMAN WRITER

Isn't 1t queer how differently we
look at matrimony before and after
trying 1t? And IT is queerer still
how experience OF the holy estate
shifts our sense of values, and
makes the things that seemed un-
important before marriage all i'm
portant afterwards, while it turns
the mountains of courtship into the
mole hills of wedlock.
To a romantic young couple moth
ing in the world seems to matter but
love and the state of their hearts.
After marriage they find out that
a million other things are quite as
necessary to their peace. comfort
| and happiness as Is affection and
that whether life is worth living or
not depends less upon the state of
their hearts than upon the condition
of their lives.
When youth and maiden discover
/ that they are enamored of each
other and cannot live apart, they
| spend hours, weeks and months,
somtimes years, asking each other
! these all-important questions "Oo's
| ducky is 'oo?" Are you utterly,
absolutely sure that you never loved
! before?" IF 1 should die, will you
swear never to marry again?" do
you miss me when l am gone?" and
| DO you count the hours until /
shall come again." when did you
first realize that you loved me?'
will you never find fault with me,
no matter II I am not quite the
| angel you think l ann" will you
love me when I am old?" And so
| on. A never-ending list which both
| carefully perjure themselves in an
| swering.
| That is before marriage. When
! neither the man nor the woman ha s
the remotest idea of what qualities
/ go to make up a good husband or
| wife, or what sort of capital one
! needs to carry on successfully the
| business of matrimony.
But after marriage, II the thing
| were to do over again, the anxious
seekers after cannubial bliss woild
PROFOUND a very different line of
| conundrums to their intendeds. They
wouldn't bother so much with heart
throbs as they would with stoma chs,
and they wouldn't be nearly so much
| interested in finding out exactly
what each one thought of the other
as they would be in ascertaining
what each one was willing to do
for the other.
No man, after having been married
for six months. would ask a girl
"Oo's ducky is 'oo?" He would in
quire of her If she was a good cook
and housekeeper. and knew how to
haf
to health and happiness. For expert
ence would have taught him that while
baby-talk lady. who doesn't know
whether to buy eggs by the dozen or
the bushel. may be fascinating to
make love to. she can drive a man to
drink when she sits him down to dys-
pepsia- breeding meals.
Romeo never thinks of investigating
how Juliet qualities in the domestic
class. yet the whole question of
whether his marriage Is going to be
success or failure rests on the
kitchen range and the grocery pass
! book. Cupid abides permanently in
only those homes where there is a
thrifty wife. There is no record of
any mans love having survived
stodgy potatoes. undone boiled NUT
ton, waste, debts and discomfort in
the home.
Nor would any man, after sampling
matrimony, waste his breath in ask
ing a girl II her heart beat for him
alone He would put to her a few
cautious, discreet. yet searching
questions about the state of her
nerves. He would not try to find out
IL she thrilled at the sound of his
footsteps, but IL she had Mysteries ev-
cry time any little thing went wrong.
Experience would have taught him
that while temperament Is interesting
alluring and all that kind of thing,
you know, when it gets translated in
| to the prose OF domestic life, it is
mighty apt to turn into temper; and
that while a sweetheart who Is al
ways presenting another angle Of her
many-sided character to a man is
fascinating, when it comes to being
married a man wants to know what
he can depend on in his wife without
any guessing.
B Likewise he would have deduced
that while it is flattering to a mans
vanity for his wife to worship him
maGly. wildly and passionately, he
buys this alteration at too high a
lprice. If he has to deal with a neu-
rotic. unreasonable creature who is
given to floods of tears, subject to fits
Of jealousy. one who makes scenes,
and lets her husband in for bank
ruptcy in doctor and sanitarium bills
for the balance of his life.
Probably no man before marriage
ever inquiries into the state of health
of the girl he is courting, or tries TO
find out whether she has got the kind
of nerves that make wife easy GO
ing and comfortable to live with, but
after marriage that is the thing that
he wishes most, that he had found out
in time.
And woman's questions to a man
would be Just as different as the ones
! he asks her.