The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-22
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
WoraA's Highest Paid wsnan WRITER.
Women After the War.

Women After the War.
No war that has ever been fought
has been of such momentous conse-
quence to women as this war. 1t has
changed the whole world for them. 1t
has literally made for them a new
earth. new Heaven and new He'll,
and when it is over they will find
themselves embarked upon a sea of
life in which most of the landmarks
by which their grandmothers steered
will have been swept away.
They will have gained the franchise
because those who are fighting to
establish the democracy of the world
cannot deny the right of the ballot to
half of the inhabitants thereof. The
walls of the harem in which women
have been literally, or figuratively.
shut UP for centuries will be broken
down never to be rebuilt again.
Nobody can ever again talk about
womans sacred sphere or the potency
of woman's gentle, silent influence
with battalion of women going sing
ing to certain death in a vain attempt
to shame their craven men soldiers to
fight for their country, and with wom-
en- driving motor tories on the battle
field and toiling like fiends in am
munition factories. The war has blot
ted out the sex line and LETT us all
just human beings.
After the war many women who
have been rich all their lives will find
themselves poor. Many who have
been poor will be rich. Many women
who have always leaned upon the
strong arms of men will find them
selves obliged to stand alone. Many
women who have lived futile. frivolous
lives and who have been stirred by the
war into doing great humanitarian
work, will find when it is ended that
they cannot go back and make a
career of bridge, fox trotting and
clothes.
Poor women who have made only a
small pittance as domestic servants or
seamstresses will find out that they
can earn money doing expert work
in factories that it has heretofore been
thought only men could do, and wom-
tunities as they had never hoped for
in their widest dreamS.
All of this is going to make many
changes in the relationship between
men and women-changes that will
force US to alter our point of view on
the most momentous change of all
that the war will bring to women.
The big change is that it's going
to doom to spinsterhood millions of
young women who, bat for this war,
would have married. The girl of to-
fidently to wifehood and motherhood
as her predestined avocation in life.
For a couple of generations to come,
at least, husbands will belong to the
luxury class and not among the do
nestle necessities of the household.
Before the war England and Ger
many already had an immense sur
plus female population. How much
this has been augmented by the terri
BILE loss of men in battle heaven only
knows, but it is certain there will be
in every European country that is now
engaged in this bloody strife, millions
of women for whom there can be no
possible opportunity of marriage.
Conditions will not be quite so bad
in our own country. but what with the
loss of young men who must inevitably
perish in the struggle, and those who
marrying. and with the hordes of for
eign women who will undoubtedly
emigrate to America at the close of
the war, the matrimonial situation
even here will be desperate indeed.
These are discouraging facts. but they
are facts.
The girl of today, therefore, is fool
ish indeed if she does not see the
handwriting on the wall that spells
spinster and does not prepare herself
to follow some gainful occupation
whereby she may support herself in
comfort, and do herself" as our Eng
lish friends say, Is well a husband
would be able to do for her.
Now aside from the census view of
the matter, whether it is a misfortune
or not for girl to be an old maid de-
ponds entirely upon her own attitude
towards the subject.
The chief objection that most girls
have to remaining single is that they
are ashamed of being old maids. They
think that it indicates that they are
less attractive than their sisters who
secure husbands. If the truth were
fess that she married not so much for
love as because all her friends were
getting married and were asking her
why she didn't marry, and because
she had gotten tired trotting around
to balls and parties and wanted some
real work to do and some established
place in the world to fill.
OF course the traditional stigma
upon old maids will be automatically
removed when marriage becomes the
exception, and not the rule, among
young women. and when the fairest
flowers remain unplucked on the pa
rent bough. That will take away one
of the main objections to spinsterhood.
So will another disadvantage be elm
mated when girls are not only able to
make enough money to support them
selves in comfort but have the inter-.
est and excitement of business to fill
in their days.
No girl is foolish enough to believe
that marriage will inevitably secure
her happiness. On the contrary she
knows it for what it is-the most des-
perate gamble on earth-Heaven If
you win, the other place if you lose
Furthermore, her observations among
her friends show her that the average
woman looks about ten
years younger and generally has bet
ter clothes and more peace of mind
than her married sister.
But the girl has been taught that if
she doesn't marry she will miss the
greatest good that could come to a
woman; that the love of some man is
the whole of life for a woman, and
that If she does not have a romance
she has nothing.