The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-12-24
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
What Has Marriage Taught You?

A group of men and women were
recently discussing matrimony.
Marriage may not be an unquan-
fled success as promoter or happl-
ness" said a woman with shrewd eyes
with a twinkle in them, but it is the
greatest educator in the world. 1t is
a postgraduate course in philosophy,
diplomacy, walking on eggs, general
plain-and-fancy juggling and sleight
of hand performing. The dullest man
and woman who have celebrated their
silver wedding know more about life
and the inner workings of human ma
ture, than the cleverest and most brill
liant bachelor student could learn in
thousand years.
"And matrimony is a great and I'M
paFalleled maker of character. We go
into it poor, half-baked young crea-
lures, fermenting with the yeast of
romantic theories and highfalutin'
ideals. and we come out of it either
angel food, or hard and soured war
bread that gives every one who comes
in contact with US a mental indiges-
ton.
NO man or woman is the same
after marriage as they were before.
pie; sometimes they are made worse,
but they are changed. Marriage is
not only the great adventure. it is the
great alteration shop in which we are
made over according to the cut pat
tern of a wife or a husband of the. one
we marry"
"Right-o," exclaimed a man, mat
rimony is a school where we get in
tensive courses in self knowledge I'M
der a teacher who does not spare the
| rod. Speaking personally, the thing
that I have learned from marriage is
a deep and abiding humility, and I
| imagine that I am not the only stu
| dent who has taken a dinInn1a in that
| particular branch of learning in which
i matrimony seems to specialize. At
| any rate, il you will look about you,
you will see that nearly all Of the
| chesty people you meet are unmar-
ried, and that practically all reforners
are bachelors or spinsters.
They are the only ones who have
| the nerve to point out their faults to
| other people. Those Of us who have
had a conscientious husband or wife
| who felt 1t his or her sacred duty to
point out our weaknesses to us are too
| crushed with the sense of our own i'm
projections to hand out advice to a
worn2<
'Same here" smiled q woman, IT
| suppose the main lesson of matrimony
| for all of us is that we are not the
| only one, nor even the biggest one.
principle in physics that we learned
in our school books. that two bodies
| cannot occupy the same space at the
same time and that when a husbands
and wife's vanity collide, one or the
other has got to get out Of the way.
| "At any rate, the chief thing that
| marriage has taught me IL that any
| woman who wants to live in peace and
| happiness with her husband has got to
| sacrifice her vanity to his. But, as a
reward, she can draw a hundred per
| cent dividend on her sacrifices."
1.-The thing that marriage has taught
| men and women have entirely differ
| ent standards of value,l and that the
| things that men consider all impor-
| TAM, women put no stress upon, and
| the things that men consider too small
| to notice, loom big as mountains to
| women.
"a woman cares more for words
| than she does for deeds. A man may
work himself to death 20 Keep his wife
| soft and easy, and protect her from
| every hard wind that blows, and she
| will doubt his love IL he happens to be
| one of the silent kind that finds it hard
| to talk about the state of his affec-
lions, but she will believe that she is
| supremacy adored by any glib tongued
rascal who quotes poetry to her and
| tells her that she has eyes like stars.
even If she has to take in boarders to
| support him.
| II got the shock of my life when I
| discovered that woman will overlook
| anything her husband does. and for
| give him everything, and still consider
| that she has drawn a matrimonial
| prize IL he will bring her home an oc-
| casional bunch of violets. remembers
. anniversaries and uoficAa what she