The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-10
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

To Be Divorced or Not To Be,-2.
The divorced wife. no matter how
just her grievance against her hus-
band, finds herself without support.
but so long as she remains the mans
wife, he is compelled to pay her bills.
and he does this generally willingly.
not only as a sort of sop to his con-
science, but because 1t ministers to
! mans vanity to have his family live
! in good style, and present good ap-
pearance.
To a woman whose heart is torn
with jealousy over her husbands at
| tentions to. another woman, it seems
a sordid argument to say to overlook
| his offenses against the highest and
hottest things in life because he can
give you physical comforts. but in
such cases it is a condition and not
theory that the woman faces. She
simply has her choice between half
loaf or no bread at all.
Her divorce will not make her brok-
en- heart whole again. 1t will not
| change her husbands nature. 1t will
not make him a true and faithful hus-
band. 1t will merely plunge her into
poverty. 1t will force her to do within
out the comforts to which she has be-
come accustomed. 1t will send her
out into the world to Join those poor.
q
pittance because they are unskilled.
And after all, love and romance are
just the icing on the cake of life. I'm
derneath 10 are the substantials upon
which one can make a very good
meal, If one can make up ones mind
not to pine for the frosting. More
over, if a comfortable home. pretty
clothes and an assured social position
do not compensate for the lack of a
domestic husband, they are atileast a
lr@1< 81
who has them is immeasurabiy better
off than she who has neither husband
nor home.
This argument against a woman
breaking up her home because her
husband has broken her heart is ten
dren in the family.
AS long as the mother keeps her
skeleton closet securely locked and
herself out of the divorce court, she
j holds roof over her children's heads.
she gives them the advantages of ed =
ucation and fair start in the world.
which they would not have if she was
separated from their father, and she
mad dragged them down into poverty
with her.
Mahy woman. who sees Her chill
oren lacking the advantages that their
iather could have given them, her
boys forced out too soon to earn their
own living in mental capacities, her
girls shabby and tired standing be-
niho counters at a time when they
should have been enjoying society,
must have thought that she paid a
terrible price for her divorce when she
sacrificed her children to her own
revenge against the man who had
wronged her.
The truth is that divorce is not the
cure-ali for domestic misery that it is
advertised to be, and that SO many
credulous women believe 1t to be. II
may remedy one in, but it leaves a
host of other aches and pains that
hurt just as badly in its train. One of
these is that the woman who had a
definite social. status when she re-
NAMED married, with a husband and
home of her own. finds as an unat-
toched divorce, she has no place in
the sun.
The We people who most urged
her not to stand her husbands con-
, duct, and to leave the man who nd
INFLATED her by his flirtations. give
her the cold shoulder when she has
. taken their advice. They are terribly
!, sorry for her. and poor-dear her, but
this is selfish world, and we are Ill
: more cordial towards the woman who
can invite US to her houN to~dinner
, than we are towards the woman we
have to ask to our house to stay be-
cause she has nowhere else to go.
Even ones own family is not over
enthusiastic about welcoming hack
home the divorced daughter with her
brood of children Thew sympathizc
just the same. Secretly we all have a
contempt for martyrs We feel that
lthey could have avoided being martyrs
4