The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-02
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
Double Crossing Cupid.
III DOROTHY DIX
Wos1d's Highest Paid Wsnaa vi

have a letter from a girl who says;
How far have mothers a right to
interfere in their daughters love af-
fairs?. am engaged to young man
who has every good quality except
money. He is sober, moral and In
dustrious, but my mother absolutely
refuses her consent to our marriage
and says that If 1 do marry this man
she will never forgive me or have
anything to do with me again.
do you think that my mother is
wrong in her attitude? If I am not
afraid of poverty and hard work, why
should she be for me? After all, 1t
is I who will have to live with the
man I marry, not my mother, and 1t
seems to me that it is more important
that 1 should be pleased in the mat
ter than She
OF course the girl is right in this.
Husbands and wives are as purely a
matter of taste as whether you like
onions with your beefsteak or not, and
those who have to endure daily diet
of them for thirty or forty years
should certainly have the consolation
of picking out their own particular
flavor.
Each of us has the inalienable right
to make our own matrimonial mis-
| take, and if there could be some dis
passionate and unprejudiced commits
sion appointed to inquire into, when
parents are right, and when wrong, in
opposing their daughters choice Of a
husband, a great deal of trouble
could be avoided.
Undoubtedly there are times-as in
| a case when a man is known to be
drunken or immoral, or even plain
no-account-whena father and moth
er are just as bound to try to keep
their daughter from marrying the
l 10 n wit IL
| be to prevent her committing suicide
| if she had a tendency that way. There
are hundreds of other cases, however
when the opposition to a young mar
is merely based on difference of reli-
gious views, family pride or lack OF
/ money. that are utterly unjustified.
The chief source of opposition to
most marriages where the course OF
young love fails to run smooth, il
poverty. 1t is the impecunious sutton
who is oftenest persona non grats
with his sweetheart's family, for ia.
Their and mother have the trick OF
turning blind eye on the shortcom.
lngs OF a youth with well lined peck.
| cts, and considering that a man beins
able to give his wife an automobile
1 and an establishment will cover a null
t1tude of wild oats, or bridge over 3
disparity of thirty years in age.
o course one may say that the par.
i u
amounts to little, and that in these
times no one can keep a girl from
] marrying the man she wants to, o,
make her marry the one she doesil'
want to marry. Parents can't lock &
girl up in a turret chamber nowadays
and feed her on bread and water unit
she is willing to espouse the husband
/ of their choice. oi-4s-s 81 9nyrss
/ That is true, but there are mora
thumbscrews that are just as agoniz
ingly effective as physical ones eve
4 were, and nobody but girls themselve
j know how often they are applied.
Il Take, for instance, the case of
girl who belongs to good family tina
is poor, a family that has seen "bette
days" and that writhes under it
present estate and that depends upol
the daughter to pull it back into pros
perity. Such a girls people have mad
cruel sacrifices to educate her. Sh,
knows all the pinching economies tina
her every year at school has cost.