The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-04
DOROTHY DIX TALKS

BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Write

| DOuDle Crossing Cuptd.-2.
| The girl who belongs to a good. but
poor family. that has seen sebetter
days." recalls how often her mothers
old black dress has been made over
in order that she may have fresh new
ones She knows the privations her
father endures so she may 80 into
good society and have her chance.
Nobody puts it into words. but she
knows as well as she knows anything,
that she is expected to marry rich,
and that only by doing so can she re-
pay her family for all the hardships
that they have undergone for her sake
She knows that her father and mother
have depended on her marriage as
their one hope for salvation.
She looks at her mothers tired face,
worn with care; she sees her fathers
! bent shoulders, and the younger sis
ters whose own future will be secured
by her making a brilliant match. Sym
pathy. affection. gratitude, her duty to
others. are all urged upon her. She
knows that If she goes her own way
and marries the poor man of her
heart she will be adding another sor-
row to burdens that are already crush
ing, and SO. unless she has the moral
courage of a hero, and back bone like
a telephone post, she gives in and
marries the man her mother wants her
to instead of the one she wants to mar
ry herself.
Nor can one always blame the moth
err over much. She is trying to save
her daughter from the life of toll and
hardship and anxiety that she has had
herself, and that SO often makes the
middle aged wife of a poor man ut
terly disillusioned. and convinced that
money is the only factor in matri-
mony that is worth considering.
But one could better understand n
mothers desire for her daughter to
marry rich if the rich were invariably
happy, or her wish for her daughter
to make a brilliant marriage II brill
liant marriages always stayed brilliant.
But they don't.
| Riches have a way of taking wings
| to themselves, and we have all seen
girls whose nuptials were celebrated
with a splendor befitting royalty, re-
| turning home heart broken and miser-
able to take in sewing to support
| a simple business proposition. and
with reference to a girls future, II is
strange that it doesn't oftener occur
to parents that the man who has held
| the same position in a store or office
for years in succession, and who has
saved up thousand dollars or two. is
a better chance than the gilded youth
who never did a days work in his
life. or earned a dollar. and whose one
star performance consisted in being
born rich mans son.
Parents are justified in trying to
save their daughters from grinding
poverty, but beyond that they have no
right to object to the sutton who can
bill of health. and a willingness to
work for her. He may have little else
to give her. They may have to begin
housekeeping in a three room cottage
or bandbox flat. They may have
many years of toll and struggle and
inn, iv,cp hot hIlf H,nv
have love to sweeten it and happiness
to gi1d it.
The most beautiful romance in
America, and the one that offsets the
the life story Of the middle aged, pros
porous couple who have begun poor
and worked up together. They have
saved together the money for the hus-
,, band to go into business for himself !;
they have economical to buy their
and hope, and ambition, and triumph
together, and they have grown into a
oneness that those who have always
been rich and prosperous never know.
1t is the very flower of our hard
working commercial life. and the girl
who marries a rich old man in order
to have the pleasure Of spending his
money, instead of a poor young man
in order to have the fun of helping
him make his money, makes the mis-
take of her life.
Besides, fortunes change so rapidly
in this country that the difference be-
tween marrying a man who has in
herited a fortune. and marrying a
poor hard working man who is max
ing his fortune, is almost a choice be-
tween whether you'd rather be rich
when you are young, or prosperous
when you are middle aged.
And before mother sends the poor
sutton for her daughters hand about
his business, she should try to solve
this question.
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