The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-09-12
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worries Highest Pa1a Woman Wntse.
The Danger Line.-1.


To students of social phenomena,
nothing is more curious than the fact
that the most dangerous time in hu-
man life. morally speaking, comes in
the roaring forties.
1t is when men and women are be-
tween forty and fifty years of age that
they are most prone to folly, and
most apt to do the things that wreck
their lives-things that they would
haye been incapable Of doing when
they were younger and that they are
too cautious to do when they are old
er. 1t is then that most divorces take
place, and most scandals have their
origin.
or course, the real reasons for this
state of affairs Is not. hard to find. 1t,
Is last flare up OF the fires of youth.
last mad desire to have one more
fling, to take a final bite of the cake
of romance, to have a farewell kiss
before one settles Down into the drab-
ness of old age.
This yearning for a last little phi
laundering is common to both men and
women, and it is the thing that makes
middle aged women who have just be-
come grandmothers suddenly take to
dyeing their hair and talking about
affinities, and that causes fat, bald
headed paunchy men to begin to doll
| up, curl their mustaches, and make
| eyes at their stenographers.
The scandals and divorces in which
the middle aged figure are nearly al
ways pitifully sordid. Tou cannot
pick up newspaper without reading
| OF some woman of high social position,
| of wealth, culture and refinement,
who has been sued for divorce by her
| husband because she has gotten into
diseraceful intrigue with her riding
master or dancing teacher. or some
long haired poet or musician, who
neither bathes nor pays his board bill.
Or you read that some brilliant, sue
| cessful man is being sued by his wife
| for divorce because of his affair with
Tottie Coughdrops of the chorus, who
IS frowsy, gum-chewing flapper,
with brains as scrambled as her hair,
and whose moral sense is as short and
| spotted as her skirts
! 4 We ask ourselves why these other
| wise sane and sensible men and
women engage in such follies, and the
only answer is that they have reached
the age of indiscretion. They are in
| the forties. They are on.the danger
| line.
| That men and women at middle age
should suddenly imagine themselves in
| love with others besides their own
wives or husbands and desire to
change partners. should really oc-
casion no surprise. 1t is the logical
working out of condition of matri-
mony that most people are too blind
to see. and too lazy and self-contented
to protect themselves against
| No matter how much in love a
| couple may be when they marry, with
4 marriage there generally comes q
cessation of love making, and the fiat
| tering that both the man and the
woman have been in the shabit OF
heaping upon each other. They strike
the dead level. monotonous jog tro,
OF domestic life in which they take
each others good qualities for granted
| and only their faults call for notice.
/ Now the heart can no more feed
upon husks and be satisfied than car
the body. Suddenly there comes q
day when the man and woman realize
that they are starved for sentiment
and with it comes also the realization
that they are growing old, and that
| their day for romance is nearly over
| and that If they do not take it quickly
it will be too late. It is Cupid's las
call to the dining car.