The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-05-08
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Second Marriages.,

A widower of sixty-five, and a
widow of sixty eloped and got mar
ried the other day. And their chill
dren are perfectly furious about it,
and are saying horrid things about
senile dementia, and talking about re-
spect for mothers and fathers mem
DRY, and opining that people of their
age, should have their thoughts fixed
on their heavenly homes instead of on
bridal trips.
Stuff and nonsense! Why shouldn't
old people get married if they want
to? Surely if there is anybody on
earth who needs a good home and a
loving wife, or a tender husband, it is
the man and woman who have gotten
to the place where there is no other
spot so attractive as their own fire
side, and when they are too old and
stiff and rheumatic to desire to run
around and play and hunt up outside
play-fellows
Domesticity is a luxury for the
young. 1t is a necessity for the old,
and lonely. middle aged man and
woman never do more sensible thing
Joan and Darby to bear them COM
pany on the last lap of the journey of
life.
1t is the custom of the young to
sneer at such marriages, and the fear
of making themselves ridiculous, par
ticularly in their children's eyes, keeps
many a man and woman from making
a second marriage and establishing
second home in which they would
find nothing but peace, comfort and
happiness.
To the young the spectacle of
gray haired couple, who have to favor
their left knee a little as they go up
| stairs fancying themselves in love is
matter for ribald laughter, because, in
the mind of youth, love and marriage
1Y,h wit
| tresses, peaches and cream complex
ions and romance and thrills Pos
sibly youth is right and after one has
fought the battle of existence for
| fifty odd years. one does no longer
have hectic fevers at the mere
thought of some particular individual
or palpitates at the sound OF a certain
| football
But if middle age cannot love with
| the glamor of youth, it is capable of
| a passion that is an adequate consola-
| ton prize. 1t is capable of a deep,
compromising and satisfying friend
ship, and there is no surer foundation
| on which to build matrimonial hap
| piness than this. Indeed, it is all that
even the most romantic marriage has
| in it by the time it reaches middle
age, for long before that time senti-
ment has been torn to tatters and the
attraction q thes SenSeS has worn it
self away and husband and wife have
become either comrades and chums,
| or else they are strangers, enemies.
| In spite of what cynical DIR. John
son says about second marriages be-
| ing the triumph of hope over expert
ence, they are generally far happier
than first marriages There are. many
reasons why this should be the case.
The first is that people who marry
| second time have generally learned
some wisdom. from the mistakes they
made in their first marriage. and use
more common sense in picking out
their No. 2 mates than they did in
choosing No. /.
/ Another reason why second marri-
ages are generally successful is be-
| cause both nan and women are house
broken to id esticity. A boy and girl
enter into the holy estate under the
idelusion thatsthey have espoused i'm