The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-16
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Teach Girls to Handle Money.


A woman was telling me a pathetic
little story the other day. She said:
My married life has been wrecked
on the dollar mark. l alienated my
husbands affections by my extrava-
gance. 1 lost his respect thru my in
ability to manage my household af-
fairs, and thru my ignorance of the
cost of things. 1 am treated by him
with sort of contemptuous pity in
stead of being regarded as a helpmeet,
and all because L was never taught as
a girl how to handle money.
Il was the only girl in a family
where there were several devoted
brothers. and they delighted in Law
ishing everything upon their little sis
ter. Whatever I wanted I was in
dulged in, but it was given to me. /
never bought it myself. 1 never had
the actual handling of money. or saw
how fast full purse can dwindle into
an empty one.
Then got married. and I did what
anyone might have foreseen that
girl brought up in entire ignorance of
the value of money would have done.
l plunged into an orgy of spending. l
literally burned money up. 1 run my
husband into debt, and when he re-
monstrated with me l accused him of
being stingy, and wept and made
scenes.
FINALLY, realizing that I was ruin
ing him, he took charge of all the fam
lily expenditures himself. He buys
even my own clothes. l have only a
small allowance for street car fare.
am a cipher in my own house. Moth
ing will ever convince him that 1 am
to be trusted with a dollar. or that
I have learned a bitter lesson. Moth
ing will ever make him regard me as
anything more than a useless parlor
ornament, or think of me as a real
wife, to be consulted and confided in"
[ This womans story could be dupli-
Gated in thousands of other homes
where the first rift within the lutte.
the first shadow on the honeymoon,
| came with the young husbands dis
| covery that the angel that he thought
he had married knew no more about
the value of dollar than if she be-
longed, indeed. to that celestial region
whose inhabitants wear feathers in
stead of tailor mades. and subsist on
nectar and ambrosia instead of beef
steak. and where the divine harmony
is not disturbed by the high cost of
living.
| Nothing nips romance more COM
pletely in the bud than debt, and when
the bill collector is forever hammer
| ing en- the front door love is very sure
to beat it out of the window. No
mans vision of a perfect wife is a
lady who scatters his hard-earned dol
lars to the winds, nor does he look
forward to a happy life with his nose
always on the grindstone of her ex-
| travagance.
No successful home can ever be
built except upon an adequate finan-
cial foundation. and it is Just as i'm
portant for the wife to be thrifty and
economical and spend wisely as It Is
for the husband to make the money
that supports the household.
Now the great majority of women
enter into marriage with a sincere de-
sire to help their husbands, and TO be
real valuable working partners. When
they fail to do this 1t is thru ignor-
ance. and when they waste their hus
BANDS incomes and are guilty OF
ways because they have not beer
taught how to handle money.
OF course in time most women dc
learn that there are only a hundred
cents in dollar instead of a thou.
sand. but their experimentation IL a.
the expense of the men they have
married. and by the time they have
quarreled and fought with their hus
bands so often that they have rubbed
the. bloom off their married life and
made a little breach between them
selves and their nds that il neyel
entirely bridged over>
Parents commit a grieyous fault II
not teaching their daughters how q
handle money. and thus learning b,
actual experience when to spend ans
when to save and how far a definite
amount will go. II every girl. from
the time she was twelve years old. hai
her own personal allowance on which
, she was obliged TO dress and pay he
own expenses under her mother