Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-11
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
And Also Intelligence
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

have received letter from man who
says:
I'm your matrimonial articles you say
much about tidiness, good humor, good
housekeeping, et"., ETC., as the requisite es-
sentials of good wife. All good points, and
very true, but excellent servant can have
all Of these qualifications and yet not qualify
fora good wife You have missed the man
point. Man !iyeti not On bread alone .Eo
addition to all creature comforts, we men re-
qulre one oVerpoWering essential and rbat is
education and intelligence--rhe ability ro <,u-
derstand and appreciate the tnec thtngb o.
;ifo.
For generations women have been taught
to pander to the physical side Of men to the
exclusion of the mental. This is a mistake
that has been responsible for 80 per cent
of the failures of marriage, and it will con-
tinue to be the cause of the break up Of
homes in the future, unless writer's of your
type take the matter in hand Have you
ever stopped to think that mems clubs are the
result OF the lack of mental understanding
at home?
"Most men flock to clubs for interchange
of mental ideas; something they cannot get
at home for the simple reason that their
women are far behind TEN in mental cult
ure. When women are we'll read and have
opinions on topics of the day, opinions that
are based on intelligence and not on pre-
JUDGE, they viii. have no trouble in finding
tne proper husband, and there Will be more
demonstrating husbands"
l perfectly agree with my correspondent as
to the value of the intelligent educated
woman, who is fitted to be companion to an
educated intelligent man, and who can serve
him up as spicy conversation as she can a
dinner. Also, l agree with him that the cause
of most men wandering from their own fire.
side is because they get so bored listening to
the insane line of chatter of the ladies they
nave picked out for life mates, that flesh and
blood can't stand it.
The trouble with the situation, however,
is that most men want one thing in a woman
before marriage and another thing after
marriage. Or, to be exact, they want all the
charms and virtues punched in one woman,
and as nature deals out her gifts with a
pretty impartial hand, you never find the
paragon that even the most ordinary OF the
masculine species feels is his due.
man, for instance, wants wife who is
:-oung and beautiful, and slim and lissome,
and highly educated, and sympathetic and
good cook, and thrifty manager, and as
Sarah. Camp said of Mrs. Harris, There
amt no SIGH y person" When you find that
nature has been over generous to the out
side of girl head you will find that she
has skimped on the inside furnishings.
Even the slonderness without which a
girls name is Anathema now to men, is
mighty apt to let her husband in later for
doctors bills for aenemia and nervous pros
tration. For some inexplicable reason, the
girl who knows how to cook almost never
knows how to do her hair. or buy hat, and
you can count on the fingers of one hand all
the young women with the M. AS and Phi.
DIS after their names whom you know, who
would even have look in at beauty show.
This being the case, and poor men having
to make q choice, more or less between the
different types of women, he has made the
mistake of picking out wife that was easy
on the eyes .lstead of one whom it would
be easy to live with And not only the fool
ish men have made this mistake Even the
wise make it. Hence the .prey&!erico Of di-
vorce. 7'.'
For the living picture is bound to fade in
a few years, and man gets tired Of looking
at picture, anyway. He wants somebody to
talk to, somebody who will understand him,
and who can sympathize with him, somebody
who is interested in the subjects that he is
interested in, and who can wander hand in
hand with him down the pleasant path ways
of literature, and art, and music.
man of education and intelligence must
know that he is going to want that sort OF
wife, but does he take the trouble to provide
himself with one whose mind is on par
with his own? He does not. He marries
fluffy ruffles without two ideas in her head
because she's pretty Just pretty. The girl
doesn't fool him. She couldn't a woman
can camoufiage good looks with clothes and
but she can't initiate brains, and
give a 1ife-like illusion of being clever and
if she is dull and stupid.
Now the country is overlooking with clev-
err, educated, intelligent girls. The high
schools and colleges turn them out by the
thousands every year. And they are mostly
sitting at home of evenings reading Ibsen,
while their silly little sisters, with pretty
painted faces and conversational repertoire
that consists of giggles and II said and
''He said" and "Ain't it fierce" and "It sure
was some party" are out at parties, and
theaters, and joy riding with men who will
marry them while the female intellectuals
are earning their own bread and butter
Of course there are few men who pick
put their wives for something more than their
looks, and these marriages are invariably
happy marriages, for when the romance that
daily life is bound to tear to tatters, is
thrown into the discard and when beauty
has fed, these people have still left comrade-
ship, and a mutual interest in thousands of
different subjects. And they never get on
each others nerves because they never bore
each other.
My correspondent is right Most of the
marriages that are failures go on the rocks
because the wife is not the intellectual equal
If her husband. B It it is the men who
pick out their wives. The problem is up to