Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-18
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
To Propose or Not to
Propose
Copyright. 1920, by the Wheeler sy
dictate, Inc)

young man is very much in love with
a girl but he is poor and in position to
marry. 1t may be years before he is able
to undertake the support of family, and
he is torn in the conflict between his heart
and his head.
He feels that it is not quite fair to bind
the girl to him by long engagement, and
yet he also feels that it is right to let her
know that his heart l. hers, and that he
has not been just philandering with her, so
he asks shall he pop the question or not
l say yes. 1t is a question that the girl
has right to { tide, and however she does
it, it will always be another bead on her
rosary of happiness to know that the man
cared for her. For with women it is always
better to have loved and lost than never
to have been loved at ALL
Many man who thinks it dshonorable to
bind woman he loves to his uncertain for
tune dooms her to a far worse fate than
poverty. She does not understand his silence,
nor guess why he loved and rode away with
out speaking, and so she grows into bitter,
hard old maid, who rails at the faithlessness
of man because she believes that the one
man to whom she gave the priceless jewel
of her maiden heart trifled with it and
flouted it,
Women are not pikers in love- nor are
they as afraid of hardships as men imagine
them to be. So if they would prefer to risk
their all in the great adventure rather than
spend their days safe and dull and knowing
never thrill o. love or danger, certainly no
man has the right to deny them the privi-
lege OF making the choice, and deciding the
question for themselves.
agree with the young man in thinking
that long engagement is one of the most
unsatisfactory phases of all the relation
SHIPS between men and women for 1t is nei-
Their the one thing nor the other. It has
neither the freedom of the celibate, nor the
security of the married. 1t is neither fish
nor flesh, nor good red herring
1t wears out romance as not even mar
riage does, because it is full of the ieal-
ous1es and chickering's of those who belong,
and yet do not belong to each other, and the
couples who eventually marry, after they
have waited years for each other, almost al
ways find when they come to drink their
cup OF rapture at being together at last, that
1t has gone stall and flat at having stood too
long. 1t is like last nights champagne
served up for breakfast.
The long engagement is even more disas-
trous when a couple are parted and live in
different places. Then it is inevitable that
they should grow apart because environment
develops them along different lines, or one
develops and the other stands still.
There are no more profound tragedies than
those that are the result of long engage
ment between girls and boys who are start
ing in away from the country, or some small
town, to seek their fortunes.
If the boy does not succeed, the girl wears
her youth out in hopeless waiting and let's
her chances for settling herself for life go by
her. If the boy does succeed nine times out
OF ten, he outgrows the girl and only sense
OF honor sends him back to redeem the pledge
a haC hrnn
developed in the big outside world City life
has polished him. He has become accus-
toned to smarter women, women who speak
different language, and have a different
viewpoint from his old sweetheart. But there
has been nothing to change her.
And sad as is the fate of man who mar
ries woman whom he longer wants,
from a sense of duty, it is not so horrible
rs that of the wife who knows that her only
hold on her husband is his pity for her. and
that he married her because h didn't have
the courage to leave her by telling her that
he no longer loved her
But these tragedies of the long engage
ment are no longer necessary. Formerly,
when a couple had not enough money on
which to marry, all that they could do was
for the woman to wait and weep while the
man worked, and romance grew thread-bare,
and thrills wore themselves out.
Now when any able-bodied, intelligent girl
go out and get job, and earn a good
living for herself, there is no reason why any
young couple should not take their courage
in their two hands and unite their earning
capacity as we'll as their hearts
Thus they may take love, at it's flooding
tide instead of waiting for its ebb. Thus
they have the glory and the JOY of compan-
1onsh1p in their youth. Thus they may grow
together, develop together, become one in
stead of being two crotchety individuals,
with ways that they have developed and fos-
tered during years of living alone.
And no husban and wife are so close to
each other as those who have stood shoulder
to shoulder and fought the wolf away from
the door, who have saved, and planned, and
hoped, and dreamed together l. the years in
which they we're getting a start.
Love and courage and the high heart Of
youth! These are the best things in life. They
are worth ri King lot for and they surely
make an adequate substitute for the gew-
gaws, the swell wedding, and the period fur
niture with which so many young couples
think 1t necessary to begin their married life.
Anyway, man in these days in trying
to decide whether he has Il right to pop the
question or not, should remember that the
modern girl is not the helpless doll her grand
mother was. She's capable of being help
meet, and she has the sentimental suffrage
as we'll as the political, and the right to
vote her fate
So ask her