Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-06-30
DOROTHY DIX TALKS


II girl told the truth she would admit
that what she demands of marriage is al
that she has plus the love and support of a
husband who will always be fiatterlng
and cajoling her and never too tired OF
busy to take her out of evenings.
She wants to be as free as an unmarried
! woman to come and go. She wants the
| things money buys tho married to poor
man. She wants to live in idlencss, and
to make no sacrifice of her individuality
She only wants the kind of children who
are born in embroidered French muslin
and blue ribbons and golden curls and
who never howl with collie or get dirty.
There is no such graft in marriage as she
/ hoped to find. To most women marriage
means adapting themselves to crotchcty
| husbands. 1t means sacrifice. 1t means
labor that is never done. 1t means stay
| ing at home and made-over clothes and
| few pleasures. 1t means washing little
faces and walking sick babies and hearing
! lessons and living in bedlam OF noise.
That's the price a woman generally has
to pay for wifehood and motherhood
and 1t Is because so many are not willing
to pay it that there are so many dis
gruntled women, and so many miserable
homes. They thought, poor simple souls,
that somehow they could get the best
thing in the world without giving any
return for it.
Nor are men any more willing to pay
the price OF matrimony than women. A
man thinks that he can enjoy all the free
dom of his bachelor days and just super
impose home and wife on top of that as
cook puts fancy meringue on top of a
PIE. lie wants to come and go as he used
to without tears or reproaches from wife;
he wants TO stay down town for little
games with the boys, without scenes at
home; and to take old women friends out
to tea and lunch without arousing the
green-eyed monster in his spouse breast.
He also wants to spend his money on
himself as he used TO, for his idea of
matrlmony is as false one as the girls.
He has visioned it as place where a
young and beautiful wife, always ex-
qulsitely dressed and in an angelic temper,
waited In vine-wreathed oottage-thnt
WAS run on air-to welcome him after his
day work was done--in case he felt like
coming home.
He finds that the marriage bond is
forged of chilled steel and that he is
chained as tightly TO his partner IA ever
any other two prisoners were and that
no criminal has ever got more of life
S'iittiltt iiAtu I1t Dltus fthb
reduces the average man to little more than
a wage slave, who spends his life toiling
for doctors and grocers and butchers and
tailors and dress makers. He finds that
even the best of wives have their days
when they are nervous and cross and un-
reasonable, that children can be demons
and brats as well rs seraphs
The loss of freedom, unending work.
self-sacrifice; that is what man must
pay for matrlmony and many one
defaults on the promissory note he has
given girl in the DAYS of courtshlp.
In the meantime there stands marriage;
offering just what it always has to men
and women who are willing TO pay the
price-a devotion thatnever fails. Loyalty
that sticks thro thick and thin and good
and evil days. Tenderness like the tender
ness of God. The cling Of babies arms
about the neck. Pride in stalwart sons
and lovely daughters. The renewal OF
your life IN your children's life. The
serenest, purest happiness that ever comes
to a human being
But you must pay the price. for life is
the memorable debt collector that exacts
the last farthing for everything she gives
You cannot have your wedding cake
and eat IT too. You must pay the price