The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-07-01
Dorothy Dix Talks
Paying the Piper-1.
NJ DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid womaA WRises.

whats the matter with matri-
mony?" asked a man despairingly,
after we had listened to harrow
ing recital of the domestic squabbles
! of a young couple in whom we we're
both interested.
Here's Jim and Bess who start out
married life with every thing in their
fayor-youth, and health, and intelli-
gence. and enough money to live on
comfortably, and crafty in love with
each other I'd have sworn that that
marriage was a sure-thing success
couldn't fail-yet here they are in
five years, fighting like Kilkenny cats,
and both of 'em wishing they had the
courage to beat 1t to Reno.
What hes happened to disiilusion-
lie them with the holy estate? What
the matter with matrimony, anyway.
in these days that SO few people seem
to have nerve enough to endure II
with fortitude, to say nothing OF con-
sidering it a heaven on earth where
they lived happily ever after, as IN
the story books?"
There's nothing the matter with
matrimony" / replied. its the same
good old reliable institution it was in
our fathers and FOUR grandfathers
and our great grandfathers' time. The
| trouble is with the people, and What
| is the matter with them is that they
are no longer willing to pay the price.
THE average young couplee get
! married thinking they can welch on
Cupid and it can't be done. Hence
examinations and the sound of connu-
bal letters being rended and broke
, and homes wrecked
| youths and maidens have an illu-
sion that matrimony is free picnic
where all that they have 10 do is to
= ~
with the good looking and JOYOUS
companion whom they have picked out
for mates, They are too ignorant TO
know that there is nothing gratis In
this world-not even love-and thai
instead of the holy estate being q
cheap pleasure resort we are required
to give up everything we possess Tor
pass thru its doors.
''And so when matrimony presen
its little bill to them they. are unpre-
pared for the staggering price they
are asked to pay. and howl to heaven
that they won't be mulcted that way
and they'll go to the divorce court
first. -,~
Perhaps our Fathers and mothers
didn't enjoy paying the matrimonial
piper any more than we do. but at any
rate they seem to have realized that
the debt would be liquidated for when
they married they settled down, and
accepted with a GOOD grace tne fespon-
sibihties of family and bowed their
necks to the matrimonial Jokes
Young people nowadays. especially
girls, don't look upon getting married
as a settling process, but as a Iberat-
ing one. If they are rich girls 1t frees
them from parental authority and the
eye of chaperons. If they are poor
girls it relieves them from the neces-
sity of earning their own living and
keeping working hours. In both cases
it gives them for the first time in
their lives a chance for a little fline
of their own.
Hence the idea of turning their
backs upon gaiety, and for wearing
pretty clothes. and giving in ten times
as much to a husband as they ever did
to father. and working fifty times
harder in a kitchen than they ever did
in an office does not appeal to them.
1t isn't what they expected to pay for
their wedding rings"
| (Copyrighs. 1920. by the Wheeler Syndicate
Incl