The Washington herald., 1920-07-01
By DOROTHY DIX
Copyright, 1870.
Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.
Excellent Advice

! time in their lives a chance for a
little fling of their own.
Hence the idea of turning their
backs upon gaiety, and for wear
ing pretty clothes, and giving in
ten times as much to a husband as
they ever did to father, and work
ing fifty times harder in a kitchen
than they ever Gid, in an Office does
not appeal to them. 1t isn't what
they expected to pay for their we'd
ding rings.
If girl told the truth she would
admit that what she demands of
marriage is all that she has -plus
the love and support of a hus-
band who will always be fattering
and cajolinG her and never too tired
or busy to take her out of even
ings.
She wants to be as free as an
unmarried woman to come and 60
She wants the things money buys
though married to poor man.
She wants to live in idIeness. an.
TO make no sacrifice of her indi-
Vlduality. She only wants the kind
OF children who are born in en-
| oroidered French muslin and blue
ribbons and golden currs and who
never howl with collie or get dirty.
There is no such graft in mar
rage as she hoped to find. To
most women marriage means
adapting themselves to crotchety
husbands. 1t means sacrifice. 1t
means labor that is never done. 1t
means staying at home and mace
over clothes and few pleasures. 1t
means washing little faces and
walking sick babies and hearing
lessons and living in a bedlam of
noise.
That's the price a woman gener-
ally has to pay for wifehood and
motherhood. and it is because so
many are not willing to pay it tina,
there are so many disgruntled
women and so many miserable
homes. They thought. poor. sim
pie souls, that somehow they could
get the best thing in the world
without giving any return for :,
Nor are men any more willing to
pay the price of matrimony than
women. man thinks that he can
enjoy all the freedom of his bach
elor days and just superimpose ,
nome and wife on top of that as a
COOK putS fancy rlerinEue on ton
or pie. He wants to come and go
as ne used to without fears or
reproaches from wife; he wants to
stay downtown FOR little game,
with the boys, without scenes at
nome: and to take old women
friends out to tea and lunch with
out arousing the green-eyed mon
ster In his spouse's breast.
He also wants to spend his mon
eK n ha
his idea of matrimony is as false
one as the girls. He has yisioned
IL as place where a young and
beautiful wife. always exquisitery
dressed and in an angelic tcmper.
waited in a vine-wreathed cottage
that was run on air-to welcome
him after his days 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 10 his part
ner as ever any other two prison.
ers were and that no criminal has
ever got more of a life sentence
than he. He finds that marriage
reduces the average man to little
more than wage slave, who
spends his life toiling for doctors
ana grocers and butchers and tai
lors and dressms kers. He finds thar
even the best of wives have their
days when they are nervous aiiu
cross and unreasonable; that cnn-
dren can be demons and brats as
well as seraphs.
The loss of freedom. unending
work, self-sacrifce; that is what a
man must pay for matrimony, and
many one defaults 'on the promis-
sorry note he has given a girl in the
days OF courtship
In the meantime there stands
marriage; offering just what it al
ways has to men and women who
are willing to pay the price-a de-
votion that never fails Loyalty
that sticks through thick and thin,
and good and evil days. Tender
ness like the tenderness of God. The
clirg of babies arms about the neck.
Price in stalwart sons and lovely
daughters. The renewal OF your life
in your children's life. The seren-
est. purest happiness that ever
comes to a human being.
But you must pay the price. for
life is the inexorable debt collector
that exacts the last farthing for
she gives.