The Washington times., 1920-08-03

Why are more women commit
ting suicide this year than ever
before in the history OF vital
statistics in the United States
Psychiatrists and other mental
analysts are pondering over recent
reports, which show that, whereas
in 1919 one woman took her life to
every three men self-slain, in the
first six months of 1920 the ratio
has been changed to one woman
suicide to every two men.
With the prediction from experts
that this ratio will keep changing
until suicides OF both sexes are
evenly divided, the advent OF the
modern woman to a full share in
pursuits formerly regarded as the
logical avtivities in "a mans
world" is being scrutinized for
solution to the woman suicide
problem.
Some medical men believe that
not only does the compleXity Of
problems met by career-seeking
woman. in business. politics or
what not. tend to put her physical
and mental equipment to super
strain, but that the domestic
circle itself is becoming more and
more of nerye-racking respon-
sibility.
They hold that marriage few
generations ago a calm and placid
entry into a dignifed retirement
within the bosom of a family-is
getting to be business A
woman must hold a husband, the
experts maintain, with something
more advanced than the time
honored love, cherish and obey"
platform.
The fact that certain persons OF
artistic temperament have found it
necessary to have separate habita-
tions, living apart in order to be
able to live together" is regarded
by psychologists as illustrating
their premise That marriage is diff
ferent now"
NeU Task for Women.
DR.. II. NJ. Warren. president OF
the Save-a-Life League, of No. los
West Seventy-seventh street. New
York City, ascribes the increase OF
suicide among women to their in
creased participation in business.
politics and other active spheres
of life. Their undertaking to share
mems burdens and play an equal
part with men in world affairs, he
thinks, will lead to still further
increase in the suicide ratio for
women. He adds:
"Tt II not a question of innate
courage or that women are inferior
to men. 1t is more n question Of
generations of training and habit.
Although women are and have been
bearers of many trying burdens,
there came during the war, and pos
sibly a short time prior to that,
change in the sort of problems they
haN 80 meet.
"women had been trained to cope
with domestic situations, to care for
children, and for their husbands
while the husbands or men repre-
sentatives OF the family entered an
other sphere. In the more recent
generations, when women began to
take a more active interest in pub
lie affairs. the type OF problems they
faced were far different from the
former domestic kind. This held
true particularly after the war
broke.
Men Ready for Reuerses.
Men for ages have been trained
in the school of combat and compe.
titIon. when rcverses came, the
normal ones werc fortified. Whereas
women. with the element OF protec-
ton accorded them until II almost
he'd become an instinct for them to
receive II and turn to IT, were
thrown on their own resources in
a world which had been hidden to
a great extent from them for ages.
when revcrses came, financial
or otherwise, In many cases. they
were not constitutionally tempera-
mentally or physically attuned to