Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-12-07
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Price of Wedding Bells
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.
YOUNG girl of my acquaintance said
to me the other day:

1OUNG girl or my acquaintance said
~ to me the other day:
II told Jim that I would marry him
whenever he saved up enough money to
furnish little home for us. l don't ask
for anything fine. l don't expect to start
where my parents are leaving off, for it has
taken father thirty years hard work to getA
where he can afford to give mother Oriental
rugs, and carved mahogany, and aluminium
pots and pans.
Il love Jim, and I'd be satisfied with
mighty little, but that little has got to be
paid for. am not going to be one of those
installment brides whose honeymoon is
knocked into flinders by the collector ham
mering on the doo:.
"I've seen debt kill love too often to want
to take any chances on it. don't want my
husband to have to think how much I am
costing him, and wonder how on earth he's
going to get the money for my upkeep, every
time he thinks of me- I want to be the nice,
sweet meringue on his life, not the lemon
pie beneath.
eff young couple start out in life loaded
down with debt they haven't got one chance
in fifty to get out of it, and they haven't one
chance in hundred of not coming to hate
each other. They simply fcredoomed to
make a. failure of both life and matrimony.
''The man seldom gets any higher than he
is, because there is nothing that holds one
down like pile of bills on his back. He
can't climb with that load to carry, and it
gets bigger and bigger, because there is sure
to come sickness, and rainy days, that all
cost more money.
"To succeed, a man must have a little
money laid by, so that he can take advantage
of whatever luck throws in his way, for the
only key that over unlocks the door of OPP
portunity is golden one. He must be able
to take a few risks. Above all, if he is to
accomplish anything worth while, he must
have calm, clear mind, and be able to give
the best of his abilities to his work. instead
of having half of his brain cells employed in
trying to figure out some way to stave off
the installment man.
"The man who starts out in married life
in debt is beaten at the very outset. He
can't embrace the opportunity that comes
his way, because all of his money is going to
pay on the Early Grand Rapids dining room
suite. He's bound to stick to his clerkship,
no matter whether it leads anywhere or not,
because he Is behind with the butcher and
the baker, and he can't risk bai4g out of
work week. And he can't develop the kind
of personality that employers pay for, be-
cause debt takes the heart out of man, and
kills ambition quicker than anything else in
the world and turns the sunniest nature into
a crouch.
81 want my husband to be successful
man, and I'm not going to- be the one
to handicap him in the race.
81 want my marriage to be a success and
that's why insist that it should have good
strong financial plant under it, 1t would be
all right for people who are in love to get
married, if they coulC exist in real life as
they do in novels, on romance and kisses.
But they can't We've all got more
stomach than we have heart, and after
get married we are just as hungry as We
were before, and take just keen an inter-
est in beefsteak and Unions. Also, we've got to
be clothed and housed, and we find that
sentiment plays pretty poor second fiddle
to our physical comfort.
"Nor does just getting married, even to
the person you love, make up to you en-
tirely for doing without the kind of things
you have been accustomed to all your life,
and when a man woman are forced to
make perpetual sacrifice of every taste and
habit for each other, they soon begin to won
der if the game is worth the candle.
Think of all the peevish, fretful, discon-
tented wives you knol who are always COM
planning because they are shabby and can't
do any of the things they used to do. Do
you think that their husbands are having
any particular picnic? Think of all the SYM
CAL bitter men you know who have fallen
out of love with the pretty, dainty girls they
married, just because the girls have been
forced into becoming unattractive drudges,
and who are always warning other men
against matrimony! Pleasant f, their wives,
isn't it, to be made 0 realize that their nus
sands regard them burdens?
"The truth is that family is a luxury
that comes high, and whether you enjoy 1t
or not, or even whether you've got right
to indulge yourself in one. depends alto
gether on VIII -~r you can afford it. To
get married when you haven't the price OF
a bed, or a chair, or cooking stove, Is just
as silly and wicked thing to do as 1t Is T
set up an automobile where you pay two dok-
lars down on it, and are paying the balance
as long as you live, and where you have heart
failure every time you have to buy another
Gallon of gasoline.
"And T, for one, am not going to mortgae~
nv soul to Old Man Trouble in that way. =
Understand, don't think that young
couple should wait until they're rich to get
married, or until they can furnish nome
in splendor; but they haven't got any right
to get married until they can start lie out
of debt
"And that's the ultimatum I've put up TO
Jim. If he does not think I am worth work
ing and saving for, he doesn't want me PAD
enough to get me. I'll say that