The Washington herald., 1920-09-22
NEITHER CAN
REMAKEOTHER
Attraction Of Opposites Is
Work of Devil, Says
Writer.
EASY TO BREAK HEARTS
Also Easy to Be Bored and
Wedlock Is Supposed
To Last for Life.
EASY TO BREAK HEARTS
Dy DOROTHY DIX.

A young man writes to me that
he is engaged to be married to a
girl who is his opposite in every
respect.
He Is very religious. She is very
worldly minded.
He Is thrifty. She is extravagant
and wasteful.
He is a professional man, inter
ested in serious reading. She never
reads anything except the fashion
notes and the society page in the
newspa pers.
He thinks a great deal Of his duty
towards others. She is only selfish
Iy bent on getting the best for her
self.
He is amiabIe. She is high-tem-
percd and cannot even get along
with her own mother.
Now although this girl fascinates
the young man. and he loves her
dearly. he doubts the wisdom OF
marrying her. and asks me what l
think about it. and if he can change
the girl into something nearer to
his ideal of what woman should
be.
I think that marriage between
people who look at life from op-
pOsite standpOints, and whose
tastes differ on every subject from
politics to pie. is madness. The
holy estate is bound to be nothing
but a bloody battlefield for them.
on which they fight out to a finish
every question that arises between
them.
Nobody's ideal Of being happy Is
TO be scrappy. The people whom
we love and enjoy being with. are
not those who antagoniZe us at
every turn and who keep our fur
rubbed continually the wrong way.
Those Of whose society we never
tire are the ConEenial souls who
think as we think, who are inter-
cSted in the same subjects we are,
who enjoy the same things we do.
who can even mount the same
hobbies that we ride and canter
along contentedly at our sides.
This j. particularly true of mat
rimony where happiness or misery
is made up. for the most part. of
n multitude Of little things. Com
pararfv-ly few husbands and wives
commit any great sin against each
ether hut multitudCs Of husbands
and wives bore each other to eE-
rlncr.nn brcause they have no COM
mon interest. or they get on eacn
others nerves because they differ
on every subject under the sun.
) woman who is as interested in
her husbands b&Iness as he IL. can
make an evening at home thrilling
" Interesting for both OF them by
1,
no disc0UrsaS about the grocery
'r1dn. or discusses his patients or
r's f~',- u-a"ttrr wiz her. whereas.
IN" wife Who yawns in her hus-
hanG.' 'a"" when he tries to tell
N"r of his life work. can send him
%. fhe oEb for company. and shed
'"arS over her own fOrlOrnness in
being left alone 4 religious man
can have his heart broken by a
VII" who Sneers At his faith. and
FH can he kopt in a perpetual wran-
Elo Uvr- points of dogma. Many n
family has been broken up over
infant haptiSm and open or close
communion
On the other hand, no married
CouDles are so happy as those who
80 hand in hand to the same church.
or who have the same grand opera
or moving picture taste.
It is far more important than
young people realize for a man and
woman who are about to marry to
think alike. and to hold the same
ideals. That is. II they want to be
ham" For tho attraction of op-
posites Is a devilish cOntrivance Of
natures for the good Of the spe-
ciFs. II takes no account of the
well-beinC OF the individual The
very qualities Of unIikeness that
drew people together before mar
riage and which piqued the inter
est Of the other. after maria ge
drives them apart. The girl. for
instance. who is like 4 little play
ful kitten. and with about as much
intelligence as a kitten. seems cute
and amusing to an intellectual man
before marriage. but after he is
married to her. her ignorance and
h"r lack Of brains no longer charm
him. It makes him despise her as
a fool and turn to other women
for companiOnship. e
And the little butterfly girl is