The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-05-02
Dorothy Dix Tails

By DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

The Girl and the Married Man..
No other woman in the world goes
thru such grinding torment of sus-
picion, and anxiety, and jealousy, as
does the girl-who is in love with a
married man. She knows no moment
in which the green-eyed monster does
not bear her bitter company. There
is no peace nor happiness in such
love, because there is no faith in it.
In her soul the woman knows that
the man who has not been true to the
wife he has sworn to love and honor,
will not be true to her, and that Just
as she took him away from one wom-
an, so some younger and prettier girl
will eventually take him away from
her.
If a girl does not expect to eventual
ly marry the man with whom she is
in love, she is booming herself to a
barren life, in which she will have
only the husks of affection to feed
upon. For this furnished romance she
is giving up all the love that ends in
husband, home. and children. The
mating time in a woman'S life is short
1t is comprised in the few years of
her youth and beauty, and if she gives
these to a man who has nothing to
offer in return for them, she makes
losing bargain.
There are plenty of women who are
foolish enough to make this mistake.
They let their youth go by while they
play about with some married man,
and let him fill their heart so fun that
they have no place in it for the man
they might have married. And in the
end they are left disgruntled old
maids, for when married man gets
tired of a woman and his tickle fancy
is lured by some prettier face, he has
always perfectly good ready-made
excuse for breaking with the old love-
He can always have an acute attack
of conscience that requires to have
the old growth of affection removed.
Nor need any girl think that she can
have a love affair with a married
man without endangering her reputa-
ton. No matter how innocent and
idealistic her affection may be- she
dal-loving world of it. For the world
is worldIy-wise and cynical. It knows
that the man who wins a young girl's
heart, knowing that he is not free to
offer her honorable marriage, and who
takes her youth and her beauty for
his own selfish enjoyment, knowing
that he is robbing her of all the
rights of her girlhood, is no Sir
Galahad. He is as yellow as they
come, and is not to be trusted.
To the girl who wants to know II
there is any wrong in having a love
suggest the one infalliblbe test for any
such human problem, which is to try
it on herself.
Let her put herself In the other
woman's place. Let her think of her
self as married to man she loves,
and the mother of his children. Let
her think of the years she has worked
and saved to help him get a start in
the world; of the home they have
made together; of the old age that
she has expected to pass with him.
Let her think of herself as having
grown mfddle-aged, and lost her
beauty. and then ask herself IL she
would think it right for some girl.
pretty. and slim, and young enough
| to be her daughter. to come along and
take her husband away from her. and
break up her home, and make her
| children fatherless.
The girl who permits herself to love
! a married man is both fool and sin
ner, and gets the punishment, here
and hereafter. of both.