The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-02-22
Dorothy Dix Tails
The Family Parasite.

Perhaps there is no other question
in the world that is harder to settle
than just how much help the members
of the family have right to demand
Of us, and the problem becomes in
soluble when 1t is a matter of de-
Gliding how far the wife is entitled to
sacrifice her husband to her own peo-
pie.
As general thing. men have a
healthy selfishnesS that makes them
look out for themselves, and leave
others to shift for themselves, tho oc-
casionally you find one with an in
growing conscience who is the patient
ass on which are packed all the family
burdens. We all know old bachelors
who have never married because their
youth was spent in toiling to support
their younger brothers and sisters.
and whose pocketbooks are still re-
garded as family till into which
everyone has perfect right to dip
their hands
We also know men who can never
resist an appeal for assistance from
their brothers and sister, and who help
them at the expense of their own wives
and children. Sometime you will see
a thrifty, industrious woman working
herself to death to save up the money
that her husband lavishes upon an
extravagant sister, or a ne'er-do-well
brother.
Blood ties are not, however, apt to
be SO strong with men as they are
| with women. 1t is women who are
still bound. hand and-foot, to the
family from which they sprung, even
after they have families Of their own.
"A Woman'S sense of loyalty is hardly
ever as great to her husband as it is
to her own people, and for this rea-
son a woman offers up her husband
as the sacrificial goat on her family
altar far oftener than a man does his
wife.
There are not many men mean
enough to take away from their wives
the money that they have saved up to
buy a new dress, or a. coveted bit OF
furniture, or to pay for a much needed
vacation, and-give it to their own kin
dred. There are not many men incon-
siderate enough of their wives com
| fort to keep their own houses so filled
with their own kinspeople that there
| is neither peace nor quiet in it, nor
even a place to sleep except upon a
| bumpy make-down bed in the living
room, or an adamantine couch con-
lstructed on the dining table.
Yet women do these things con-
tinually. There are thousand upon
thousands of men who literally spend
their lives, from the day of their mar
riage to the hour of their death, toll
ing for their wives family. There are
thousands upon thousands OF men VINO
never have any chance to get ahead
and who are kept poor by their wives
giving away everything they earn to
,, their own people.
And there are millions of men who
never know what it is to have their
houses to themselves, and who are
| literally eaten out of house and home
| by their wives relatives.
Whether the call of the family is
louder to woman than the call of her
mate. nobody knows; but when mother
| writes that she needs a new set OF
teeth, and that Bob is SO shabby and
must have a new suit of clothes, and
a new pair of shoes, and he hasn't the
money for them because he hasn't had
a job for six months, and Sally writes
that her little Johnny has to have his
adenoids taken out and they haven't
the wherewithal to pay the doctor, the
woman who gets the letter robs her
husband of the money to pay for her
family's needs, aHho she knows that
he can i'll spare it, and 1t means harder
work and deprivation to him.
And when Jennie writes that she
would like to come and spend the win
ter and take music lessons. Jennie's
aunt installs her in the best room. and
dooms her poor nerve-racked husband
| to months of torment while his tor
tured ears are assailed by all means
of discords.