Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-15
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Our Just Deserts
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.

and wives, we deserve, declares Mr.. George
the famous English novelist and essayist, who
has devoted much of his life to studying the
domestic problem.
At first blush, most of would be in
clined to disagree with him. At least the
unhappily married will dissent, for the pop
ular conception of the situation is that dis
agreeable husband or wife is an affliction
visited upon one by mysterious Providence
for purposes one cannot even pretend to I'M
derstand.
There are few people who have the cour-
age to admit that they brought their matrl-
monial misfortune down on their own neaos
by not taking a sufficiently long and careful
look before they leaped into the holy estate.
And there are still fewer who are Wiling TO
admit that the domestic ills from which they
suffer are no more than what Is coming 70
them because of their coWard1ce In weakly
submitting to maltreatment, instead OF flgnt-
ing for their rights until they got them.
Nevertheless, this is true. We get Just
what we demand of life, and we do have the
sort of husbands and wives we deserve, not
withstanding all the martyred husbands tied
to she-cat wives, and all the angel ladies' unit
ed to brutes that we know.
Because the martyred and the angels could
have called time on the vixens and the brutes
if they had had the nerve to do 1t. ProDa-
bly, they could have reformed the wrong
up and taken years upon years OF punish,
ment. Nobody need stand at the stake and
be grilled at a slow fire unless they want
to, in these days.
Take, for example, the man who Is mar
ried to woman who regards him merely as
meal ticket. AS we have watched this poor
fish working himself to death to satisfy the
wants of a woman who continually cried for
more, we have pitied him from the bottom
of our hearts.
Such a good man! Such a kind man! So
humbly grateful for any little attention or
kindness! What shame for him to be mar
ried to woman who spent everything he
made before he really made it, and who
kept his life prolonged nightmare with her.
extravaganza! h
But hasn't such man got exactly the
kind of wife he deserves? When he was
first married, if he had put his foot down
good and hard on her wastefulness, and re-
fused to pay unreasonable bills; If he had
made her an allowance and required her to
live on it, he would have nipped the evil in
the bud, and have made a thrifty wife OUT
of waster.
After all, the hand that holds the pocket
book, rules the roost No woman can spend
more of her husbands money than he per-
NIT her to spend. She can't buy houses and
motors without his consent, tacit or open;
and so, any man who lets his wife ruin him
with her extravaganza, simply pays the price
of his weakness.
who lets his wife henpeck him. All Of us
know men who live in cringing terror of
their wives, and who cannot call their souls
their own. They do not dare to invite their,
own mothers to make them visit in the
houses they support. They cannot spend
cent Of their salaries without rendering an
account of it. If they fail to punch theg
home time-clock on the exact minute, they
have to think up some plausible lie. to stave
off the tongue-lashing they are due to get
from their wives. g
We've been wasting sympathy on these
poor, down-trodden worms of the dust
They've got the kind of wives they deserve.
for If they had had the backbone Of a grub.
they would have made winning fight for
their personal liberty, and got it. No woman
can take mans latch key away from him
If he is determined to hold on to It. No
wife will try bawling out her husband UNI
less she has shrewd idea that he will stand
for it, while as for Mysteries, and tears and
scenes; they are merely weapons that she
uses TO get her own way, and that she aban-
dons if she finds they don't win out
And women have the kind of husbands
they deserve. The reason that women, as
sex, are more faithful to their husbands
than their husbands are to them, is because
men won't stand for the kind of conduct in
women that women endure in men. Proba-
Oily there are just many women with
rowing fancy as there are men. Just as
many women are attracted by handsome
dashing young chaps, who do not look in the
least like their fat, bald-headed husbands, as
there are middle-aged men whose eyes are
caught by some millowy chicken
But the woman signs, and passes on be-
cause she knows that her husband would
raise ructions if she INDUCED in a filtration:
but her husband takes the chicken out to
lunch and sends her violets. When women
cease to forgive and demand that mans
slate shall be as clean as their own when
they marry, and that he keeps 1t as clean
afterwards, there'H be something doing in
the single standard of morals. And until
they do, the philandering husband Is Just
the sort of husband they deserve
There's the poor, meek, abused woman
VINO stays at home and washes, and cooks,
and scrubs, and baby tends, while her hus-
band sports around in glad attire and spends
more money in one night on other women
than she can pinch out of the grocery bill.
in six months. Her husband never takes
her out anywhere, never makes her a pres
ent, or gives her a little treat. He never
speaks to her except to find fault with her.
Sne IS nothing but a servant, except that
she gets no wages, and is treated as no one
would dare to, treat good cook in these
days
She's got exactly the sort of husband she.
deserves, because when you permit anyone
to make doormat of you, you must expect .
to be walked on and kicked about, especial
ly by your husband, for every man accords
to his wife exactly the kind Of treatment
she calls for.
And the woman with tightwad husband
she hasn't got enough grit and determine
ton to get her fair share Of the pleasures
and perquisites, and profits Of the mafrimo-
NAL DartnerShiD. she mist pynoct fo ha COLD.