Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-04-12
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
MARRYING AN INVALID
BY DOROTHY DIX
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.
YOUNG woman is in love with a MAJ
Y DOROTHY DIX

~ who is Sem1-1nValld, and wants to
marry him. Her mother opposes the
match, which seems very cruel to the girl,
who thinks it would be perfectly h7Seiy and
sweet to devote her life to being a minister
ing angel to one afflicted with a combination
OF rheumatism and stomach trouble
Somebody page the FOOL KILLER. Quick
In time to save this precious little idiot from
wrecking her life. Husbands are hard enough
to get along with, goodness knows, when
they are strong and husky, with unimpaired
Questions and steady nerves, without taking
any chance on one whom ill-health has made
as irritable as sore-headed bear.
If, after a couple are married, either one
should have the misfortune to be stricken
down by disease, it is the duty of the other
one to meet the situation with tenderness,
and patience, and courage, and do everything
possible to alleviate the sad lot of the afflict-
ed one. That is part Of the chances of mat
rimony to which we pledge ourselves at the
altar when we swear to take our life part
ners for better Or worse to cherish them in
sickness Or in health.
To meet misfortune with brave front is
one thing. To go out of your-way to hunt
for trouble and invite disaster is another,
and just as the man and woman who turn
their backs upon an invalid wife or husband
are cutters and curs of the yellowest, so the
man and woman who deliberately marry in
valids are imbeciles who need to be locked
up in a safe place until their temporary fit
VI insanity is over.
And the woman who marries an invalid
man is in degree more batty than the man
who marries an invalid girl. For women
have a talent for being sick that men do not
possess. They can ameliOIRte the physical
unattractiveness of disease with boudOir caps
and pink and lace negligees They can even
"enjoy po' health" as our colored friends
say, and get a certain pleasure out Of lying
around on touches, and talking about their
symptoms and their operations, and feeling
that they have acquired certain distinction
because they can't do any of the things that
other women do
Thus you sometimes see an invalid woman
who is calm and serene, and gentle and
cheerful, but the sick man achieves no such
pitch of grace. He is ugly and cadaverous,
and generally needs a shave and haircut.
He RACES against the fate that has shut him
out from the lot of other men, and he 10 just
about as soothing pet to have around the
house as fretful porcupine would be.
Nothing makes people self-centered and
selfish as i'll health Perhaps it is natural
that those who are suffering should feel that
the whole world is bounded by their ego, and
that nothing else counts except what they.
feel Anyway they do. They offer up every
one about them as living sacrifices, without
conjunction or appreciation.
And in this, too, the man invalid scores
over the woman invalid, for every wife knows
that man with a sick headache can want
whole staff of hospital working at high
speed.
If real life moved along on creased skids,
as it does in novels, without being Jared by
practical things, then man would be Justl-
fed in espousing the frail, delicate little
flowerette of girl who appeals so to his
chivalry and makes him want to take her in
his strong arms and shelter her from every
blast that blows and a woman might take
the risk of uniting her life with that of the
PALE suffering man who arouses her mother
instinct, and makes her long to nurse and
coddle him.
Alas, however, life isn't passed on the
heights 1t is lived down in the valley Of
the commonplace, and to be happy we have
to have just the everyday things that make
us comfortable. A man must be more than
human if he can enjoy coming back after
hard days work to home in which every
thing goes at skies and sevens, and where
servants waste and steal, and there is dlsor-
der and confusion, because the wife is not
able to look after it.
Nor is it cheering to him to know that he
is going to be greeted by neurotic woman
whose only topic of conversation is her all
ments and in whose presence he must walk
as warily as if treading on eggs, to avoid
doing or saying something that will preclpl"
tate crisis of nerves. =
Such a man must be forever baked in his
ambition because all the money that he earns
thermore. he is tied like a slave to his wife's
invalid chair and may neither leave her, nor
take her, to where his fortune calls.
The woman who marries an invalid is even
in worse case unless there be fortune in
the family. If they are poor, she must earn
the living as we'll as take care of him, and
that's too big a job for any but super
woman. Nor does it add ITO the gayety or
the situation that the finer the man is spir1tu-
ally the more morbid and depressing to live
with he will become over the burden ne
knows he is to his WIFE
Sickness is supposed to ennoble people and
to lift their thoughts to the highest life,
AS matter of fact it makes them peeV1sh
and disagreeable, and glum, and grouchy,
and quick to take offense. Surely marriage,
even with the healthy and normal-minded,
is not such a picnic that one should choose
as mate companion who is livery and
dyspeptfc, and whose whole outlook and con-
versation are tinged with bile.
Good health means cheerfulness and
amiability, and the ability to do things ana
to make the best of life. We need it every
where, but most of all does 1t take good
constitution, a sound digestion, and steady
nerves to stand the wear and tear of matr1-
mony.