The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-13
Dorothy Dix Talks
Marrying an Invalid.
BY DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.


Nothing makes people so self-cen-
tered and selfish as i'll health. Per
haps 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 everyone about them as liv7
ing sacrifices, without compunction or
appreciation.
And in this too, the man invalid
scores over the woman invalid, Tor
every wife knows that a man with q
sick headache can want enough Things
done for him to keep the whole starr
of hospital working at high speed.
If real life moved along on creased
skids. as it does in novels, without be-
ing Jared by practical things, then a
man would be justified in espousinS
the frail. delicate pretty flowerette OF
a girl who appeals SO to. his ch1valry
and makes him want to take her IN
his strong arms and shelter her from
every blast that blows, and 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. It is lived down in the
valley of the commonplace, and to be
happy we have to have just the every
day things that make us comfortable.
A man must be more than human if
he can enjoy coming back after a
hard days work to a home in which
everything goes to SKIES and sevens,
and where servants waste and steal,
and there is disorder 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 Il
neurotic woman whose only topic OF
conversation is her ailments, and in
whose presence he must walk as war
lily as if treading on eggs, to avoid do
ing or saying something that Will pre-
cipitate a crisis of nerves.
Such man must be forever baked
in his ambition because all the money
that he earns goes to doctors and
trained nurses. Furthermore. 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
a fortune in the family. If they are
poor. she must earn the living as well
| as take care of him, and that's too big
a job for any but a superwoman. Nor
does it add to the gayety of the situa-
ton that the finer the man is spirit
ually, the more morbid and. depress-
ing to live with he will become over
the burden he knows he is to his wife.
! Sickness is supposed to enable peo-
| pie to lift their thoughts to the higher
life. AS a matter of fact, it makes
them peevish and disagreeable, and
glum, and grouchy, and gloomy. and
unreasonable, and quick to take of
Tense. Surely marriage, even with the
! healthy and normal minded, is not
such a picnic that one should choose
as a mate a companion who is livery
and dyspeptic, and whose whole out
look and conversation are tinged with
4 bile.
Good health means cheerfulness
and amiability, and the ability to do
things, and to make the best of life
! We need it everywhere, but most of all
does it take a good constitution, a
sound digestion andA steady nerves to
stand the wear and tear of matri-
|