The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-14
Dorothy Dix Talks
wives who Make or Mari.
BY DOROTHY DIN
Worlds Highest Paid Woman writer.


Among my acquaintance is a bril-
liant young lawyer who has already
got a tee-hold on the ladder of sue
cess, and has it in him to climb to
the very top of it..
Three years ago, when he got mar
ried, he was a strong, husky chap,
without a nerve in his body Now he
is thin, worn-looking, and jumpy as
cat.
"John looks SO badly. What's the
matter with him?" asked someone the
other day.
Starvation and over work, and
lack of Sleep" replied a woman who
knows the secrets of Johns home
life. He is married to a wife who
feeds him out of tin cans and paper
bags, and who makes him run her
errands, and sleep with a teethins
baby at night. She says that the
home is just as much his home as it
baby as it is hers, and that after she
takes care of it all day, it's up to him
to wrestle with~it at night.
81 don't suppose that he's had a
single unbroken nights sleep since
the child was born, and he has to get
up early to make the coffee in the
morning. and wipe the dishes, and
help straighten up the dining room
after dinner at night. And it's all
killing him. No man has got the
physical strength to be a professional
man, and cook, and a nurse maid
too"
when my husband has a big case
on said the wife of a famous crini-
nal lawyer, Il cancel every engage
ment so that L may stand guard at
home and see that nothing annoys or
interrupts him, or takes his mind off
his work. 1 answer the telephone
myself so that he will know that
someone with judgment is taking care
of every call. I keep the children in
another part of the house SO that
their noise may not reach him. 1 do
not even speak to him unless he ad-
dresses me first, and unless the house
was on fire I would not enter his
study, where he is giving the best
that is lin him to working out his
problems.
81 also see personally to the prepa-
ration of every mouthful that he eats,
so that he may have the most nourish-
ing and easily digested food. AS for
dragging him around to parties at
such time, or burdening him with
my own worries, or complaining be-
cause L have to stay at home and he
can't take me out to receptions and
theatres, I couldn't be such a fool
For 1 want him to win his case.
am ambitious for him. I want him
to succeed, and that's my way of
helping him on
And it's the only way comm ented
a gray-haired woman who was listen
ing to the conversation ct am an
old woman. and in my long experience
I can hardly recall a single man who
has succeeded who wasn't either a
bachelor, or who didn't have a wife
who made him physically comfortable,
and who didn't look after her own
end of the matrimonial partnership.
And I have never known a solitary
man who got anywhere, who had to
walk the baby with the collie half the
night, or do the homework after he
got home from his own days labor.
81 often think that, if women real
lied just how much a mans ability to
do things depends on his having a
peaceful, quiet, comfortable home, the
whole sisterhood of wives would sud
denly be turned into patient Griseldas,
and blue-ribbon cooks. For we wives
want the price of success. We want our
men to bring home the bacon, and we
haven't enough sense to see that we
are like the trainers who prepare the
champion for the fight"
copyright, 1920 by tbe wheeler Cyndleate,
Incl