The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-12-16
MATRIMONY MUST
RETAIN ITS PEP"
SAYS DOROTHY DIX
Declares F a mily Daily
Kiss of Duty Should
Be Abolished.
By DOROTHY DIX.

The riddle of the sphinx. that
every married woman spends her
life trying to guess, Is how to Keen
her husband interested in her. for
IL is easy enough to catch man.
but 1t is a parlous job to hold him.
and none but the luckiest. or the
cleverest OF their sex succeed in
doing it.
A thousand solutions of the prob-
lem OF how to retain a husbands
affections have been suggested. One
is to feed the brute. Another is for
the wife always to keep young and
beautiful, and preserve wfllowy
figure. But there are manifest OBJ
stacles in the way Of the working
out of either of these amiabIe
theories.
The husband who is stuffed like a
Strassbourg goose is sure to de-
yelop dyspepsia, and peck the hand
that feeds him, to say nothing of
souring upon domesticity in general
Nor can any amount of wifeIN de.
votion stop the devastating march of
time for woman, and enable her
to compete in appearance at middle
age with young and blooming
Napier.
So the conundrum of how to keep
a husband a lover has remained one
of the dundreary things that no
woman could find out. and a man
himself has supplied the Answer.
And he says it's pep.
In a recent divorce case q wornan
testified that her husband old her
he had ceased t. care for nor and
had fallen in love with another
woman.
rs this woman younger and bet
ter looking than / ann" asked the
wife.
NO" said the husband.
What charm, then. has she that
| lack?" demanded the wife
she has pep replied the hus-
band. shes alert, alive. You are
bored, uninterested. Her kisses
thrill, yours are perfunctory, the
kisses of habit and duty"
There is no doubt that this man
offered the real explanation Of what
has always been the greatest ply
Geological mystery n the world, and
that is why men and women, who
are wildly in love with each other
when they get married, so soon fall
out of love with each other. II is
because they take no trouble 10
make themselves interest ing to each
other. They bring no zest to their
daily life. They put no punch into
domesticity. and the result is that
when they want a thr II they have
to go away from home to look +,
it.
Take this matter OF the connu-
Dial kiss, for, instance. Most mar
ried people consider that as much
a part Of the daily regime as put
ting on their shoes. or washing
their faces. and it has just about
as much real heat interest in il
man hurries through his break
fast, and in his rush to catch his
car, and with his mind fun Of the
business OF the day. gives his wife
ham-and-e ggs-havored peck as he
goes by her that is as liable to
alight on the back of her head. or
the tip OF her nose, as on her lips
He repeats the meaningless per
formance when he returns home
tired and hungry, OF an eevninC
ana he breathes a sigh of thank
Heaven that-is-over-wit when the
family ritual has been performed.
There are women who not only
suffer these duty kisses. and re-
turn them in kind. but who insist
upon them, and remind the men
who are trying to avoid kissing
them that they have forgotten
something. Such a woman is so
stupid that she does not recognize
that kiss without passion behind
it. an undesired kiss. is an insult
She doesn't even know. poor, dull
soul, that every kiss Of obligation
is nail in the CONN OF love.
OF course, You cannot keep a
thrill in anything you turn into a