The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1921-12-28
BEWARE OF MAN
WHO CAN COOK,
SAYS DOROTHY DIX
Keep Husband Dependent
And You Will Hold
Him, She Says.
By DOROTHY DIX.

=
adviser to the Chinese delegation
Of the Washington armament con-
ference. made speech to women
the other day in which he told them
their husbands.
He said that the way to keep a
husband was to keep him on a lead
ing string. to keep him dependent.
and looking to his wife as the
source from which all of his ma
terial comfort flowed, and he warned
wives against the folly of ever per-
hitting their husbands to learn how
TO cook or sew.
This is good advice which / have
frequently given myself in this col
umn, for II Is far more dangerous
tos women for men to get out of
their sacred sphere than Ii ever was
70 men for women to break out of
theirs. AS have more than once
pointed out, the man who has mas
tered the art of frying an egg with
out scrambling it. and who can sew
on a button without jabbing the
needle through the heshy part of
his thumb. is an emancipated crea-
ture over whom woman has no real
hold.
Heaven knows men are far too
independent of women. anyway.
Clubs, and bachelor apartments, and
visiting Wallets are already respon-
sible for what Mr.. wegg would call
the decline and fall off in matri-
mony among the gilded youth of
today. Happily. most young men
lWE r.-s- ~
blessedness de luxe. so they are
still forced into matrimony to get
somebody to take care of them, but
goodness only knows what would
happen il every man were a good
Garner. Probably the wedding bells
would cease to jangle at all.
Undoubtedly, most men marry for
home, and to get some one to
shelter and protect them. OF course,
they don't admit this even to them
selves They think they have fallen
In love with some particular fair
enc. and that she has so taken pos
session of their hearts that they
cannot do without her.
But II they would psychoanalyze
themselves they would find out that
he exact moment in which matri-
nony sold itself to them, so to speak
was in an hour when their stomachs
reVolted at the boarding house
prunes. or they found out that they
could read a restaurant menu as
long as your arm backwards, for
wards and Grass ways, without find
ing one single dish on IL their ap-
petite craved, or. when they started
% dress In a hurry, they discovered
'hat they didn't have a single shirt
hat wasn't buttonless, or a pair of
socks that wasn't as full of holes
Is a sitter.
II is in this moment of despair,
when man realizes his inability
q cope with the laundress, or pro-
vide himself with decent food the
Way he likes it, that he feels the
iced Of wife to protect him. and
stand between him and the cruel
world. and IL is then that he up and
tsks the woman who is handiest to
aim to share his pay envelope.
III every man were his own cook,
md his own seamstress, and knew
where to find his clean shirts and
aandkerchiefs. and collar buttons,
there would be very little marry
ing, and fewer of the men who did
get married would stay married.
For IL is the fear of what might
oefall him il he didn't have his
Maria to look after him that keeps
many man from wandering away
rom his Maria's cooking, and her
Sherlock Holmes ability to locate
,lean towels in the dark.
There Is still another reason why
Z is inadvisable for a woman to
leach her husband how to cook.
and that is that 1t rears up a critic
on the hearth. than which nothing
8 more aggravating, or harder to
endure with patience. Every wo-
nan knows that she can bear with
Christian meekness to have her
character aspersed. her Intellectual
ittainments derided. even to have
her taste impugned. but that she
feels like throwing things at the
head of the person who sits down
70 her table, to eat of her handi-
work. and who finds fault with IT
Il takes no prophet to foreteIl that
he dove of peace Is not going to
hover over that household in which
the husband casually remarks at
the dinner table that he always
browns his -four when he makes a
gravy. and that he doesn see why
he bread Is so heavy. that the roll,
never fail. and that the way he