The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-08
Dorothy Dix Tails
By DOROTHY DIX
highest Paid Woman Writer.

Inc other DAY man, whose mar
rage has degeherated into an endur-.
ance test for the sake of his children,
| said that he would rather cut his
| tongue out than ask any sort of "A
favor from his wife.
That is where you make mis-
| take said a wise old woman friend to
| whom he had been telling his trou-
: bles, you are throwing your one
chance of saving your marriage from
| lasting failure by your false pride. Be
! cause your wife is self-centered, and
/ selfish, and of her own volition shows
| you none of the appreciation, or con-
sideration that are your due, you ask
nothing of her.
II understand and sympathize with
| how you feel. You have taken what
/ You consider to be the only dignified
attitude under the circumstances. But
| believe me, son, dignity has no place
in the family circle. That is the place
where the stoop-to-conquer stuff does
| its great and perfect work, and it is
folly for you to stand aside, and grow
morbid dwelling upon what your wife
should do. The thing for you to do is
to get busy and make her do what she
ought to do.
Your wife is like a lot of other
women. She has an undeveloped mat
rimonial conscience. She has never
really considered her duty to you, nor
| what you have a right to expect of
her. And that is mostly your fault,
because you have never thrown any
responsibility on her. You have never
demanded anything Of her, You have
never made her sacrifice anything for
you. You have never made her feel,
even, that she was absolutely necessary
to you.
"Of course, you did all of this from
the highest and noblest motives, You
wanted to be a good husband and to
save your wife from every crumpled
/ md or ho Y-txY mol fr-ne re
ease, and it seemed to you that such
tenderness and chivalry must win an
| answering tenderness and considera-
ton. 1t rarely does, son. Unselfish-
seems to foster brutality in others. In
all my long life I have not known
more than one or two cases of an ideal
husband. or wife. who didn't have a
| devil for a mate.
I'm matrimony, as elsewhere, people
treat you as you demand to be treated,
and so if you stand aside and give,
and give to your wife, and ask moth
ing of her, she will take it all with
| out thanks, and without even realiz-
| ing what a pig she is being.
THE way to do this is to force her
| to a fair divide. Make her sacrifice
| herself for you. Make her suffer for
you. Make her feel her responsibility
for your happiness. Make her feel
that she is necessary to you. That
| will put you again on the map as q
man, and she will get interested in you
and fall in love with you anew. For
the more a woman does for man, the
more she loves him.
YOU know that it is one of the ele-
mentary principles of human psychol-
| ogy that we hate the people to whom
we are under obligations, but we love
those on whom we bestow favors. The
! surest way to make an enemy is to
make a person dependent on you, and
the quickest way to get fond of a
Y person is to begin to help him or her.
There is something in feeling that
we are playing Providence to another
that coddles our vanity and makes us
| feel q beneficent glow when we think
of him or her. More: the realization
that some one needs us appeals to us
more than anything else on earth.
IF this is. true of us all, it is doubly
and trebly true of women. 1t per-
sists in even the lowest of the sex,
and as long as there is a shred of
womanhood left in one, you can arouse
this instructive desire to help those
| who need her and depend on her.
TT is this spirit that makes women
| stick to brute husbands who beat
them, and mistreat them, and drag
them down into the depths of poverty.
i If you have ever tried to get such a
woman to leave a renegade husband
you know that, nine times out of ten,
she will refuse, saying: But what
would he do without me? He needs
me- And that settles it. She would
have to be dead in her coffin before
she would be deaf to that cry for help
from the helpless.
I'VE often wonder why women who
are married to good, strong, upright
men, men who can stand on their own
feet, turn cutters and renege their
marriage vows more often than the
women who have rotters, and ne'er-
do-welIs, and phi1anderers and loafers
for husbands. The reason is that the
woman knows that the strong man
doesn't really need her, and that the
weakling does.
: He dips into that inexhaustibIe
. fountain of maternal pity that makes
! a mother always love the black sheep
among her children the best because
he needs her most,
: 'It is universally conceded that no
other men are as good and kind to
women as are American men, and that
, the American husband is the paragon
. | husband of the world, yet for all OF
that America holds the high divorce
record.
"I often think that the reason for
this is because American men ask toe
little of their wives They monopolize
the blessedness of giving in the family
They do all the sacrificing, they do all
the suffering, and because they deny
their wives a share in the toll and
sweat that goes into the making OF
I the home, the woman never really
feels that she-is vital part of it. Hel
life blood hasn't gone into building il
up, SO she is careless about breaking
it up as we are about things that have
not cost US much.
mo man makes a greater mistake
2 than when he tries to save his wife
from every hardship. It is on the
e battlefield that women, as well as
men, find their souls. 1t is the stress
e of circumstances that calls out what
s is best and finest in a womdn. 1t i:
not only the women who know what Il
D ; is to love something more than they
e do their own ease and who find JOY
= in sacrificing themselves for the gooe
f Of another, who are really women. The
!; balance are dolls.
D 80, son. if your wife doesn't trea'
E you as you want to be treated, dom
s give her up until you haye at 1eas
tried to make her feel that you neeC
e her, that you need her love and hel
beln Ask for what Won want Teach