Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-11-14
A Blessing in Disgui se-By Dorothy Dix

One Of the commonest complaints Of mar
ried women is that their husbands do not
| understand them
When woman, who is set and determined
on being miserable though married, is united
in the holy bonds Of wedlock to man who
gives her comfortable home, and good
clothes, who punches the time clock on the
appointed hour, and who has forgotten that
there is another petticoat in the world ex-
cept hers, she can always fall back on her
pet grievance Of not being understood
It's a nice intangible wrong, that deals
with glittering generalities, SO to speak, and
there is nothing that a morbid lady really
sets more fun out of than believing that she
10 All Soul, and that she has been sacrificed
in matrimOny to a dull, and clumsy brute
" no is incapable of comprehending Great
ure so delicate, and ethereal as she is.
Wives have shed enough tears over not
being understood to float an Atlantic liner,
and it has all been SO much good salt water
gone to waste, for instead of being a cause
for sorrow, it's an occasion for rejoicing
Every woman who has got husband who
doesn't understand her ought 10 get down on
her knees, and thank God for being so mer-
ciful to her.
It's because men don't understand women
that we can manage them, and it will be an
evil day when thes get wise to the feminine
psychology Thel our last graft will be
gone.
So far, when a man gets married, he ac-
cepts his wife 'as isl as the invoice of a bill
of goods puts it. He is commit to the
theory that woman is a mystery that no man
can fathom, and he makes no attempt to
unriddle the human cOnundrum he has &C
quired. He blindly accepts his wife's valua-
| ton of herself, and this enables the major
ity of women to get away with lit of things
! that they would never be able to pull off if
their husbands had :. real line on them.
Take the matter of health, for instance.
OF course, there are many women who real
ly are i'll, and no patience and forbearance
that their husban13 can show them is more
than they deserve. There are, however, le-
giOns of other women whose alleged i'll
health is nothing but a camouflage for lazi-
ness.
We all know women who are too feeble
to do their housework, but who are strong
enough to play golf, and dance half the
night; women who are too delicate to man
age a home and worry with servants, but
who are perfectly able to chase down bar
gains and sit over bridge tables. We know
women whose fragile constitutions require
expensive winter resorts, and summer re-
sorts, or European travel.
And we know here poor, tired, over
worked husbands, men who love domesticity
and long for their own firesides and home
cooking, but who are forced 20 live in board
ing houses, and hotels, and who spend their
lives tOiling to pay doctors, and specialists,
and sanitarium bills Suppose these men
understood their wives! Many woman who
is coddled, and pc. ed, and "poor-deared" by
her husband would have to pull off her pink
negligee, and get off her couch, and enter
the kitchen, believe me.
Also take nerves, as an example. We all
know meek, down trodden men who wipe
their feet on the door mat before they enter
their own doors, WIZ have to go out on the
back steps TO smoke, who wouldn't dare to
bring friend home to dinner, and who jump
when their wives speak to them because their
James are of such nervous temperament.
Jane says so, and they believe it.
Suppose they understood Jane, and knew
that her nerves were temper, and selfish
determination to have her own way. Wouldn't
Jane have to behave herself, else lose a
perfectly good m95l ticl-ot?
You know she would Every wife ha: her
own trade secret about how she works her
husband. She has studied him u-.tiI she has
the whole technique of how to play upon his
weaknesses, at her finger tips.
She knows that if she were to suggest,
flat-footed, that they should give up their
comfortable old no ne, and move into more