Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-12-06
DOROTHY DIX DISCUSSES LIFE
Talks ON HEART AND HOME

for he is fickle-minded. While with
the second man I feel content and
safe, knowing that whatever l do or
say will be right in his eyes.
Is fifteen years too great diff
ference in age between man and
woman when our pleasures and
friends are the same? Do you think
1 will forget my first love when L
am married to the second?
NEW YORKER.
Answer:
1t is tragical that temperamental
people, stormy, tempestuous ones,
have a fatal lure about them; but
to marry one of them is to bring
down certain misery in ones head.
1t is electing to live in a perpetual
storm center in which there is no
peace or rest. If you marry a man
who is jealous and grouchy, you
will spend the balance of your days
walking on eggs, which gets to be
mighty tiresome promenade for a
wife.
You will always go in fear and
trembling, dreading to rouse the
devil that crouches within him. You
will live in terror of his maniacal
outbursts Of temper. You will al
ways be hiding things and keeping
things under cover that might vex
him.
There isn't any gamble, as you
say, about marrying a high-temper-
ed, jealous, grouchy man. Such a
mans wife always loses out. Her
lot is never-ending unhappiness.
On the other hand, if you marry
the older man who is gentle, and
kind, and considerate, you will have
everything that a rational woman
needs to maze her happy, for the
fifteen years of difference in your
ages does not matter when it is on
the mans side. But here the COM
plication comes in. So contradictory
is the human heart that if you mar
ry your high-tempered, grouchy man
you will hate him within six
months, but if you don't marry him
he will always remain a figure Of
romance in your imagination that
will make your quiet lover seem
commonplace. SO the question sim
mers itself down to this: If you
want a peaceful, quiet life, marry
the elder. man. If you want an
hours happiness and the balance
misery, take the younger one.
DOROTHY DIX.
Dear Miss Dix: [ am a married
man with the dearest wife in the
world, but, as in so many hom IS,
there is little friction. I like to
smoke, but my wife objects so much
that l never smoke at home, much
less in the house. If I should at.
tempt to light a cigar, there would
be a regular stOr'n.
And the more she objects the
more I want to smoke. You know
how it is about the forbidden fruit.
1 don't smoke 10 excess. and I can't
understand why NV wife can't I'M
derstand that when she doesn't let
me take my ease IN NV own home,
and drives me out. of it for my pleas
ure, that she is driving me away
from her Can you? HANK.
Answer:
No, I can't, Hank. I have never
been able to understand why God
denied so many otherwise intelligent
women all knowledge Of how to deal
with husbands. Wives want to keep
their husbands at home, and yet l
have known plenty of women who
wouldn't give their husbands a sim
gle spot in the house that he could
call his own and in which he could
do as he pleased.
I have known women who wouldn't
let their husbands indulge in any
hobby at home, women who consid-
cred their husbands treasured col
lections as messes, wives who
wouldn't let their husbands eat what
they wanted at home. who wouldn't
let their husbands smoke lin the
house. And yet these women Won
der why they had wandering hus-
bands.
Concretely, if I were q. man and
wanted to smoke at home, Id do it,
The man who pays the freight has
got some rights that even a wife
should respect.
Copyright, 1929