Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-03-13
DOROTHY DIX
DISCUSSES
LIFE
BY DOROTHY DIX
d DOINO II bIN
Every Mans Gambler in the Game
of Picking Out Wife to Fit His Ideal

OF Picking Out Wife to Fit His Ideal
A YOUNG man wants to know
~ some infallible signs by which
he can tell whether a girl will
make a thrifty, domestic, home stay
ing wife or not. Alas and alack,
there is no sage who can answer this
question! There is no way of tell
ing what sort of wife a woman will
make until after you have married
her, and then the knowledge comes
too late to be of service. Matri-
monia1 experience, like most other
experience, teaches us it's lesson
after the time has passed by when
we could profit by it.
You can not tell the kind of wife
a girl will make by her habits and
her characteristics, because girls do
not run true to form. They have
a curious way of reversing them
selves, and being as totally different
after marriage from what they were
before marriage as DR.. Jekyl was
from Mr.. Hyde. Sometimes, indeed,
it seems that the marriage Cere-
money is a sort of conjure that met
amophoses d woman into an entire
ly different being from what she
was as a girl.
This makes all Of the cut and dried
rules for picking out a good wife
mere tommyrot. OF course, it
sounds plausible to say if you want
an economical wife to marry a poor
girl who has had to count her pen
MES all her life. Or if you want a
wife who is a, good cook, marry
girl who has always had to do house
work at home. Or if you want a
wife who will be an Alice-s blythe
fire, marry a girl who has been
brought up in the country, on in
some quiet community.
All of that sounds like good, logi.
cal advice, and many man follows
it to his undoing. He picks out a
poor girl in order to get a saving
wife, and finds out that she is tired
of squeezing nickles, and that hence.
forth she proposes to throw money
at the birds. He marries the domes.
tic girl, and as soon as the cere-
mOny is over, she walks out of the
kitchen and refuses to enter it again
at any price.
He picks out a f1reside companion
who doesn't know how to fox trot,
and the minute she is married she
takes dancing lessons and goes cab
aret mad.
On the other hand, many q girl
who has spent papa's money as if it
grew on trees becomes the tightest
of little tfghtwads when it comes to
parting with her own money. Some
of the very best cooks I have ever
seen are women who had never
boiled an egg until after they were
married, and business women gen.
orally make more efficient and eco
nomical housekeepers than home.
keeping girls.
All of us have seen dozens Of So
ciety butterflies settle down into be-
ing the most stay at-home household
grubs, and we could mention, off
hand, a dozen girls who, before mar
riage, seemed nothing but silly little
fashion plates, who, after marriage,
developed into model wives and
mothers.
We have seen A marriage turn
girl who hung her clothes up on the
floor at home into a neat house
keeper. We have seen 2 girl who
wouldn't get up to breakfast at
home, arise and cook her husband a
o'clock breakfast without a whim-
per. We have seen marriage make
lazy girls industrious, and extrava-
CANT ones saving, and we have seen
just the opposite of all of this, and
so we say you never can tell.
Generally speaking, the safest
play for man to make is to marry
girl who has had her fill Of the
pleasures of girlhood. This mreans
pretty clothes, parties, dancing and
the admiration of men.
The girl who is always longing for