Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-07-14
DOROTHY DIX DISCUSSES LIFE
TALKS ON HEART AND HOME

Many q woman actually believes
that her husband has ceased to love
her when he is killing himself for
love of her.
A man writhes under being nag
ged, and having to punch the home
time clock at a certain hour, and
being told every time he starts out
Of the door to watch out for auto
mobiles. His idea of a good wife is
a woman who makes a man COM
Portable, who never asks any ques-
tons, and who takes it for granted
that a decent, honorable man can
be trusted to act in a decent, hon
orabIe manner when he is out from
under his wife's eye.
A woman believes that being a
good wife is simply a mental state.
and that if she loves her husband
enough she can poison him on bad
cooking and torment him with her
suspicious and her admonitions.
With her. nagging is n full express
sion of devotion and anxiety, and
when she grants her husband the
boon Of personal liberty, she has
ceased to care for him.
Little, however as the sexes
understand each other. women und-
erstand men far better than men
understand women. This is because
women have been forced to study
men. Their livelihood and their per-
quisites depend upon the proficiency
they obtained in the subject.
Men have been under no such
necessity. They have always held
the purse and handed out the prizes,
so if there was any adjusting of two
personalities to be accomplished: If
there was any side stepping of pecu-
liarities to be done; if there was any
fathoming of another's nature to be
undertaken, women had to do it.
Wherever a husband rules his wife
he does it by brute force, by her de-
pendence on him, but when woman
manages her husband, she does it
through her subtle knowledge of
him.
Nine men out of ten give their
wives checks at Christmas because
they have no idea what their wives
want, though, heaven knows. women
are not backward about throwing
out hints about what they desire;
nine men out of ten forget all senti-
mental anniversaries: nine men out
of ten do not know their wives fav"
Orite color, nor what they PARTICULAR
ly like to eat. but you could not find
one woman in ten thousand who
doesn't know every taste and within
and fancy of her husband better
than he knows it himself.
Another reason that women under
stand men better than men under
stand women is because a woman is
always reticent with a man. She
never really opens her heart to him.
She never shows him her soul. She
never tells him the truth about her
self.
This is because, for one thing. man
is never interested in the inner life
of a woman. Men never want to
know what even the women they
really love think. They want q Wom-
an to be good looking and agreeable
and interested in them, and that's
all. And because of this, and because
a woman is always afraid of a mans
criticism, she tells man about her
self only what he wants to know.
But a man, on the other hand, has
no shame in showing his naked soul
to a woman. He tells her things he
would never tell any man. He will
babble like a child to woman. He
will boast like a schoolboy. He will
weep like a babe on her breast. She
has only to listen and he will tell
her everything he knows.