The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-08
Dorothy Dir
Are You A Mary
 Or A
 Martha
Don't Drive Your Husband Away With A Broomstck Make Your House A Liveable Home Instead Of A Tenn pie Of Housewifely Cleanliness

F Clever Mary-who, take 1t frol me. knows her way about-was talk Ing about her friend, Martha, the other day.
 "Of course. Martha is the Perfect Housewife" she said. but she Is a mighty poor wife,. Without doubt, she Is a great and glorious house. keeper and a cook and baker and cleaner. Never have I seen a rum pie in her curtains. Her bedspreads are like the driven snow. And you could eat off her floors. Her house is. so immaculate that her husband like bull in china shop.
 But her days are so taken up with work that she has time for nothing else-not minute to read or to play. or to be companion to her husband. In fact, she Is so worn out by the time night comes that she is too tired to do anything but go to bed.
 Her husband loves to read, but If he sits up late, the light annoys her so much that she can't sleep, so she says. So she nags him until he gives , 1t up in disgust. She, herself, never reads anything except the advertise ments of the department store in the PopSA D. anu lhC tAiiiAilb aSCOuAlS oA vacuum cleaners and patent break fast foods in the backs of the maga- zines And when her husband tries to talk to her about the things he Is interested in-books. sports. his business-he had just as we'll try to ring any other dumbbell.
 "Now. I do all my own housework, and must be a fairly capable house. wife, for my mother-in-law has put lnt f1ac that. But there isn't 8 spot In my house where we can't park ourselves at any time. My library table is filled with books and magazines, and If husband drops ashes and scatters the Sunday papers all over the place, let him and gently ande painlessly remove them after he has passed on.
 T don't really know anything about sports. I wouldn't recognize a homo run if I met it on the street, but when hubby wants to talk about baseball I assume an intelligent ex- pression. don't ask him if Dempsey Is the name, of a new pancake flour, and I act as if I were thrilled to death when my John announces Zev won the race, and that Charlie Pad dock has set 8 new track record.
 And I am never too tired to play with my husband. I grab my hat the iiAhulC hO cuS5CoIS SiC ilONACo. can get ready to go anywhere in an hour. I just adjust my complexion Martha considers that a real vice and we are off.
 Martha can't understand why my husband very rarely goes away from home of an evening and almost never without melville hers beats it to the corner drug store as soon as he has eaten his super-excellent dinner. And just can't make her see that it | Is because she puts her house before him. She worships cleanliness and | order. and sacrifices everything to | t&4M.
 ",The first thing Martha knows, she <is going to lose her husband, and she will go around wailing and weeping and telling how hard she worked and what good housekeeper. she was. She never will know that she literally drove him away from her with a broom handle.
 T told Martha the other day that if she would spend less time polish | ing her mahogany and more time polishing her finger nails and rlb- ping up her mind, it would~be better for her. But she just smiled that superior smile that a model house. keeper always bestows on the woman whom she suspects of having dust on the back pantry shelf. and made a dive for a basement sale of some- body's patent cleaning fluid"
 Mary is right. Cleanliness and