Evening star., 1935-04-19

OF course, stingy men who refuse to
give their wives even the wages of q
servant as an allowance camoufage
their meanness by trying to deceive
themselves into thinking that women
have no pride or personal dignity and
that they don't mind begging for the
money they have earned a dozen
times over by their services. But. in
reality, they know better, and If they
have any sense at all they must know
that they are taking the quickest and
surest way to making their wives hate
them.
IF THE tightwad husband IS one
complication in marriage. the rich
wife Is another. The one thing that
a woman wants most is a happy mar
ried life and that is the one thing
that her money seems unable to buy
for her. The proportion Of old maids
among millionairesses is greater than
among any other class of women, and
you rarely see q very rich woman who
has married who has not had one or
two divorces.
Since women are all cut from the
same bolt and stamped in the same
colors of sweetness and sourness, Of
amiability and temper, of self1shness
and unSelflshneSS, the qualifications
of the rich and poor for wifehood
must be about the same. Hence it Is
obvious that the reason that so few
of the rich have devoted husbands is
that the wives moneybags, somehow,
separate them.
MAYBE it is because the poor hus-
A'A band of a rich wife always feels
that he Is in q subordinate position,
just as the unknown husband of q
famous woman always feels that he Is,
and his vanity can't stand that.
Doubtless there are penurious rich
women who dole out nickels to their
husbands and require them to give an
account of what they did with the
quarter they give them week before
last, just as there are husbands who
treat their wives in that manner.
Possibly rich wives are not so humble
and complacent and do not take so
much back talk from their husbands
as dependent wives do from theirs.
But for whatever reason, 1t does not
make for the success of marriage
for a poor man to marry a rich
woman.
A third complication comes In when
woman has some property of her
own and Is married to man whom
she loves and who is everything that
is good and kind and fine, but who Is
no business man. Many of the most
intelligent, the most cultivated, the
most agreeable and companionable
men in the world are totally lacking
in financial sagacity. They are vision
ary. Unduly optimistic. Unframed,
the fore-doomed victim Of every
swindler who comes along with q get
rich-quick scheme
NOW the curious thing is that while
q man will recognize that he
hasn't a tenor voice or that he
couldn't paint q picture or write a
best-seller, he can never be convinced
that he isn't a Napoleon of finance,
and that If his wife would just turn
over all her money to him he would
make killing. She may have staked
him to a dozen enterprises that have
failed. but that hasn't shaken his faith
that this one will gross q million.
If the wife has grain Of sense In
her head she gets death grip on the
remnants of her fortune to save her.
self and her children and her husband
from the poor house. But if she does
he never forgives her for it. And 50
the fight goes on. in the home as well
as out of 1t, over money, which We can
neither do with nor without.
DOROTHY DIX.