Evening star., 1936-04-18
Dorothy Dix Says
Managing Home Is Two-Handed Job
in Which the Husband Should Share.

sultan. Mother waits on him hand
and foot. She picks up the clothes
that he scatters from one end Of the
house to the other. She cleans up
the bath room after he has left 1t
looking as If cyclone had passed
through it. If he comes in late she
rushes to the kitchen to heat up his
dinner for him. Even the husky lads
who have to play ball in the afternoons
for exercise are not required to do any
chores around the house.
Mothers don't deal so tenderly by
their daughters. Girls who have stood
on their feet all day behind counter
or working in factory or pounding
typewriter are expected to help get the
dinner and clean up when they get
home and to assist with the family
sewing. but not the boys, though why
goodness only knows, when the boys
are far stronger and better able to do
extra work than the girls. And it
isn't because there is anything occult
about cooking or cleaning or dishwash-
ing that boys can't learn that keeps
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make bread and sweep a room. The
greatest chefs in the world are men.
No house is ever as tidy as men keep
a ship. And, moreover. men like to
cook and get kick out of it, as is
witnessed by the way they brag about
their performances when they go
camping.
have never known but one woman
who took a sane view of boys position
In the home. She had sons and no
daughters. and she taught her boys to
help her with the housework just as if
they had been girls. She taught them
TO make q bed as neatly as q West
Point cadet does. to keep their things
in order, and how to cook and serve
an elaborate dinner, and it not only
saved her from working herself to
death to serve boys who were far bet
ter able TO work than she was. but it
gave them a skill and knowledge that
will be useful to them as long as they
live.
NEAR DOROTHY DIx-1t amuses
~ me the way you champion the
men on that old. old question, whether
or not married man should have a
night out. have been married more
than four years and it has been my
experience, as we'll as that of my mar
ried friends. that If you give a man
an inch he will take ell. When they
get night out they not only stay out
until early morn, but come home
drunk as well. Can you defend this.
BROWN EYES.
Answer-I can't defend a man get
ting drunk under any circumstances,
but 1t is easy to explain why he does
it If his wife keeps him on the lesh
so tightly that he is rarely able to slip
it even for a single evening. 1t makes
it an occasion to celebrate with
whoopee and without regard to the
consequences which he knows he will
have to suffer, anyway.
But I deny that every man gets
drunk whenever he steps out Of an
evening or that he goes on an orgy
If his wife's eye isn't upon him. By
the time man is old enough to be
married his character and habits are
ormed and he has worked out his own
code of conduct. If he is temperate;
if he is moral; If he is the sort of a
man you respect and are willing to
marry, marriage does not change him
so completely that he can't be trusted
to behave himself If he goes out for
single night. Marriage can't have as
demoralizing an effect as that on him.
Yet you and many other wives seem to
think that 1t does.
Anyway, you miss the point in my
argument about husbands night of.
It is this: That the fundamental pas
sion of every human heart is for per-
sonal liberty. It is the thing we fight
for and die for. and when you take it
away from men and women you have
taken away from them the greatest
source of happiness in life, and you
put yourself In the role of tyrant
and oppressor.
It isn't just liberty that the husband
wants. 1t is the sense of freedom.
Leave the door open and he will sit
by his own fireside. Lock it and he
will climb out Of the window. No wife
ever yet kept her husband true to her
by watching him. That is matter OF
his own volition. Not Of surveillance.
DOROTHY DIX.
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