Evening star., 1938-12-05
Dorothy Dix Says
No Wife Has Real Fixed Value;
Husband Writes the Price Tag

What's wife worth? A farmer
who recently spent 80 cents in his
local paper in advertising for a
bride commented: We'll, if I get a
good wife it will be worth the
money" The Bible puts the price
of a good wife as beyond rubies,
yet in the marriage ceremony the
bride is invariably given away.
Apparently wives have no fixed
market value like pearls or pota-
toes or any other commodity. Each
man writes his own price tag for
his own possession. For we will see
one man who regards his wife as
the treasure of his life and who
keeps her wrapped in velvets and
furs and spends his time admiring
her and congratulating himself on
her belonging to him. Another man
regards his wife as merely excess
baggage that he wished on himself
in some unguarded moment, and
that he would be glad to get rid
of If he could.
So there we are. and the answer
to the question: What is a wife
worth?" would seem to be that she
is worth whatever her husband
thinks she is worth, but that is not
altogether true. Wives have their
own intrinsic value, even apart
from any consideration of them as
Lady Loves. companions, penny
pinchers and household conven-
iencies. Even the faults of wives
are often assets to their husbands.
Many wife's extravaganza, for
instance, is the basis of her hus-
bands fortune. Many an easy-go-
ing man, whose real ambition was
centered on catching a tarpon or
winning a golf cup instead of be-
coming a millionaire, would have
been satisfied just to work a little
and play a lot if he hadn't had to
hustle out and get busy to pay his
wife's bills. But he did, and by
the time he made enough to pro-
vide her with imported finery and
emerald bracelets he had become
a go-getter.
And any doctor will tell YOU that
the best insurance a man can take
out is to get married, and that
while it may drive a man wild to
have his wife necessarily nag him
about going to see the doctor and
wearing his rubbers and muffling
up his throat. and not smoking so
much and cutting down on his food
and so on and so forth, it keeps
him alive.
OF the value of wife as a first
AID to comfortable living, it is need
less to speak. 1t puts the poor
married clerk in the class with the
plutocrat bachelor. For $2O-a-week
Johnny Benedict has his home in
which his every taste is catered to:
MS dinner which he did not have
to order himself ready for him, a
valet who lays out his clothes and
keeps them in order and sends
Things to the laundry and the
cleaner. He has somebody to nurse
him when he is sick and listen to
him when he wants to talk about
himself, and what more does any
rich unmarried man have?
AS an alibi wife's value is beyond
computation. A bachelors sins of
omission and commission are upon
his own head, but a man who has
a wife has scapegoat upon which
he can lay all Of his own failures.
If a married man is drunkard he
was driven to drink by the way his
wife treated him. If he is lazy and
no-account the reason he has never
achieved anything is because his
wife killed all of his ambition by
her lack of sympathy. If he fails
in business it was his wife's ex-
travagance that bankrupted him.
And this doasnx avan iner,da q