Show Dorothy Dix Talks GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH IS STILL THE RALLY RALLY- RALLYING RALLYING ING INC CRY OF MATRIMONY AND THE FAMILY CIRCLE AGAINST THE NAGGERS AND MEDDLERS WHO ARE REALLY OUR NEAREST AND DEAREST THE TIlE THE other day I met a Do little who was continually picking on onI I L her husband as the children say Every minute there was some nomo little nagging criticism For fOI goodness sake rut put lut on another necktie I cant can't bear tics with red In them I dont don't don I like the tho way your hair Is cut Its It's too short In the back Your Tout trousers need pressing lont Dont Don I. I sprawl I hate people who lounge In their 4 chairs Dont Don't smoker smoke give me a Do head head- headache headache 41 ache and so on on and on on and on I The Infatuated young bridegroom o made some ome laughing rejoinder rejoinders to his hi wife's strictures strictures for for she was a very o beautiful new toy toy and and reminded her hep that that she had taken him for bet bet- better better ter or worse habits and manners and tastes and clothes and nd all but I yearn yearned ed to take her apart Into a secret ecret place h 0 and knock her lovely solid Ivory head t against the wall and say to her 0 My dear child dont don't you know v. v that you are taking the surest and the the DOROTHY DORT MY HY DIX OIX quickest way In all the world to kill your husbands husband's love for you and make mako him sorry that he married you DONT you know that when you interfere with a mans man's personal hab- hab habIts habIts I Its you set up an irritation in his mind that makes him cel eel about as kindly toward you as he does to the smallpox And It bodes no wife any good for her husband to regard her In the light of ot a Do spoil port and to bracket 1 Ier I-er or along with the unpleasant things that he dodges when whenever whenever ever he can you ou Intelligence enough to realize that by the time a aman aman aman man is old enough to marry he has h s acquired ways and settled on a scheme of life that appeals to him and a woman who monkeys with this does docs so at her peril I If you dont don't like the kind of collars a man wears or his table manners or the kind of food he eats or the type of lit lit- literature literature literature he reads If you dont don't approve of his playing golf on Sunday or of his using tobacco or playing poker well and good Leave him alone Dont Don't marry mury him But If you do marry him for heavens heaven's sake and nd for the sake of fair play leave leavo his personal habits alone a 3 IF IP tF YOU dont don't you are not honest You are obtaining a husband bus band under I false pretenses for no man marries to get a wife to reform him and wild horses couldn't drag a bridegroom up to the altar If ho knew v beforehand that he was going to forfeit there every ever vestige of per his liberty The reason why so many marriages go on the rocks Is I. be be- because because cause tho the average wife starts start out with the settled determination tion lIon to make her husband over over according to her own little perforated paper pattern of an Ideal husband and she never once considers that this may be a painful process for the man and one that does cruel things to his feelings n how few households you ou know in which a husband can v eat what he prefers without his wife telling him how bad every every- everythIng everything thing he lie likes is II I for his stomach Or where a man can spend any ony of oC the money he lie makes on il is fad fal without his wife berating for his extravagance Or where a man can eRn sit up sip as late lato as he lie pleases over overa a new book without his wife coming in every half hour to tell him bins It is time to go bO to bed Of where a husband dares ask any of his old cronies to drop in and spend a festive evening Consider the husbands and wives sixes you know who have ha waged a thirty years' years war over a pipe Good noble conscientious women who pat themselves on the tha th back in the perfect consciousness that they have done their full duty as wives are always asking bewilderedly why It Is I. that they have lost lest their husbands' husbands love The answer nine times tims out of ten would be By Interfering with your husbands husbands' personal habits By nagging him about the little things he does and doesn't do do which Is like the stinging of gnats that will drive any man away from home to a place where he is free of such pests and to some somo woman women who will pour over his Irrl- Irrl toted vanity the soothing oil eli of her flattery AND AND men arent aren't the only ones who resent having their personal hab- hab habits habIts 11 its interfered with Women also have ho their Hittle way that are as a the breath of ot life to them and they the could forgive a husband for halt half the crimes on the calendar sooner than they can for lor trying to alter these Yet there are husbands foolish enough to try to regulate the length of their wives' wives skirts and whether they shall have their hair hall bobbed or not and who try to force their brides to throw their rouge pots and lipsticks out of the window as a. soon as they arc married THEY think they even have the ht THEY right to tell their wives what clubs they the shall belong to what God they shall worship and bow how often then may go to see their mothers And then these poor miserable tyrants trants wonder onder that their wives are aro disgruntled and peevish and dont don't put any pep and enthusiasm into Inlo marriage The truth Is that the bane of all family life Is the mania we all have for Interfering In the affairs of those of our own households We know they resent It We know they are go go- goIng Ing to hate us for doing It It but we just cant can't keep our fingers out of their pies IT IT IS to get away from mothers mothers' and fathers fathers' eternal questioning and ana J a suggesting and nagging that makes children leave home as soon as they ey can It l is because brothers and sisters cant can't let each eath othra quarrel and end fight tight until they have hass separated ed and gone bono their different ways in life liCe And it is 19 because husbands and wives have not the generosity to concede each other the she slightest sligh lest individual liberty that men ruen and women ornen rush to the divorce court to have their matrimonial bonds broken brokenFor brokenFor brokenFor For the one thing that that we all desire above everything else In the world Is just to be let alone and permitted to do the things we want to do In the way we wo want to do It It when we want to do It Happiness consists of as as' as simple a thing as that And It Is a tragic thing that those who love us and who desire our happiness will sacrifice everything else for us us except the pleasure of meddling In our affairs DOROTHY DIX Copyright by Public Ledger |