Show Dorothy Dix Talks IF YOUR WIFE IS NAGGING FRETFUL OR MORBID SHE PROBe PROBABLY PROBABLY ABLY HAS HOUSEWIFE ITIS WHICH GIVES A WOMAN TOO MUCH TIME TO THINK AND NOTHING INTERESTING TO THINK ABOUT TRY ABOUT TRY TAK TAKING TAKING ING HER TO PLACES OF AMUSEMENT AND AND WATCH THE MAGIC CURE ThU trouble with Uh women Is that they have too much time to think and andI THE THU I not enough h Interesting things to think about This Is especially the tho case cage with the domestic woman and it explains why the tho average wife and mother Is 15 far more moro given to fretfulness and whining and complaining and than is her business or professional sister I IThe The one has something to occupy i 4 her mind the tho other has not Some Something thing different Is happening to the one every minute of the day She Is teeing seeing 0 freih frech faces getting a new slant on her i work The other works mostly alone with nobody even to talk to to doing th the tho same monotonous tasks over and over again The Tho one has to keep herself alert and pepped up to hold her job ob o ov The other slumps slump because she cant can't lose her job If she the tried to i r FOR Fon it is the curse of housework that while a it exhausts a womans woman's body it doesn't oc oe occupy oc- oc DOROTHY DIX OIX cupy her mind She doesn't need to use more than one lobe of her brain to sweep a a. floor or wash dishes and Its It's the thoughts that women think while they are sewing long scams seams or darning stockings s that sends them to madhouses or out on the streets in search of adventure or that makes them nag the life out of their husbands The average housewife has haa very little variety In her exist exist- exIstence ence encl She performs automatically the same round of mechanical cal cOIl tasks day after day week after week year after year Her children are either too little to be companions to her or else they are out with youngsters of their own age She Isn't bookish and has few resources within herself Her husband generally considers that he has haa done his hla full duty when he has supplied her with bread and meat He never thinks of feeding her mind and soul loul SO CO TUB TIlE poor VI woman with wills endless leisure in which to think and with I nothing new or thrilling or amusing to think about only too often drifts into an unhealthy line of thought Generally she begins by sym sym- sympathizing sympathizing with herself and dramatizing her woes to herself There Ther is nothing really wrong with her lot She has a good gool husband a good home nice children and If It she has to work and make sacrifices and bear disappointments why that is the common fate of us all But In the long hours In which a woman dopes herself up upon upon upen on en self pity she gets to see herself as a martyr sacrificed on the family altar sitar and actually comes to believe that no one ever bore such burdens burdena or endured such sufferings as she does Be Be- Because Because Because cause her husband and children do not make a great acclaim over everything sl s she s does she becomes obsessed with the Idea that they do not love her or appreciate her and she sheds bar bar- barrels barrels barrels of tears over the sorrows that are the portion of the wife and mother UAL of the melancholy ladles ladies who weep upon your our breast brast and tell you H how they are neglected and how their husbands have ceased to love them simply got that way by thinking it it There is nothing to it In reality rea Illy and the poor devoted husbands who are working themselves to death to support them would be surprised to death if they knew that their wives had hod ever doubted their affection If the woman Is of the romantic type In her hours of soul communion while she Is patching little Johnnys Johnny's trousers or turning the sheets she tnt begins to construct romances of which she is Invariably the heroine and In which she lives in a silk lined world where w ere she dines on nightingales nightingale's tongues and Is wooed by an impassioned lover who showers ropes of pearls and diamonds and motor cars upon her OR Alt ELSE having nothing more entertaining to do the woman spends I her time vivisecting her heart and decides that her husband after all all docs does not come cOmo up to her ideal that she else has missed her true affinity and that she would have been happier If It she cho had married man marr d some old sweetheart of her girlhood that she didn't fancy at all at the time or that she would find her Iler real In some man she might possibly meet in the future All of this seems silly enough but It Is what makes thou thou- thousands thousands sands o of women come to grief trying to crash Into the castles In Spain and It Is what makes thousands of other women cite dis discontented contented dissatisfied with their husbands and homes They cant can't feel that it Is worth while to come down to earth and get gel geta gela a good dinner for their families after having most of the day In the rarified atmosphere of burning romance AND AND it is because wives have so few outside Interests that they Lag nag 1 They Tisey lose all sense of proportion They make mountains out of molehills They let a tiny irritation grow into a grievance They harp forever on the same string because that is the only string they have They tell you ou tho the same thing over a million times because they have nothing new to say The remedy for this state of affairs Is plainly Indicated as the doctors say It Is to give a woman something Interesting to think about FILL her mind with new ideas Give her something amusing and enter enter- entertaining I taming to mull over o as she shells the lie peas and fixes the baby's bot hot bottle hottie tle tie and rubs up the silver sliver Dont Don't leave her to her own ow-n thoughts thought they are aro too dangerous If husbands brought any intelligence whatever to bear on the home proposition which proposition which they mostly don't dont their dont their wives would not have to entreat them to take them out two or three times a week to places c cf amusement They would do It as a matter of self protection for tor they would know that the wife who Is looking forward to a pleasant evenings evening's diversion or who Is recalling th amusing things she saw laW and did the eve eve- evening evening ning before Isn't spending her time dwelling upon her hus hus- husbands husbands husband's bands band's shortcomings or Indulging In morbid Imaginings about herself DOROTHY DIX Copyright C by Public Ledger |