Show Dorothy Dixs Dix's Letter Box Boj 1 THE WIDOWER WHO FINDS ALL OLD MAIDS SELFISH MISS NINETEEN WHO BELIEVES SHE CAN RESCUE A A. APIECE PIECE OF DAMAGED GOODS BY MARRYING HIM THE USE OF COSMETICS PRO AND CON COND DEAR D EAR MISS Will DIX-Will you be kind enough to inform roe me why nearly Marly all old maids are selfish I am a a. widower and I thought I would marry an old maid but I find that they are so selfish they dont don't want to get et married You say a man ought to divide his hll Income fifty fifty-fifty with his wife Dont Don't you t I. I know there are aro a lot of women that would 5 spend their halt half for or powder and puffs Be- Be Besides I sides of the women are selfish t when it comes to their own children J. J B J I Answer t. t All of us ua are selfish Mr J J. J B. B J J. Jand s 4 and If old ld maids maid are more selfish than I married women It I Is f for r the same lame rca rea son Ion that old bachel bachelors rs are more selfish a than married men Matrimony doesn't always bring happiness 4 1 to a man and woman but It lx Is the greatest dis- dis s. s and developer of character that hu man Ingenuity has ever invented Nobody ever DOROTHY DIX goes through the mill of wedlock and com s sout out the same It chastens the ho proudest spirit It bends the lie most stubborn back It puts a Jew few crimps In the most will Why even the ho married look so married you can spot them at sight Something Is gone out of their jaunty appearance that they once had bad something Is lacking of the cocksureness of the unmarried for no man cats can listen to his wife's criticism without having his head permanently deflated and no woman can hear what her husband really thinks ot her without feeling that she is n a poor worm of the dust tsat hasn't any real reason for or existing Above all married people find out that no two people can live together without a mutual give and nd take and so they learn how to consider others Instead of themselves Also they find out ut that whatever else It may be marriage Is a sacrificial altar and because they have to give up theIr own wills their own de de- desires sires their own pleasures for their husbands and wives and children they learn to be un unselfish It Is the old bachelors and the old maids who havo ways who get faddy Caddy about their rood food and who are upset If anything Interferes with their personal comfort Husbands and wives who have brought up a ahouse ahouse house full of children have havo never had bad time to coddle themselves and develop temperamental peculiarities But I cannot agree with you that old maids as a class are arc selfish On the contrary my experience of them has been that they are m moat st unselfish Def Before re you condemn them think of the unmarried w women men you know who have given their whole lives to taking care of querulous old parents Isn't It the daughter wh who slaves slave away and supports mother and father and bears bear with theIr whims and crochets while the married chil chil- children dren have gone off t to homes home of their own 7 And think of the old maids you know who spend all of their earn earn- earnings s ings on their families am Illes who work beyond their strength to put nephews through college and give pretty nieces clothes and pay sisters sister's doctors doctor's bills and help brother when he gets out of work I know plenty of these self abnegating angels who go shabby them them- themselves selves and do without all the things that they would like to have In order to give ghe to their families I know plenty ot of old maids earning fine salaries who are dooming themselves to the po por r house or to a dependent old age because they have not enough intelligent selfishness to save up the money to live Jive on when they will be too old to work I stand by my guns In saying that a man should go with his wife on the money proposition If the woman has been beena a good wife she has earned It and It belongs to her by rights and her husband needn't be afraid that she will spend It fo fool fool- l. l It she was that sort there w wouldn't be any money to divide because a husbands husband's prosperity depends upon his wife's thrift as much as upon his earning capacity Besides any woman eon ean get more out of a dollar than a man can Of course others Il are selfish about their children That Is why they want to save money so eo as to give ghe their girls and boys bos advantages DOROTHY DIX DEAR flEAR MISS We DIX are a group ot of young youn married folks who ho would U like our opinion on this situation Ye We know a 0 girl who Is pretty popular with a spotless reputation and who holds a responsible business position She Is In love Yo with Ith a aman man who drinks to excess gambles ambles recklessly Is Immoral and has been divorced dh from one wife wHo This girl of 19 maintains that she will walt wait for this man to have his 1115 fling and Is sure he will settle down after they are married She Insists there Is good In him I if It can be brought to the surface but we are of the opinion that It Is too deeply burled buried ever everto everto to Le be dug out by woman What do you think OBSERVERS Answer Doubtless there Is some good in everybody but why any girl wants to make herself an excavating c committee to try to exhume the one grain of g gold ld In the ton of mud and slime In such a man must f forever reyer remain one ne of the conundrums that nobody can guess It has always seemed to me that nothing but colossal van Ity ever pr prompts a woman to marry a man to reform him It ItIs ItIs Is her egotism that makes her think that she Is II a er who can transform a weak character Into a strong one who can quench a drunkards drunkard's thirst and turn a philanderer Into a home husband ot Of course lots of girls have this inflated estimate of their own hyp- hyp hypnotic rowers powers and every day we see them marrying drunkards and and laz lazy shirtless shIftless do neer In the fond and belief that all these men need Is their sacred Influence to make them sober moral Industrious husbands And later on we see them risIng up In the night to let in drunkards or hurrying off ocr to the divorce courts or taking In boarders to support men who are still too tired to work ark For the unalterable fact remains that if Ie a mm will not go straight for the sake of isis his own manhood Ite will never do It for any woman I sh should uld uy say that If this particular gIrl Irl marries this p lar man she will not have one chance in a thousand of happl happl- ness And why when there are so many w worthwhIle men In Inthe Inthe the world does she pick out thIs particular piece of damaged goods DOROTHY DIX DEAR flEAR MISS blISS DIX you tell me what you think about the use of I cosmetics A SOUTH CAROLINA READER Answer I approve ve of the use of c cosmetics when they are used arUs artis and so as to enhance the g good od l looks ks of a woman I dis approve when they are used inartistIcally and disfigure a woo wo- wooman man I hold held It Is every w womans woman's mans man's bounden duty to be balm to the eyes of the beholder If she p possibly can and there Is no question n but that a little Judiciously applied r rouge uge and lipstick are a godsend to the sall sallow w and the middle But Dul on the tho other hand band a woman who Is painted up like a house afire whose nose noso resembles a a. marshmallow and whose mouth looks like a raw cut or of butchers butcher's meat commits the unpardonable sin against art and all good taste So to my mind whether the use of f cosmetics Is right or wrong depends depend on n h how w you use them DOROTHI DIX Copyright by Public Ledger |