OCR Text |
Show M Page of Interest to the Women Folk I 1, Dorothy Dix Talks ' Why Divorce Increases. W ; By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman Writer ; I The Adunm' divorce Is a nlno dnyfi wonder anions tholr friends and ac qunlnUncoc. Everyono Is discussing It and nobody can understand 1L "It must bo Mrs. Adxras fault," say th mn, "for x finer man, "with a higher enp of honor, than Jack Adams Ad-ams doesn't live." "You needn't tell us that Mrs. Adams Ad-ams is to blame," cry the -women, "for a sweeter, tenderer, more loyal, or more conscientious -woman than Mar-Ian Mar-Ian Adam is, the good Lord never "And If ever there -was a love match jt ra theirs," exclaim the chorus of their friends in unison. "Why, they M-oro simply mad about each other, and how they could ever come to the parting part-ing of the ways is beyond our imagln-Thelr imagln-Thelr little world haj never comprehended com-prehended the real roason of the Adams' Ad-ams' divorce. Perhaps the Adams tliomselves do not understand the true Inwardnoas of it, or know that In a ny they are the victims of their day and Renflration, and of the two forces that so often oppose each other heredity and progress. More particularly they are the victims vic-tims of the now feminist movement in which the woman has Rone forward Into a new world with different ideals, a different faith, another outlook from that occupied by her grandmother, grandmoth-er, while the man has stayed still in the very spot where his grandfather stood, and regards women from precisely pre-cisely the same standpoint that his grandfather did. The story of the Adams divorce Is a novel in three volumes. Let us read Volume I: Sixty years ago Johnathan Adams was married to Mary Brown. Jonathan Jona-than was a good man. He loved his wife, and he meant to be a good husband, hus-band, but his idea of what constlCutes a good husband was identical with the slave owner's Idea of what constitutes a good master. Ho thought he had done his full duty by his wife when he saw that she had enough to eat, a house to live in, and such clothes as he considered proper to givo her. For the rest, ho expected his wife to bear his children, perform all the duties of a perfectly trained upper servant, ser-vant, be properly grateful to him for I all that he did for her. and to look up- ' on him as a superior and godlike crea ture whom she was glad to obey. Ho never conceived of her as having hav-ing any life apart from his own, or thinking a thought that differed from Bj his. And It never entered his mind to J do anything actively to make her hap- l py- j Mary Adams belonged to the same j generation ai her husband. She had t never seen a woman regarded as any- 1 thing but an inferior creature, whose ' privilege it was to minister to the Y pleasure of man, and so although she rebelled inwardly at the way she was 1 treated, she accepted it with heroic patience as the inescapable lot of woman. She got along in peaco with her husband because she bowed her head with meekness to his iron rule, for it had been brod In her that a wife must submit to her husband. ' Volume 2s Thirty years ago John Adams mar-" mar-" rled Mamie Brown. John Adams' culogistB were never weary' of saying that ho was a chip off of the old block, and a worthy sort of his worthy father, , and It was true. John held to his father's rigid code of honesty In hia buslnoss dealings. He also subscribed . to his father's views concerning women. wom-en. Ho treated his wife as he had always al-ways seen his father treat his mother. He had never soon his mother considered, con-sidered, so ho thought It qulto unnecessary un-necessary to bo considerate of the feelings of a mere wlfd, or to take any pains to give her pleasure. Her part in life was to boar children, and make a man a comfortable home. "I'm the head of this house," was the phrase that was oftenost on his lips, and. he made of himself a domestic domes-tic tyrant before whom his wlfo and children trembled. John belonged to his father's gen-oration gen-oration domestically, but Mamie did not belong to her mother's generation. She belonged to a generation of women wom-en who had taken one step forward and who had begun to revolt against the serfdom of wives, and to seo the dawn of a new day of freedom for women. Mamie did not submit with the patience pat-ience that her mother-in-law had shown her husband's tyrannies. She fiercely rebelled against It. She! fqught back tooth and nail. j To a degree, Mamie was bound by the old order because dlvorco was ' still looked upon askance, and she ' had been trained to no gainful occu-, patlon, and she was financially dependent de-pendent upon her husband. So" she stayed with him, hating him as only I a slave can hate an unjust master, and their home was a place of never ending end-ing turmoil and strive. ' Five years ago Jack Adams and Marian Brown were married. Jack was a fine fellow, but he followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, grand-father, and began to treat his wife as ho had seen his mother and grandmother grand-mother treated. "I nm the head of this house," he declared imperiously. "Nonsense," laughed Marian, "Wo are matrimonial partners with equal authority." "I demand that you shnll obey me as my mother and grandmother obeyed their husbands' insisted Jack. "I shall respect your wishes as far as possible, but It is childish to talk of my obeying you. I am a grown woman, Intelligent, educated, not a fool or a slave to give blind obedience," obed-ience," replied Marian. That wns the beginning of the struggle strug-gle between them that ended with love lying dead at their feet. Jack was determined to conquer Marian, to break her spirit, to force her into the attitude of subservience that he had seen his mother and grandmother occupy oc-cupy to their husbands. Ho really loved Marian, but ho believed that a husband should dominate his wife completely. Marian was as strong as he, as courageous. Life was tolerable to her only on terms of equality with her husband. This ho would not grant her, and so between them ensued the tragic battle of two people who love each other and yet who are urged on by forces stronger than they are the I woman by progress, tho man by tradition, tra-dition, and tho blind arrogance of the male. She could not go baclc He would not movo forward. She could not en- dure the meekness of his grandmother, j nor live in the turmoil and squabbles i that his mother did. She was a train-p train-p ed business woman, able to make her own living, and so sho left him. It is becauso women havo moved forward into a new world where men's Imaginations have not followed them that divorce is increasing. oo |