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Show I Dorothy Dix Says j j! Solitary confinement is the maximum punishment in a J I ; penitentiary and no man has a right to inflict that on an in- ji !; nocent wife evening after evening. ; 'j; By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid "Woman "Writer i So far as I can gather from tho many heart walls that reach me on the. subject, the two things, from the feminine fem-inine point of viow, that prevent matrimony mat-rimony from being tbe grand, sweet song- it should be, and turn it Into the scrapping match that it too often is, are the absence of the Individual pock-etbook pock-etbook and tho presence of the latch key. And of these two enemies to domestic domes-tic peace and happiness, the chief offender of-fender Is the latch key. Women would do without their own money when they go shopping In the morning than to do without the society of their husbands in the home of evenings. In the course of a year I literally get hundreds of letters on this subject, written by wives who piteously beg for some good, reliable recipe for keeping keep-ing a man nailed to his own fireside at night And the burden of these let-tors let-tors Is always the same. It's the loneliness lone-liness of women who spend long, dull, monotonous hours with nobody to talk to, nobody to look at, even; nothing to do but just to yawn at the clock till they yawn themselves to bed. These women write that as soon as dinner Is over their husbands put on their hats and fare forth to enjoy themselves. Sometimes they don't even come home to dinner, but telephone tele-phone that they've been detained down town by important business. Sometimes Some-times they make excuse that they have to meet a customer or sit up with a sick friend, and sometimes they just don't offer any apologies. They merely mere-ly bang the door behind them. The result is the same to the woman. She's worked all day just as hard as her husband, maybe a little harder, cooking, sewing, mending, dusting, taking tak-ing care of the children. It has been solitary work, done In the home. Avith nobody to exchange a thought with, nobody to give her a fresh idea, or to tell her a good story that will give her the mental fillip of a laugh. No other work in the world is so wearing as domestic tasks, just because there are no outside interests to lighten and brighten them as there is to the work that is done outside of the home. Therefore, when night comes and the children are safely tucked Into bed and tho household affairs settled, the woman Is starved for companionship and amusement. She wants to talk and to be talked to, to hear something fresh that will give her thoughts a new turn. The only person to whom she can safely look to supply this need is her husband, and if instead of doing it he goes off down town and leaves her to add a lonely evening to a lonely day, it is nothing short of tragical to her. "0.Virl-lr ri i lnipl 1if ne ennnnco en for humanity's sake the man who does not realize how eruel ho is to his wife, or else he would stay at home and try to entertain her, or at least take her along with him to somo place of amusement. Certainly, no man with a heart In his bosom or ono spark of affection for the woman he is married to, would, evening after evening, leave her to her own dull and gloomy society, soci-ety, of which she's had far more than a sufficiency through the day, if he ever stopped to visualize how lonely and forlorn a figure a woman is sitting up solitary and alone, her one diversion diver-sion waiting hour after hour for the click of a key In a lock, and her imagination imagi-nation busy picturing scenes of merriment merri-ment in which her husband is participating, partici-pating, and sirens who are snatchAig him away from her. Just by way of illustration, lot a man picture himself under the same conditions. How would he like to spend the evenings alone in the flat if it was his wife's habit after dinner to pin on her hat and sally forth to some place of amusement? How would he like to pass tho hours thinking of her spending a gay evening In restaurants, restaur-ants, telling and listening to good stories, or tango trotting a little, and holding cheerful converse with good-looking good-looking men. or having a little game of bridge with a table of good players, while all the excitement that he had was reading the evening paper and listening lis-tening to the baby sleep? What would he do when she came home around midnight or a little lat- er? Can't we all give a good guess? He'd beat it for the divorce court. It wouldn't take much of that brand of matrimony to satisfy him. And what makes him suppose that his wife likes it any better than he would? What makes him imagine that a woman pines for solitude any more than a man? All the hermits I ever heard of were of tho masculine persuasion. persua-sion. Women are notoriouslv social by -nature, fond vt the sound of their own voices, and other people, and no woman ever yet was known to voluntarily volun-tarily commune with herself if she could commune with anybody else. Now I hold no brief for the henpeck-er. henpeck-er. I have gone on record, more than once, as, holding firmly to the faith that when a man marries it does not give his wife a right to police his comings com-ings and his goings. I believe that every man, even though married, has a right to some time off, to foregather with his old friends, and to have some masculine society that is strictlv masculine, mas-culine, and with no trail of a petticoat over It. At the same time, a man's first duty is to make his wife happy and to give her his companionship. He owes it to her to feed her mentally and spiritually spiritu-ally just as much as he does physically, physical-ly, and he fails in his obligation to her if he does not spend his evenings at home as a habitual thing. That is what the woman married him for, and he may be certain that she would never nev-er havo left her happy home if she had any inkling that she was going to be chucked down into a strange place and left alone. Solitary confinement is the maximum maxi-mum punishment in a penitentiary, and no man's got the right to inflict that on an innocent wife. Moreover, he runs many risks when he does it, and it speaks volumes for the honor of women that more wives, whose husbands hus-bands leave them alone of an evening, don't go out and hunt up some amusement amuse-ment on their own score. ' As a solution to this vexed question, i unci mo uumoio suggestion mat nas been applied with success to another domestic problem why shouldn't wives give their husbands a night off each week as they do Mary Jane, and the balance of the time why shouldn't husbands stay at homo and make themselves pleasant? If a man isn't willing to stay and bear his wife company com-pany of evenings, then he should at least have tho decency to stay an old bachelor, and let the girl remain at home where she has some companionship. |