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Show Dorothy Dix Talks WIVES AND BUSINESS. ij By DOROTHT . BIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman p Writer jl I A woman, who is suing her husband for divorce, gives his occupation as her reason for asking for a separation from him. "My husband is a fine and noble man," she testified on the witness stand. "He has been kind to me and, so far as I know, has been faithful, but he Is a concert singer and I cannot stand to see the" way in which women make fools of themselves over him. If drives me mad to look at them hanging hang-ing around him, and adoring him after he has sung some pathetic and heart touching song. Of course I know that women are the chief patrons at concerts con-certs and that his succees depends upon his pleasing them, but I can no longer endure witnessing them making eyes at him and trying to flirt with This woman's action illustrates one of the most peculiar and inexplicable of all feminine vagaries of temperament, tempera-ment, and that is the almost universal jealousy that wives feel of their husband's hus-band's business. Naturally this is most pronounced in the cases where a man's occupation throws him in contact with other women, but it extends through every ramification of employment, even to the work that men do solely among other men. A wife can be just as jealous of her husband's Job if he is a lone fisherman as she can be of his being a professional" connoisseur of feminine pulchritude for a Broadway Broad-way girl show. . The thousands of matrimonial wrecks that strew the theatrical shores, for instance, are the direct result re-sult of foolhardy actors having taken unto themselves wives without giving heed to this idiosyncrasy to the fair sex. The result was 'disaster, for no amount of argument or logic or proof could convince the man's wife that stage business was purely stage business busi-ness and nothing more, and that the passion that he threw into the wooing of the beauteous heroine had no more real significance than would haye had the eloquence he wcftild have extended in persuading a lady to buy a silk dress, had he been In the dry goods Nor can the singer's wife be persuaded per-suaded that when her husband Is singing sing-ing to the hearts of an audience of women his efforts are really directed at their pocketbooks. She's no believer believ-er in art for art's sake. She's bound to make it personal and individual, and connected with women who are no bettor than they should be, and thereby there-by enabled to torture herself, whether she has any reason to or not. In any green eyed contest actors and singers' wives would take the first prize. The second prize would go to "doctors' wives, who arc so filled with jealousy and suspicion of their husband's hus-band's occupation that' they scare many young physicians off from entering en-tering the holy estate at all. "When I think of my husband spepd- ing his days going from one woman dressed up in pink and lace negligees to another, and holding their hands and having to look sympathetic and Jolly them along, and listen to them tell things they wouldn't tell their own husbands or mothers, It drives me wild," said the pretty young wife of a doctor to me not long ago. And then she added bitterly, "I know it's business, busi-ness, and that if he didn't do it we would starve, but sometimes I think I would rather starve than have him do it." f And that was why women as a whole sympathized with Mrs. Carman when I she put a dictograph in her husband's office so that she could listen to what he said to his patients and what his patients said to him. They could understand un-derstand the gnawing jealousy that drove a woman to do any act to find out what went on In that secret and mysterious place devoted to the exercise exer-cise of a man's profession, and into which a mere wife may not penetrate. But it is not only the professions in which man's patrons are chiefly women that inspire the jealousy of wives. It's any and all business. Listen Lis-ten to the talk of wives. They almost always refer in invidious times to "that hateful old office," or "that horrid hor-rid old shop," in which their husbands earn their living, and their tones drip venom when they speak of their husbands hus-bands being so absorbed in th'eir business busi-ness that they have no time or thought for anything else and can't be dragged away for winter trips and summer excursions. ex-cursions. When a man is late for dinner, or has to break an engagement with his wife, an.d gives some exigency of business busi-ness as his excuse, she feels Just as much injured and that she has Just as much of a grievance as if he had been detained by some fascinating siren. It is business that takes up her husband's hus-band's time and thought and keeps him away from her, that absorbs him so in the market report of a morning that he does not notice that she has a headache head-ache and looks pale, and that exhaust him so that he's too tired to amuse her in the evenings. Observation teaches her that no. woman who has been married to a man five years can raise the thrill In his bosom, or bring the light to his eyes that a ten point rise in stocks does. And so the wife unconsciously comes to look upon her husband's business as her deadly foe. If it wasn't for the "old store" and the "old office" she feels sure that her husband would resume the loverlike attitude at-titude of their honeymoon when he put aside all business and spent the time in telling her how beautiful and wonderful won-derful she "was, and marveling at his luck in securing such an angel for a wife. In their jealousy of their husband's occupations women overlook the fact that they live upo'n the bounty of their hated rivals, and that it Is out of the vampire store and coffee that comes the money that keeps them soft and comfortable. If they would reflect a while on the connection between a man's devotion to his occupation and the number of now frocks and hats and jewels and automobiles that they enjoy, en-joy, they might cease tormenting their husbands with their jealousy and thus make it easier for him to earn the dollars dol-lars they have such pleasure in spending. spend-ing. The professional man who has to be forever combating his wife's suspicions", suspi-cions", and the business man who has to be eternally explaining that he doesn't work fourteen hours a day just for the fun of the thing, arc handicapped handi-capped Just so far by their wive's silly sil-ly jealousy. Of" course it may be said in excuse for the M'omen who are Jealous of their husband's occupations that the woman who has never worked for her living knows nothing of the real conditions of the business world. To her going down town means going on a lark, doing do-ing something Interesting and delightful, delight-ful, and she thinks of It in terms of shopping, ice cream sodas, teas and lunches in fashionable restaurants, and matinees. So she pictures her husband's departure depar-ture every morning to his business as nothing more nor. less than a perpetually perpet-ually recurring picnic. Of what it means to the man in labor, and sweat and anxiety, and toll she has no conception. con-ception. If she had she would pity him as the helpless victim of a savage monster instead of envying him as ono who frivols through some delightful and amusing game. The only way to cure wives of their jealousy of their husband's business is to take them into It and make them partners in it and let them do some of the work and bear some of the burdens bur-dens themselves. This Is the French plan where every middle class woman toils side by side with her husband, and it works out beautifully both as regards prosperity and domestic peace and happiness. no |