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Show lf Dorothy Dix Talks 2; PICKING the winner M By DOROTHY DIX, The World's J-Iighesc Paid Woman Writer I A young man asks me how a youth cm tell which is the right girl when ii conies to picking out a wife. 1 There isn't any way to tell with ab- . solute surety, son. There is no In- fallible test that you can apply to a fin! either mentally, morally or physi- cilly which will settle beyond any per- 1 idpnlure if she is the one particular ', v oman in the world for you and the 1 one destined by nature for your mate. Marriage is the great guessing game in which the chances are flfty-; flfty-; fifty on your stumbling on the right ' answer and being happy ever after, or blundering on the wrong answer and Wggif pulling up in the divorce courL It is J he one act In life in which neither a;;e, wisdom nor previous experience uiint for a cent or are any guide to ; You see callow youths with not enough judgment and intelligence to be trusted to buy their own neckties picking out wives who turn out to be three times winners. And you see ; ' elderly millionaires with barrels of brains and a judgment so clear and : i cool that it sends- stocks up or down as it decides a matter of finance, who pick out for their second wives chorus girls young enough to be their grand daughters. Nobody knows how a wedding is ' going to turn out, least of all do the high contracting parties know, because be-cause they don't know how they are going to turn out themselves. It is a common thing to see a girl who was a society butterfly before marriage turn around and become a domestic grub ' after marriage. It is equally common to see the girl who has "been Cinderella Cinder-ella before marriage dust the ashes off of her as soon as she enters the holy I estate and do nothing the balance of j her life but see how fast she can spend her husband's money. Also many a Wc SIrl who before marriage was so mild - t and meek that butter would not melt in her mouth develops after marriage : into a wife with the continuous cur- ; tain lecture habit, j Every girl is a mystery' wrapped up j in chiffon and no man knows what he is getting until he takes his prize package home with him, and then it's too late to change. . .Nor is the uncertainty of woman the only difficulty in the case. Really, the chief difllculty is that a man doesn't knpw what he wants himself in a wife, or rather he wants on thing ' in a sweetheart and another in a wife, which is as absurd as wanting a garment gar-ment which would be a swell bathing suit and a smart suit to wear to busi-' busi-' ness. Therefore, son, In laying to decide which is the right girl, try to get some mental picture of your own ideal of a wife. Do you want a wife who will be thrifty and economical, or do you want one who will be a good spender and ; look like a fashion plate? Do you want a wife to dance the fox trot with you, or one who will have cooked you a good dish of corned beef and cab bage for your dinner? Do you want a wife who will be a companion to you, or one who will sit at your feet and ask you what you think she thinks? Do you want a wife who will play golf with you and who is an out-of-doors woman, or one whose idea of sport and excitement centers around the bargain- table In a department store? If you will decide these questions, the trick of picking out the right girl for a. wife isn't such a marvel of legerdemain leger-demain as it is supposed to be. For all married happiness rests at last on congeniality and community of interests, inter-ests, and when a man and woman have these nothing else matters. All the little difficulties are swallowed up in the big delight of living with one who has the same tastes and habits, the same ideals and aspirations and interests that you have. . You see, son, the trouble with youlh is that it is near-sighted. It can't see beyond the day. That is why it makes so many fatal blunders in picking out its life companion. It thinks that, its chills and thrills and hectic fevers are a chronic malady, whereas they cure themselves in a few months, at the longest. It believes that some miracle will happen to some particular particu-lar girl so that she will always be sweet and twenty, with golden locks and peaches and cream complexion and a lissome figure, instead of growing grow-ing fat and forty and grizzled headed. That is why a man marries a girl for no other reason than because she makes his heart go temporarily pit-a-pat, and finds out six months later that he has made a mistake,, and she wasn't the right girl for him, or why he marries a living picture only to realize that A Portrait of a Beauty isn't enough to furnish the house of matrimony on, and that it gets faded and damaged and dismal and ugly as the years go by. If I were a young man out on a still hunt for the Right Girl, I should pick out the girl whom I found most companionable, com-panionable, the girl in whose society I was never bored, and never had to rack my mind for topics of conversation. conversa-tion. There can bo no stronger tie between be-tween a man and woman than sympathy, sym-pathy, and so when you find the girl to whom .you instinctively tell the story of your life, and who listens with absorbed ab-sorbed attention while you describe the detatils oT what you used to do when you were a small boy with pale green freckles, and who gets all wrought up over your account of what you said to the boss and the boss said to you, why, son, go to It. Lead her to the altar without fear or cold feet, for thoro be many wives of whom a man tiros, but never of the wife who likes to hear him talk about himself. But the whole of the law and the prophets in choosing the right girl for a wife Is in taking the one that likes to do the things that you do. If you want to get on In the world, the right girl for you Is a practical, common- sensed, hustling, pushing, ambitious , woman, not a flabby, spineless, timid little creature who hasn't got enough energy and intelligence to run a four-room four-room flat successfully. If your idea of life is comprised in a cabaret scheme of existence, marry a girl who Is a good looker and a good dancer, and who knows how to show off her clothes, Instead of a demure wren of a woman who Is never happy outside of a, nursery and smells of the ! kitchen. I If you want a wife who will be a , ! real companion to you, don't marry 1 1 Fluffy Ruffles, who thinks Ibsen is a ; brand of canned goods, and whose I conversational repertoire consists of : the things that "he said" and "she 'said" and "they said" about nothing, j Any girl is the right girl for you, son. jso long as she meets the greatest , need of your nature. I But don't marry a girl thinking you I can chango her and make hfr over to jsuit yourself. Heredity and environ-1 environ-1 ment got the start on you there, son, and ran what looks to you like a character char-acter as soft and pliable as dough into a mold as hard as adamant before you ever saw her. And if you want an advanced view as to what sort of a wife a girl is going to make, what she will look like and what she will do some twenty-five years hence, take a good long squint at her mother. For ninety-nine times out of a hundred women revert to type, and are oven as their mothers were before them |