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Show , j Dorothy Dix Says j ;j The Second Strongest Desire of a Wife is to be Treated as a 1 Doll Baby, YetaSeeress. j ' By DOEOTHT DIX, The Worfd's IEgh:st Paid -,, - (I The first desire of a wife, as I show- ed in my previous article, is to be i J j treated as a perpetual brido -when she -I J is a grandmother. U The second desire of a wife Is to be J" 1 treated as a doll baby, yet a seeress. . I Now the mistake that the average I husband makes it that he treats his t wife either as a doll baby or as a ra- t tional human being, and ho never finds i out that she is not altogether either v one or the other, but that she Is partly M ,' both. 'I No woman is wholly a fool, and no r'j woman is wholly wise, but every wom- xl an displays unexpected and startling M burst of intelligence and silliness. In k fact, it may be said that the normal t feminine mind is built after the plan l ,; of tho best Irish bacon a streak of !lC ' lean and a streak of fat. Which Is the reason that It Is so piquant and appetizing a dish on the menu of life. I Only a few men, who have them selves much of the feminine temperament, tempera-ment, over sense this great initial fact j that you cannot deal with a woman on I the same platform on which you can I J deal with a man, because what a man A is, he is, but what a woman Is, she isn't. Therefore, the average good . husband, loving his wife and anxious , ' io do his duty by her and make her I happy, goes blundering into the mis- : take of treating her in exactly the f saint) i ouc uuesu l wjiul 10 OQ j lJ treated, and that makes her get that ii wishful Reno look on her face. I'r Suppose the man, for instance, is of the David Copperfleld type who has a (. , predilection for baby faced girls, with large, adoring eyes and a cute way of I looking up at a man so that he feels i about seven feet high, and that he has j the chest measure of Jess "Willard. I Of course, child wives are a lot more ' alluring, and fascinating as sweet-'j sweet-'j hearts than they are as wives, and after af-ter the man gets his bargain home he ; is apt to wish that he had made an-I an-I , other choice. But, be that as It may, he Is a just I" man and a good sport. He realizes that such as his wife Is, he picked her out from all the multitude of women j and married her of his own accord, so j ho doesn't propose to blame her for i the qualities she is shy In. So he accepts ac-cepts her as a doll baby, and does the best ho can by his pretty little toy. If she makes an intolerable mess of j housekeeping, and can't manage servants ser-vants or cook herself, he stores the furniture and goes to a hotel to live, I' however much he may pino for a real home. He heroically toils overtime to dress his little doll in fine clothes and I rKQ hor an automobile to ride in Ho andentrO?flenUV0 her addling talk tht he inUnd 'ith her t0 Pities towear off the red paint and the glld- hiSTmtleZnha5n't-1a doubt but at nis mtle doll considers herself a verv uoesn t, for the very good reason iw SufXeSvV011' fter alI 'st reSfy stutted with sawdust. Somewhere in ts anatomy there is a heart and a brain, even if they are not verT'bIg The doll hahv Tf,T i. she isn't fool enough no?to kEthS know lSif8h2 i8. not a roal . She knows that she is outside of his life not tho center of it, and that she knows nothing of what he reall? Iw Whathls rcal aspirations are, taowfhnf h,y h0Vnd Pns. She knows that ho wouldn't turn to her if to6 lean adVlC r someono on wbom ifd 2 knowledge cuts her like a ?rS;, ?e rGSents her husband regarding re-garding her a his mental inferior. rhiM3!?13 hIs treating her like a ch Id m She would like to be chums Sm;,;lncL 1 " fhat he Jyed o C, u J". ua1' uot oecauso lie had a husband's fondness for her, but because be-cause he found her conversation interesting. in-teresting. And she would be flattered flatter-ed to death if he would ask her advice about his business affairs. True, she still wants to be babied, to bo petted and cajoled, and relieved of responsibility, and for her husband not to expect too much of her, because be-cause she is his child wife, but at tho same timo she desires to be also treated treat-ed as a companion, and something of an oracle by right of woman's mystical mysti-cal intuition. In which nobody believes so thoroughly ns women themselves. And because the poor husband isn't mind reader enough to know when to treat her as If she were a Solomon In petticoats, innumerable women consider consid-er that they are mistreated and have failed to find their affinities. Nor Is the man who assumes that an Intelligent, well educated woman of voting age can be treated like a rational ra-tional human being any more successful success-ful in his sohing of the matrimonial problem than is the man who thinks that a woman should be treated as a doll baby. The man who is married to a sensible, sensi-ble, practical girl congratulates him- self upon his acumen. Ho thinks he can dispose with all of the lying and chicanery and subterfuges that mako domesticity so burdensome to so many men. He thinks that ho can toll his wife the plain, unvarnished truth, and that she will bo intelligent enough to prefer pre-fer It to transparent fibs. Ho thinks that she will be broad enough not to , bo consumed by potty jealousies and ; to realize that a man is not in love Tvith every pretty woman that he : meets. He thinks that she will have wisdom enough to perceive that the test of a man's real affection is not what he says to a wife, but what ho does for her. So the man begins his married life by treating his wife as ho would treat a business partner. Ho talks to her of the state of the green grocery trado instead of telling her that her eyes are stars from heaven. He shoulders on her her half of tho work and the responsibility of their joint business. He criticises her mistakes, and holds her down on the expenditures of her department. He is paying her tho highest compliment com-pliment of which he is capable, for he Is taking it for granted that she is putting into the new firm that they have organized just as much brain and energy and ability as ho is. He is niak-her niak-her his helpmeet, his friend, his comrade, com-rade, and ho never doubts but what she is tickled to death over the tribute trib-ute he Is laying at her feet. But Is the woman proud over being treated as her husband's equal? She is not. She is humiliated to the earth because she thinks that in her husband's hus-band's eyes she is not a figure of romance, ro-mance, nnd because he does not pay her the flowery compliments that tho doll baby woman receives from her husband. Not that she wants to give up what sho has got. Oh, dear, no. Sho is perfectly willing to mako tho bread, but she wants her husband to butter It with romance and sentiment and flattery, and If she falls to do it, she beats upon her breast and cries out that she Is heart hungry and starved for love. And it keeps a man guessing when to treat his wife as if she were a three ply idiot, and when a seeress. And he generally treats her wrong. The third way a wifo would like to be treated but we'll talk of that In the next article. |