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Show Dorothy Dix Talks BREAKING AN ENGAGEMENT. j I J Bv DOROTHY DlX. The World's Highest Paid Woman Wr;trf J A girl writes to me that she is en gaged to a worthy young man with S whom no fault can be found, but who . 1 nevertheless fails lo fire her fanc. She s.a s that she likes and respects !' his youth and lhat chc cannot bear to ' ihink of causing him any sorrow, but that he bores her stiff, and that when she thinks of being married to him and having to spend endless evenings " In his stodgy societv it makes her feel ? like yawning herself to death. Ami she wants to know what to do r whether she shall break the young man's heart by breaking the engagement, engage-ment, or make a sacrificial offering of herself ou the altar of matrimony. There is but one answer to this question. Break the engagement If either a man or a woman has the lightest doubt that the one 9 whom he or she 13 bethrothed is the Only One, if he or she is stricken with the slightest symptom of cold feet when he or she contemplates the long t rail 1 i of matrimony; if he or she does not hang enraptured on every word his or her beloed utters, then break the engagement though the wedding bells were ringing, lest a worse fate befall him or her. Arquiring a husband or a wife I? like acquiring any other possession, onh , a million times more so. You know how it is when you buy a new gown, or house, or automobile After you get It home it never looks quite as good to you as it did in the store. After it is ours for beeps and you are bound to keep it you begin to find unsuspected flaws and defects and unless you were mad with longing for ii before you got it and that halo still hangs around it, you soon get to hate it. If you were not keen about it In the first place you never can abide it, and get 1 id of it at the first opportune op-portune It's the same way about a husband or a wife. Unless you were passionately, passion-ately, romantically, ideally in love with some man or woman before you married mar-ried blm or her, you will n ver be able to endure the disillusionments that matrimony inc-vitabl brings The fading out of Ihe glamor through which a man beheld r. woman as a pin feath- ered angel, and a woman saw a man a? a knightlv hero, comes soon enough, Heaven knows, but God help those whose eyes have never been dazzled by the celestial vision' The womatn who is bored b a man's I line of conversation before marriage will be ten million times more bored by it after marriage. The woman who finds a man uncongenial and unsympathetic unsym-pathetic before marriage, will find, that he gets upon her nerves insup-portahly insup-portahly after marriage. The woman who wearies a man before marriage will tire him to death after marriage.! Tho woman who does not appeal to a man before marriage will bo repellent r to him after marriage. For matrimony has no magic lhat changes either our own taste or the characteristics of those whom we I marry. It's only effect is to Intensify OUT likes and dislikes, to make dearer I to us Hie charms of those we love, ;md more unendurable the faults of those to whom we arc indifferent, and whose blemishes we arc forced to contemplate con-template in the close confines of the family circle. A great many people look upon an engagement as being as sacred and binding morally as a marriage. This te a great mistake. The- real province of an engagement is to be a life saving nation in which people can honor ably draw back from a disastrous marriage before it is too late. An engagement gives a man and woman the first opportunity they have to become really acquainted and to find out something about what each I one really is. Up to that time all the man has known is that the girl has a willowy figure, a peaches-and-cream complexion which may or may not be her own, that she dances well, plays a fair game of golf, and can chatter t!oug about the usual piffling draw-ii1 draw-ii1 : room topics, 3br may have a soul as big as God's 1 1 o: one the size of a pin point fr'f She may have a head lull of real I brains, or a dome of solid ivory. She may be one of the understanding women wom-en who are life's greatest blessing to la man, or one of the selfish kind who never comprehend anything but their 1 own desires. She may be a real wom- an, or a doll But the man has no way of knowing 1 until after he becomes engaged to her. 1 All he can do is to say to himself that this girl looks good to me, and I'll I make my one best bet on her and ask 'her to marry me, and then I'll have a chance to get acquainted with her before be-fore 1 take the last fatal leap into the unknown. And ii the man knows nothing of the girl, thcirl knows less of the man until she becomes engaged to him, but the engagement gives them the opportunity oppor-tunity to explore each other's minds, hearts and souls, and find out if they are really mates: if they have the I same interests, ideals and aspirations, If they have that congeniality that will enable them to grow into chums as ihe years go by, or if they are so antagonistic antagon-istic in disposition and temperament, if they have such different ideals, and purposes in life that they are sure to make of matrimony nothing but a perpetual battlefield. An engagement should be nothing more than an opportunity for men and women to give each other "the once over,'' and ruber one should be permitted per-mitted to withdraw from it without criticism, opprobrium, or ihe danger of I breach of promise suiis. For either a man or a woman to go ' on and marr the individual with whom he or she has become disillu- ' sloned even before marriage, is 10 commit the unpardonable crime against love. It is practicing a das- i tardly deception upon a heart that trusts. No man would want an unwilling bride who was marrying him for p!t. and because she had promised to. No woman is so poor a creature that she desires a husband whom she is dragging drag-ging to the altar because ;i bargain is a bargain and he feels thai he Is bound to keep his word by marrying 'her, though he would rather die than! : do it. No This is a false and distorted sense not only of honor, but of common com-mon human kindness and justice The man or woman who has fallen out of j love should hae the courage to go to the parly of the first part and tell the truth, and break the engagement and save both from lifelong misery. For it Is no kindness to marry the man or woman you have ceased to love. Even sentimental Tommy could not infuse warmth into his losses, or tenderness into bis touch, or give the right ring to the terms of endearment lhat he gave his unloved wife, and we lesser lovers cannot, for the life of us, treat properly the husband or wife lo whom we have sacrificed ourselves, because of the superstition about an engagement being sacred. Therefore, break an engagement if ou have any doubt whatever about 1 your feelings towards the person to ! whom you are bethrothed Brittle en -, gagements make unbreakable mar- ' l iagef . I i (Copyright, 1918. by The Wheeler Syndicate, Syn-dicate, Inc.) |