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Show Dorothy Dix Talks WAR AND DIVORCE j ly'DOW'VrilV DX. II. p W.tM Jiiii.: P.uil Woman Wr;?e? (Dy Dorothy Dix.) One of the curious by-products of the war appears to be matrimonial peace. Possibly husbnnds and wives bave found out that in times of a world tvar they can got all of the fighting :hey want outeide of the home circle, and that it is more thrilling to strafe :he Hun than it is to row with their nonoys. so they have satisfied their be-1 be-1 'lgerent Instincts without the necessity Df scrapping with each other. At any rate, according to the statistics, statis-tics, thero has been an amazing decrease de-crease In the number of divorces that have been asked for since the begin-i begin-i nlng of the war, and reports from all over the country indicate that the dove of'peace is brooding over more households house-holds than was ever known before. Of course many reasons may be assigned as-signed for this doslrable stale of af-1 af-1 fairs. The most obvious is, of course, that in the face of a groat tragedy we see the little pin pricks of life in their true proportions. Small, indeed, has been the soul that hasvlaken heed of ; its own little personal irritations and grievances in these days in which a unlverso is drenched in blood and 1 tears. Nothing has been more significant Jhan the fact that people havo almost censed to complain of their own petty troubles about which they would once have wailed to high Heaven. Suppose a wife's pies aren't exactly like his mothor used to make. Husband eats ' Ihem in silence and without criticism, thinking of the starving millions in Europe. Suppose a husband isn't tho com-: com-: ; bination of a matinee hero and John I D. Rockefeller of a woman's romantic dream. She's so grateful to have a hus-, hus-, band at all, and a home over her head, when sho thinks about the women whoso men have been killed and whoso houses are only little piles of stone K now that she never even notices his V. failings. f Millions of people who have taken a J j calm, prosperous, domestic life for j) , granted, and as nothing more than j their due, have been shocked by the i war into a realization of how blessed "i : they were, and into an appreciation of ,i ; what home and love really roant. Many jj' ' a man has realized for the first time I". how much he cared for his wife when : 15 he tried to visualize the fate of the , women of Belgium and Flanders bo-' bo-' falling hoi and it has made him a bettor bet-tor and more considerate husband then he ever was before. I Likewise, many a woman who has ! nagged and fretted and fussed at her husband has suddenly had it brought home to her that such as ho is, he ; filled her whole life, and that her . world would be empty without him Jl i 'when Bho thought about his going 1 forth to war, and possibly never re-fljj re-fljj turning. (Also millions of women have gotten J a new perspective on their husbands. f They had never thought of tho plain, I practical, unromantic men to -whom I they were married as heroes. They had I : nover suspected that the" men they had I ; always known as being engrossed with tho state of his grocery trade, or the St stock market, had any sentiment con-i con-i cenled about their persons, or that . they were capable of making a su-i su-i preme sacrifice for an abstract Ideal, j r doing a deed so heroic that it put 1: their stage and film Idols; -to shame. I; And when such a woman saw her P. husband give up the position that he , had spent so many years of hard work It ' reaching, or leave to blundering m hands the conduct of the business that W "was his owri heart's blood, and go Ujm ' forth to fight, and dio for his country, WJ; u need bo, sho saw for the first time i the real man to whom sho was rnar-& rnar-& ned, and ho looked like a God to her. And that's one reason why women jg who form most of the matrimonially 9 disgruntled, have quit hammering Tfrc such numbers at tho doors of the di-9 di-9 I vorco court. For women ure idealists . I and hero worshippers, and they can B forgive anything to the man who has ftt in him to be great on a great occa-,dl occa-,dl : . sln. igj ; Perhaps, though, the chief reason M ; war has made a decllno and fall-m fall-m , ,Jng off in the number of divorces is be- : cause it furnishes the temporary sep-jO sep-jO ; ;'aratlon that most husbands and wives ji.neod In order to rest their jaded M Tnervcs and whet their satiated appeti-9 appeti-9 ft tea for each other's society. m -k,0v propinquity is tho great match fflTSS ,r.lt ls also first aid to divorce. Jffl I'i 0 B no human being of whom we m po not tire In time. No charms that do not pall upon us if we get an overdose of them. No virtues that do not turn into faults if wo gaze at them perpetually. perpet-ually. Unbroken domesticity is merely mere-ly another case of tho thirty quails in thirty days that no stomach can stand. Husbands and wives quarrel and fight, and rush to the divorce court simply because they are fed up with each other. They think they will be perfectly happy if they can only be parted, and when they get their decree de-cree they find out that they have become be-come a habit to each other, and they are miserable apart. The war is affording these people the opportunity to make this discovery, discov-ery, and find but how near and dear they aro to each other, and many a woman who was pricing tickets to Reno is weeping now over a ragged letter from the front, and wondering how she could ever have imagined leaving John; and many a man, lying awake in the trenches, is asking himself him-self how he ever could have been fool enough to have thought for a minute that there was any other woman in 1 the world than the stout, grizzle-haired wife who has worked and tolled so t faithfully by his side. Oh. war has its blessings. And one of, j them is that lt makes men and women know ench other better. oo |