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Show 1 jj Dorothy Dix Talks j 9 : jij PLAYTIME. S i BF DOROTHY DLX, The .World's Highest Paid Woman Writer l gsm , ,i rouably there is no other one sub- fject over which there Is more acrim-;J acrim-;J jonious debate Iri the family circle than I there is over the amusement question. The average woman wants to doll iherself up In her best evening clothes and go about to dinners, parties, thc-4BrSto'i thc-4BrSto'i !atGrs restaurants at night. The QsJtfMKL, average man wants to put on his sllp- hom dr?ssInff eown nnd slay at The average woman, when she tells ,you of the fly in the ointment of her ihappy niarried life, and points to the one defect in her good, kind, loving husband, complains that she has to stick at home evenings, that her husband hus-band hardly .ever takes her out any-whero any-whero and that when he does he goes with such groaning and blashpheming and wears so much the look of an Early Christian Martyr that it takes all the pleasure away. And when the .average woman speaks with unconcealed envy of another an-other woman's husband, she invariably relates the number of times a week he takes his wife out to dine at restaurants, restau-rants, and that they both take dancing lessons and never miss a first night at the theaters. The average man doesn't say much, but probably his ideal of a perfect wife is a woman who has lost both legs in a railroad accident so she is content to stay put in hor own home. It is not without significance that men novelists nov-elists invariably depict their perfect female fe-male characters as fireside angels. The thing that furnishes zip and pep to this domestic spat about play- Itime Is that both husband and wife gp can make out a perfectly good case c--3 , in their own behalf, and that each of them is perfectly right from his or her Jft noint of view. 1l The man says that when he comes home at night, exhausted from his day's labor, it is as much cruelty to dumb brutes to expect him to put on his soup-and-fishes and fare forth to a dance as it would be to make an old plough horse run races at night. He says that when the day'i -yrerk is over he Is tired in every fibre of his brain and body, so tired that it is torture to him to have to think or talk, that he does not feel able to even make the effort of being entertaining and amiable to strangers, and the very thought of having to grin and smirk and pretend to be Interested in the drivel dri-vel of the bores who constitute the rank and file of society is enough to send him gibbering to a madhouse. Furthermore, he avers, tho little narrow nar-row margin, of the evening's quiet rest nt home Is all that stands between him and a nervous breakdown. Deprive himof that, send him out at night into noisy crowds, desprivc him of three or four hours of sleep; upset his stomach with unwholesome eating and drinking, j and he would break under the burdens m ne bears. No man who burns the can- I die at both ends, even if he burns the candle in the company of his wife, I) can hold his own in business with j the man who conserves his wick and gets every particle of the light out of t ; it that is in it. ' "Heaven knows," says the man, "I work like I do for the sake of my family. fam-ily. I give them every indulgence that I can possibly afford. I lavish things with both hands on my wife, and why on earth she can't see this thing from a reasonable standpoint and quit badgering bad-gering me about running around at night, beats me. But she can't, and we are everlastingly fighting over It, and she considers herself a poor, neglected persecuted wife because I won't gad around with her like a lounge lizard." On her side the woman deposes; "I work just as hard as my husband docs, and at an occupation Infinitely more monotonous. All day long I am at home, shut up --Ifhln four walls, doing the sam thir n-er and over again. "I either t myself, or see to the cooking, c. countless meals that are eaten up and forcotten. I straighten straight-en up rooms that are disordered in an hour. I wash little faces that arc dirty the next minute. I answer a million cries a day for 'mother.' "I sew, mend and darn and answer the telephone and run around to tho butcher's and tho grocer's, and do little lit-tle dull odd jobs that have no interest in them and that do not take up any of my mind or give me anything really to think about. It's the infinite detail de-tail work of making a home, and work ; that I am glad to do and loyc to do for the sake of my family, but all the same it's treadmill work, and by the time night comes I am sick and tired and feel that I must Have a change or go mad. "It rests me more than anything in the "irerld to dress imyeelf up in my flossiest clothes and to zo out and spend th evening at some place of amusement. It does me good in every way. "If I have been to see a play I am thinkinr over every act of it the next day as I sew my Ion? seams. If I ha been to a dance It put a sprlnc to my feet and a rythm to the broom with which sweep my floors. If I have been to a parly I go smiling about remem-berinc: remem-berinc: some rood talk or funny story I have heard. "And, of course, a woman alwayi gets verything- at last dovra to the per- ' sonal equation. Other mes's husbands hus-bands take them to places' of amusement amuse-ment and go with them to dinners and : parties. I feel it a slight to me as If my husband were possibly ashamed , of me that h isn't willinc ver to : take me anywhere. Jlre than that, a woman likes to see and be seen, and finally I am proud of my husband and i like to flaunt him off before other women. wom-en. "So there! That's why I think he ' should take me about, and he's mean and selfish because he won't. And, anyway, if people give way to the temp- , tation to become hermits 4.hoy just dry up In their shells and everybody forgets for-gets they are lhlng." And there you aro with a perfectly jrood arcument on both sides. The man's dally lif makes him want a quiet evening. The woman's dally life makes her want a gay evening. One can sympathize with the point of view of both husband and wife on tht amusement proposition, but, It seems to me, that In such cases the woman Is clearly the one who should give in, because, in a way sho can have her cake and cat it too. Certainly, Cer-tainly, no one In tho world has more real need of diversion and change than the housewife and mother, whose work Is the most tiresome and monotonous ca. earth, even If it is the most important. im-portant. But because her husband Is not willing will-ing to stir from his own hearthstone at night does not deprive her of hor fair share of recreation. There are tear and luneheoni, bridzc parties, matinees, clufc functions, tea dances that she can go to In tho afternoon by herself to furnish her all the amusement amuse-ment that any woman needs outside of her home. And she should take her playtime In this way and leave her husband his rest time in peace and quiet. But, It's queer, isn't it, that a woman's wom-an's Ideal husband should be somebody who would play with her, and a man's ideal of a wife is someone who has enough understanding to realir.e that he Is too tired to play at night. (Copyright, 1D17, by The Wheeler Syndicate, Syn-dicate, Inc.) Dorothy Dix's articles appear regularly regu-larly in this paper every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. |