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Show ' Dorothy Dix Talks JUST HUMAN' BEINGS. i I By DOROTHY DLX. Jhe Worlds Highest Paid Woman Write? A discontented wife has just sued her husband for divorce on the ground f Incompatibility of temper. The judge before whoni tho case was tried, in denying the woman's petition, said I to her: "Nothing has been brought forward ' here to show that you have been called V. upon to endure anything nipre than I the ordinary trials of married life. Go home and make the best of your bar-bain. bar-bain. There are no perfect husbands nor perfect wives." In these words of homely wisdom 1 may be found the whole of the law : and the prephets 'of how to be happy though married. Would that they I could be emblazoned over the door : ' of all newlyweds, for they would do more to temper the winds of domesti : city to the shorn lambs of romance i than anything else in tho world. Especially to the women. Men who are used by their experience in business bus-iness to loss and gain, to giving and taking, and to striking a pretty good '. general average, and being satisfied ' with that, accept tho disillusion of :, matrimony with far better grace than do women. It must be a shock to the young husband hus-band when he discovers that the roses . on his Arabella's cheeks are hand painted and never bloom in time for ' breakfast, and that the darling little r curl on the nape of her neck is only hers by right of purchase, and that there are times when her sweet angelic an-gelic disposition slips a cog and lets loose a temper that he had never 1 dreamed she had concealed about her person. Also that she sometimes is , stubborn as a mule, but if she is fond of him, loyal, a good housekeeper, and ' fairly pleasant to live with the man shrugs bis shoulders over his disappointment disap-pointment and philosophically accepts the situation. I "If I did not get tho best, I did not get the worst. I should worry," is the somewhat cynical consolation he I ' administers to himself, and anyway a man's life is so full of a number of things that he hasn't time to weep over his disappointments. , A woman takes her disappointment in her husband far more to heart. This : is because womenare bad losers and I because the avenrge woman's whole ' life is built around the thoughts of ! marriage. She begins planning her wedding in the cradle, and dreaming of ;. a husband who will be a super man with the grace of John Drew, who I- wiu make love like Otis Skinner, be as patient as Job, and have John D's faculty for making money. . And when she finds out that marriage mar-riage is no picnic but a life sentence at hard labor; and that the godling she had expected to espouse not only una wvi ui may out. is nmuo(ui. imiu, she wants to call off the whole business. bus-iness. Hence these tears and the popularity popular-ity of Reno. Let all women heed well this Judge's words of admonition. There is no such thing as a perfect husband. And it's God's mercy to women wo-men there isn't, or else there would even be less domestic happiness than Ihere is at present. For what would a perfect man want with an imperfect j woman? And what would a poor wo-v wo-v man do it she were unlucky enough to be united to a perfect husband? A faulty husband may bo trying at times to live with, but one without faults would bo Impossible, for men are so peculiarly chesty over their virtues. Did you over 4povr a man who was neat and tidy 'who wasn't a crank on the subject of order? Did you over know a man who knew the first thing about cooking who didn't roll every morsel he ate on his tongue as critically as if he were tasting for poison? Better a thousand times a husband who scatters cigar ashes all over tho place, and leaves a trail of clothes for his wife to, pick up, than one who is always squinting around hunting dusti on top of the book case! Better a man who doesn't know enough about cooking to light the gas range and who can't tell tho difference between gou- J lash and planked steak than one whoi flavors tho dinner, with criticism on the sauces, and tells how he always! uses a little paprica and a dash of old ' Madeira. No woman in her senses should ask for a perfect husband because it's man's weaknesses that delivers him into our hands. It's man's guilty conscience con-science about his own shortcomings that keeps him silent about ours. And when you .see a man who is .completely .complete-ly under his wife's thumb you may depend de-pend upon it she's been lucky enough to have had to forgive him something. As a matter of fact, women do not yearn for the perfect husband as much as they profess to. You never hear of all the girls being crazy over some goody-goody young man who is a leader lead-er in the Sunday School, and a model of all the virtues, and is pointed to as an example in the community. Quite the contrary. It is the dec-), mysterious myster-ious villain with a dark and lurid past that,, both in real life and fiction, always al-ways captures the feminine fancy, while no daughter of Eve is ever able to resist the fascination of trying to reform a prodigal. The truth is that while we admire men for their virtues we love them for their faults. These appeal to the eternal mother in woman that lasts long after romance has fled. That is why wives stand by the poor, flabby creatures who need them, and desert pillars of the church. But there arc no perfect husbands or wives. If wo could allaccept the fact that all husbands and wives are of the common or garden variety, as we are ourselves, how much happier we should be! |