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Show at! ! Dorothy Dix Talks ft, If DECEMBER AND MAY it y noRnTIIY 1)IX. the World's Highest Paid .Woman Writer II A woman who is fair and forty ask r I u advice about marrying a youth whe I I twentv years her junior, and who II J.'hP acsuren rue, Iovps her for herseli i alone, and is entirely uninfluenced by It her ampl? fortune. I personally, my opinion is that younc P j,u5bands are too much trouble. Tho 1 arp not worth the price one has to pm 5 f I for them- 1 Granting the rieht of every woman V, I j l0 jndulpe her own taste in matrimony D Fl no matter how bizarre still, a lady Ivrctldinc a man iwfni enrr-- her junior is alwas a spectacle of such rash and I wrecklcss darins that it is bound to I CDallenge the attention of the thought tul. gbe takes upon her poor, stooped, II middleaged shoulders all of the multl-f multl-f tudinous burdens of matrimony that ordinary women have to bear, and then some She adds plus to all the doubts ?nd difficulties of the husband prob- 3ern To begin with, It is much easier, as : everybody knows, to catch a husband than' it Is to keep him after ou get I fcim. These are animals you can never be sure that you have thoroughly i-O ' ncsticated until after they are dead. Men belong to this genus, and ladies I i past forty seldom have the magnetic ml personality, the alertness of movement, I and the a; spirits that fit them to be bur-band tamers, I r If the wife who undertakes to keep a If .husband fascinated with her and nailed !? fl to his own fire side, has her job cut out . fl for her, even when time fights on her L side the woman who has twent years r arrayed against her, has a task that. . B niake the labors of Hercujes look like II ( hild r a C H Aside from the ta.'.: of keeping 1 ic ' young husband from getting lost. h strayed or stolen, and satisfied to bear 5t II I his mamma company instead of run-Is run-Is ring off to pla with the other kids. Pone is appalled at the very thought of h fl the burdens Uint the elderly wife of B Iyi young man assumes Chief among itu't '1'"- ' ;'" 1 i I" ii'-'ual youth I) wbich sh wishi: upon herself She "B" can never grow old. She doesn't care I fl to. She is doomed to a sort of canned If girlhood, fc tli The privilege of growing old. w iih I m jiJl its perquisites, i.- one that we do EOl sufficiently appreciate. FTom this R blessing the old wife ot the young ' Fl man is forever debarred. L It ne can n, vri hop- to enjoy that luxurious Indian summer which is the most (Jehrhuul season of a woman's fBlife, when .-h' lets out her stays, m smashes Lrr hair dve bottles, pitches Ler rouge pot out ot the window and abandons herself to being frankly U middle aped and gray haired, and fat, I and no belter lookinc than God made .ber, or younger than the record in the II famih Hible. F Another burden that the elderl w ife assumes is amusing the young hus- j band. He must be diverted. He must; tie kept interested to keep him satis tied, and the wile is confronted with the awiul problem of whether It Ic bet J.I'U-r to rc-k him with a pretty qirl of if his own age, or tread the measure w ith j m faim hersc!f. ' Of course the latter course is the less dangerous expedient, but alas, after I forty we are no longer so young as ! we once were. Yc don't take the same I If Interest in views from high points that 'A I we did when we had less avoirdupois,' ). a and ti. u r bn.iti: We see more rheu-1 y roatism than romance in watching the H moon rise over the water in damp 1 . 1 places V. begin to appreciate ihe U point of v lew of the Orientals, who hire oilier pople to do the,r dancing for I them. 1 Nor do these burdens end the. load ' fl that, the elderly wife of a boy husband ii voluntary shoulders, She has to be eternally explaining why she did it. The reason ordinary husband ami wife 'married each other is a conundrum so deep and inscrutible to the onlooker onlook-er that he gives it up without hazard Ing a guess Cut when an apparentlv sane, and sensible middle aged woman j turns cradle snalcher, and kidnaps a , boy for a huband, it piques the popular popu-lar curiosity. It is a psychological problem that ever) beholder tries to Bolve, and no-1 body ever does solve it, so it is continually contin-ually put up to the bride to answer a proceeding which is very apt to get! upon her nerv es. Certainly the middle aged woman who marries a young boy pays a high ! price for hr pet. and there is only one kind of woman who should undertake such a foolhardy speculation, and that is a woman who has no jealousy in her system, who possesses a large fund of humor, and who has a deep and well j tilled pocketbook on which she has a death clutch. A woman who expects to get any happiness out of such a marriage must be able to see her boy husband dane- I ing and chatting, and playing love games with prett voung girls, without being torn into shreds b the green-eyed green-eyed monster and wondering if he is not contrasting h r embonpoint with their slimness, her staid matter of fact conversation wtih their chatter, her middle aged heaviness with their high spirits she rmiHt be able to smile Instead "1 gnash her teeth when people mistake , her husband for her son. Above all, she must have enough sense to keep : her monej in her own hands ajid to j realize that her chief charm is a golden one, and that her husband will never grow tired of her as long as hhe is tb source from which all blessings flow. For It is most curious that boys Devi r fall in love with impecunious ladies, or marry women old enough to be their mothers, unless mother's name is good on a check. Nor should the woman object R-v mance is a gift that the gods bestow only on Ihe young. When we grow old, we have to buy it. And it is up to the middle aged woman to decide if tin- brand she buys with her young husband Is worth the price. |