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Show ill Dorothy Dix 1 oiks I ! TOO MUCH FAMILY JLlV-Liii 'IX' IL w'"1'1 Hjght t Paid Woman Writer "Tr.ke this tip from me. son." said a 5 di: ;run led married mon recently to a yong friend, b i. . c i go te get mar jH fttc' P""k out for a wife a clr! who is I Htherless and fatherless. Otherwise ii W"1 w'" find that you havc Qualified; for the role of Old Man ol 1 B at your we s vshole family are 'Believe me. ir I were a say young 2 Pbuc like jnu, contemplating i .nony. the only house that I would so j BOurtlng around would h. a foundling I Bum- 1 ara g"v'nq it to you straight i M t-br-tter is a cute little baby girl thai I ;is picked up oa a iloor step than an M ristocraflf Tpiiden with an un m Braseou? am!l tree full or relatives H Bo descend upon you like tho wolf on all Ithe fold "I speak oat of the depths of a bit- tf ter experience. 1 fell in love with the1 3 peete?' little prach in tho world. j4 ehe was one of seven, with a Bhlflleae ,hs t''f,r who never half a lap al ea I the bill collector, and a neurotic j bother with a set of carefully mani- ;Clirrj ne r . "I wasn't enamoured by ih lililr, brothers and sisters. Neither did father m and mother make any kind of a hit with me, but I was crar.y abo.it the girl and wanted her, and said to myself my-self that, after all, it was the girl 1 w.ia marrying and not the famlf) "That is Just where I made a fatal error. I hadn't been married a month before I found out (hat I had espoused the entire family, and that my principal princi-pal business in life hencefor;h would consist in being a meal ticket to it. Furthermore, that I would get neither thanks nor appreciation for the sacrifices sacri-fices that I would bo called upon to make for it. lor somehow daughter's husband has come to he recognized as the legitimate goat of the wife's people, peo-ple, and he has no right3 that anybody any-body feels bound to respect. 'My wife's family live in a little middle west town. I brought her to New York and we started keeping house in a t-rnall apartment, where- we were a close fit just our two selves. Well, we had hardly gotten our furniture furni-ture placed before the family began coming to visit us. They had always wanted to Bee New York, you know, and thl3 was the first chance they had ever gotten to beat the hotels, and the subway, and the theatres for. of course, when they came they all expected to j be taken around and entertained, and ( I have never yet met an In-law who, didn't have the palsy when -it came to reaching for the ehange pocket. "My wife was delighted. She loved hi r people and injoed having them around, ami to be able to g;'.' them a good time. She was interested in all ot their chatter about Aunt Susan's rheumatism, and Uncle John's out( and It never dawned on her that alter having stood tor about three hours' reminiscences: of people I never heard of, hat I was so bored I was ready to scream. "She was accustomed to making sacrifices sac-rifices for her family, and It nect oc curred to her that I felt like an early Christian martyr when I hal to come home aftor a hard day's work 10 find ;bai I would ha1. e to sleep on the sofa in the living room, because mother had come for a three weeks' visit, and moiher had to have the bed, because sho was so delicate, 1 have been mar rfed ten years now, and in all that tiro'- 1 don't believe there has been a sintrle month when x.e have had the house to ourselves. We've always had some of wife's folks bearing us company, com-pany, and eating thir heads off. 'Nor was this all. I soon found that It was taken for granted that I was to bo a sort of spring board on v hlch my wife's relatives proposed to take a leap off into fame and fortune. First, it was sister Mary, who believed her self a second Nordlca. Of course, under un-der ordinary circumstances, Mary could never have afforded to come to York and have her voice cultivated, cultivat-ed, but when sister Susie married and went to New York to live it opened up the way. It was a direct intervention of Heaven of which sister Mary took immediate advantage. "She wished herself on us and for two years 1 had to stand for her cat-ealling cat-ealling around the place until It got on my nerves so that I almost took to drirl:. Incidentally, sister Mary's money gave out, and of course Bister Susie couldn't think of sister Mary discontinuing her lessons, and so sister Susie's husband'u hard-earned money went to r.well the coders of high-priced vocal teachers, while he wore his last year's overcoat, and gave up his clubs because he couldn't afford a club and a near-gifted sister iu-law at the same time. "And there was brother Bobbie who also condescended to make our house his home, and wear all of my best clothes, while he took a course at Columbia, Col-umbia, and 6isier Annie who spent a couple of winters being treated for ueureslhenia, and sister Carrie who was just plain girl and came on to have a good time, which costs money,' and caused me to do without the things that I want "And my wife hasn't an Idea in forcing forc-ing her family on me she has done me an injustice, and that she has robbed me of tht' peace and quiet of my home, that she has compelled me to work harder than I would have done, and i pi vented me from saving the money lhat I would have saved had I only had my own family to support. "Why wives are eager to sacrifice their husbands to thtir families, I don't know, but it seems to bo the uni-i vWsal opinion among women tha. the main thing that a husband is good fori Is to provide for hi3 in-laws, ami that's' why I say that the only safe thing toi do is to marry an orphau with no blood kin " J |
