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Show Dorothy Dix Talks ;; By DOROTHY DIX, the World's Highest Paid Woman Writer A MARRIAGE CONTRACT 1 often think that It would ho a wise thing If an engaged couple would sit down together and draw up a marriage mar-riage contract to which both of them would subscribe, and In which the duties, and obligation.-.- and rights, and lri ileges of each would be clearl set forth- Ror, you see, the trouble with matrl-monj matrl-monj is that before taking, it ton-erhs ton-erhs Itself only with glittering generalities, gen-eralities, and alter taking, it deals almost al-most entirely with specific facts. That is where the rub comes In. A youth and a maiden enter jnto the holy estate with only the vague Idea that they are going to love and cherish each other, and make each other blissfully happy, but when they find out that to promote pro-mote another s well-being requires personal per-sonal sacrifice, each refuses to be the family goat. "I should never have married if I had known that matrimony meant the kitchen for me, and scrimping along on .1 measly allowance that l-n'l half what I earned in my old Job." Bays the woman Wild horses couldn't have dragged mo to the altar," says the man, "If I had had the remotest suspicion sus-picion that marriage turned a man Into a wage-slave without even an evening ev-ening off. as a servant girl ha " It speaks volumes for the heart, and nothing for the head, that the great majority of maTrled couples have signed sign-ed on the dott line of the marriage license without ever making the slightest slight-est investigation of the provisions of the life contract, or even attempting to find out what was expected of them. Perhaps this is the reason thru the firm of Benedict & Co. so often goes bankrupt. Everybody's experience proves to them that loose business methods invariably in-variably end In disaster. It is tho "Gentleman's Agreement," the family fam-ily understanding, the verbal promise, the things that were implied, or taken for granted, that gave the dishonest, the grafting, and the cheats their opportunity op-portunity and that lose people their friends as well as their money. The lgned note, the receipt. leave no room for anyone's individual Interpretation Inter-pretation of nn obligation ami prevents hard feeling as well as loss 1 So the mere writing down of the marriage agreement in which both of the high contra, ting parties stipulated what they thought they had a right to demand of the other would do more than anything else to clarify tho situation. sit-uation. It would make both the man and the woman realize tho gravity of what they are undertaking, and they would, at least, know the weight of tho burdens they are shouldering Instead In-stead of having them dumped unexpectedly unex-pectedly upon them According to tho statistics of the di- 1 vorco courts the three things that do more than anything else to cause do-mestlc do-mestlc discord are tho monev ques- ; lions, in-laws, and wives' extrava- j gance. All of these bones of contention could be eliminated by the marriage I contract. Tho fly In the ointment of millions of marriages is the dailv spat over money at the breakfast tahl. it rr.-.u-j R woman mad all over to have to go I to her husband, like a beggar rattling la tin cup and beg for a few dollars to pay the butcher, and baker, and : candle stick maker, and keep the home going Still more does It Infuriate Infur-iate her never to have a cent of her I own that she can spend as she pleases when she knows that if she did the work in any other house than In her own she would draw down a fat pay envelope every Saturday, i Ard It s7ta on tho "nerves of the average man to be asked for monev Me likes to make his family presents but he hates to pay the bills The gray dlsallusiohment of marriage to him is that families cannot be fed on air, and that wives are not miracle workers who can conjure good meals out of nothing instead or having to get the materials from the butcher and the grocer. I A marriage contract in which the man agrees to turn over a definite percentage of his earnings to his wife would eliminate this never-ending cause of friction. If the woman did not consider tho terms liberal enomrh BhO needn't sign up. and If the man wasnt willing to pay the prices he could Withdraw before marriage and in time to save himself troubles and alimony. Certainly no one can deny that it , would help tremendously to settle the I in-law question before tho wedding 1 day Instead of fighting over it afterwords. after-words. It could be written In the bond (that elthei party was to be sacrificed to the other's mother, and that each Of the aforcherelnsaid parties was to be entitled to have his or her relatives camp for a specific and equal number num-ber of days in the spare bedroom and no more. As for the extravagant wife, surely It would be a check upon her spending to be confronted with her own signed agreement to live upon a certain amount of money Nu woman who had that matter written into the bond before marriage could regard her husband hus-band as a mere cosh register, as do so many other wives who seem to consider con-sider matrimony in the light of a graft. A man would also have a right to demand i this contract that a woman wo-man should fulfill her part of tho duties of the Joint partnership by making mak-ing him a comfortable home, and reserve re-serve for himself the privilege of having hav-ing some time to himself, in which he would not bo expected to punch tho home tlmeclock at tho specified hour, or else go through a scene. And the woman might demand that I her husband should treat her with as much consideration as he would a perfect per-fect stranger that he would take care of the children one evening a week Slid let her go forth to amuse herself 1 unhindered by crying babies. And they might mutually covenant together to try to mako as great a success suc-cess of the partnership of matrimony as they would of any other business Which would mako marriage a success suc-cess Instead of the failure it so often Is. Dorotli) Dlx'a Articles appear in iiiis 1 p oven Monday, Wednesday and Friday. |
