OCR Text |
Show Dorothy Dix Talks I MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS By DOROTHY DIX, the World's Highest Paid Woman Writer The greatest art In the world Is the art of letting other people alone, for it requires a sense of justice, and a superhuman forbe'arance and self-control to which few mortals ever attain. at-tain. It Is this mania for bossing other people that has given us the pf,st of reformers who have devoured almost the last of our personal liberties, and vho make laws telling us what wo shall eat, and what we shall drink, what we Shall wear, how long our ( skirts shall be, whether wc shall have babies or not, ami how we shall bring up our children, It Is tho collective busy-bodies, male and female, who aro I the curse of the modern world, ami espci tally ol America, where they exist ex-ist in numbers unknown elsewhere. Occasionally you see a man who is letting his fellow creatures live their own lives in peace without any Interference, Inter-ference, and who considers that other people have a right to mana?r their own affairs in their own way, but a woman who doesn't think that she has. a divine call to run the universe ' such a rarity that she could draw good money In a side show as a freak of. nature. Somehow, for some Inexplicable reason, no woman can see anybody' elSe making a pie without having an Irresistible Impulse to put her finger Into It, although she is perfectly well aware before she does so. that she will not only spoil the pie, but burn her I own finger to the bone, ill to the bargain. bar-gain. It is woman B inability to mind her own" business, and let other people rilind theirs, that Is at the. bottom of most of the troubles of which she complains, j It is the real crux of the servant question, for one thing. Women arc always wondering why It is that their husbands can keep the 3ame stenog-raphers stenog-raphers and bookkeepers and elcik. year after ear, while they have 8 constant procession of maids in and out of the kitchen. The reason is thai IS mun explains the work that he wish doin ., a female employe and then lets her go ahead and do it in her own way. He Is concerned only with results, and ho doesn't stand over her, and Interfere with every move she. I makes Nor does he arrogate to hlm-jrif hlm-jrif the right to tell her what she I shall wear out of business hours, what beaux she shall have, and whore she shall go. His wife, on the contrary, stands over her female employe, and nags her to death. She tells her the same thing over a million times, and considers con-siders that she has a right to interfere inter-fere !n every detail of the girl s private pri-vate life. Wherefore the girl leaves I when the inquisition gets too great to '" borne. One of the great tragedies of life Is that millions of homes that would otherwise be happy, are made perfectly perfect-ly miserable by tho presence In them of either the wife's mother or the husband's mother. Statistics show that the rnother-ln-law causes mnrn divorces than drunkenness. Infidelity cr any other cauie. of domestic strife. Th- most fiendish home wrecker could do no more harm than thoso women accomplish, and yet 99 times c.llj , out of 100 they are the very salt of the earth. They are good. kind women. They have been noble, and self-sacrificing mothers. and they adore their children, and would cheer fullv die to secure their happiness. There is Just one sacrifice too big for them to make, and that is to let them live their lives in their own way There Is Just one height to which they cannot rise, and that Is to let them manage their own business I" o 1 tioi IB Joy of interfering and ho sing tlv.r children's homes, they are willing to break tip that home, wreck a marriage mar-riage that would have endured but for hem. .Hid 01 iMia.i tlnlr iielplff" l.U'" hh , grandchildren. This Is putting the matter brutally, but It is the brutal truth and It's pitl- HI fully true because it need not be tru. If mother could only make tip her mind to keep her hands off her children's chil-dren's nffa.rs. he would ho . wei - ; ' , come, and not an unwelcome Inmate Bill In their homes. Hut she can't do It. j 1 1 J IShe is bound to interfere. She can-not can-not see daughter husband ear what jlj he hk' - w it liniH ...in:.; I'm .... v Kid i ip j it is for his stomach. She can't permit per-mit Km to sir. oK without v ...-nlng j' . him that he will wreck his nerves. She can't let him go out nights without asking where he is going. j She car.'t I , vr.' v. lie . u '... wav ,i, she wants to, nor run her house after her own ideas. Daughter-in-law can't buy a new dress without mother-in-law saying something about extrava-gance. extrava-gance. She can't go to a bridge party without mother-in-law reminding her that she is neglecting her children. She can't bring up her children in her own way, nor do a single thing on earth without having to combat end- JJlu .less objections of mother-in-law, and offer endless explanations, and It gets HI on daughter-in-law's nerves, and there 'are fracases that leave both women jJlH miserable and bitter, and makes tho son and husband feel as If he were a bon" that two cats were fighting over. ijljl In 1 ounth-Hs I. "Hies today old woni. :i , arc weeping because they know their Children don't want them. To these II offer a sovereign remedy for the situation. sit-uation. It Is: "Mind your own btui-pe- Qui! Interferi'iT In our children's chil-dren's affairs. That will settle tho w hole, problem." |