NOTE: Author Dorothy Dix was the Oprah of the 1920s-1930s. She was the most widely read advice columnist of her day, with her writings syndicated in newspapers across the globe.
***
DEAR MISS DIX — The Ladies Home Journal, in its survey on what the women of
America think about the rights of women in broken engagements and divorces,
says that 60 per cent of the women questioned
did not believe that women should be able to sue for breach of promise; that 66 per cent of the women thought that in
case of divorce only women with
children should get alimony and that 39
per cent believed when there are no children a woman should not get alimony unless she is over 30; that
43 per cent believed that former husbands
who are able to pay alimony should be put in jail if they failed to pay it; that 60 per cent believed
that divorce is generally harder
on the wife than It is on the husband. What do you think about tills? – A READER.
Answer: I should think this is a
fair estimate of the general sentiment of
women on the heart balm and alimony questions. Evidently the breach of promise suit that has so long
been a profitable racket for predatory
ladies will soon cease to be a menace to amorous old gentlemen who are indiscreet letter writers.
Several
states have already passed laws abolishing it. Others will follow suit. For it
has always been obvious that money could never heal a broken heart, and no girl
who really suffered mortification from being jilted would drag her wrongs out
into a court for the rabble to jeer at.
Personally,
I do not think that an engagement should ever be regarded as a binding
contract. It should be only a sort of option that a man and woman take on each
other's affections, and that they can take up or let lapse as they please. It
should be a time when they can study their own reactions to the party of the
other part and find out whether their love is the real thing or not; when they
should test out their congeniality and how much of each other's society they
can stand without being bored. If they discover that they have made a mistake in
their choice, they should be able to call off the wedding without danger
or damage, or any reflection on either one.
As
for alimony, one of the profound mysteries of the world is why men, who make
the laws, have not long ago done away with the cruel and unjust and medieval
status that govern the whole subject of divorce and under which they suffer,
whenever they find it impossible to live with their wives, or their wives get
tired of living with them.
That
many women marry for the sole purpose of getting divorces a matter of common
knowledge. The women who practice this hold-up game marry men they don’t love.
They don’t make an effort to get along
with them, or do their duty as wives in any respect, and in the course of a
year or two they pick a quarrel and fly to Reno.
Then
their poor dupes have to pay them enough money to live on luxuriously ever
after Why should this be possible? Why should a man have to spend the remainder
of his life supporting a woman who has made his life a hell on earth? Why should
a first husband have to go on supporting his former wife and her second
husband? Why should a poor fellow who can't pay his alimony be put in jail
where he can't make any money? My own idea is that no young and able-bodied
woman without children should ever be given a nickel of alimony. She took her
chances on marriage just as the man did, and she should be enough of a sport to
be a good loser.
I
think that no woman should be able to collect alimony unless she can prove that
she has been a good wife and a faithful one. But, on the other hand, I believe
that no old wife who has worked and struggled and saved to help her husband get
a start should be turned out to starve like a worn out old work horse. She has
helped her husband through the years and whatever he has she is entitled to
half of it. Believe me, if divorces were made less profitable, fewer people
would engage in them. – DOROTHY DIX.
[Dorothy Dix, “When Alimony Is Banned There Will Be Fewer
Divorces In America – Too Many Women
Rush Into Marriage For The Sole Purpose of Getting Money, syndicated, The Bee
(Danville, Va.), Jun. 27, 1939, p. 2]
***
For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts
***
***
For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts
***
No comments:
Post a Comment