►1912 – Mrs. C. H. Hughston – Suffrage leader
Many an American husband turns over every penny he makes to the woman he marries, receiving back from her a meager allowance for carfare and lunches. Perhaps she runs up extra bills; if she does, he struggles meekly to pay them, and consoles himself with the fact that Mary and the girls look ‘better’n any body in town.’ He breaks down from overwork in his early maturity, and nobody has anything but pity for his family.
[Marguerite Mooers Marshall, “Give Men Rights, Is the Doctrine of Suffragists – No Wife Should Take All of Her Husband’s Wages, Says Mrs. C. A. Hughston. - Wives Ought to Help. – They Should Not Keep Their Earnings Out of the Family Fund.” The World, Evening Edition (N.Y.), Jul. 6,1912, p. 10]
►1927 – Helen Rowland – journalist
“All that the modern girl asks of man is that he treat her with tenderness and chivalry – and the same time permit her to drive the car, run the house, swim the Channel and beat him at golf and tennis.
That he acknowledge her as his economic equal – and then marry her and pay all her bills for the rest of his life.
That he join her in petting parties and take her to night-club orgies – and, at the same time, respect her, love her truly, and regard her kisses as a romantic adventure or a 'sacred' privilege.
… That he permit her to go around almost as barely clothed as a savage and as gaudily decked out as a Hottentot – and at the same time reverently keep on his coat and take off his hat in her presence, as though she were a civilized woman.
That he allow her to make his social rules, choose his friends and censor his clothes – and at the same time think of her as a cute, lovable, little thing to be 'taken care of' – God’s greatest Gift to Man!
That’s positively ALL! And yet, men are becoming so woman-shy, that it is getting harder to lure a man into marriage than it is to get a golfer into church!”
[Helen Rowland, “Why Men Don’t Marry” (“Meditations of A Married Woman,” (column), syndicated, Miami Daily News (Fl.), Jan. 25, 1927, p. 4]
►1927 – Fannie Hurst – writer
Married women “have become parasites and consumers instead of producers, taking no share in their husbands’ burdens, and are worse chattels than their grandmothers,” Miss Hurst said. “The vast army of women seeking divorce are mainly after easy alimony from men they have ceased to love – surely one of the most despicable forms of barter that can exchange human hands.”
[“Two Prominent Women Differ Over Present-Day Wives - Fannie Hurst and Mrs. J.Borden Harriman Take Opposite Views in Magazine War.” syndicated (UP), Dunkirk Evening Observer (N.Y.), Jul. 12, 1927, p. 7]
►1929 – Dorothy Dix – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”
I often wonder that the modern woman does not perceive that she is killing the goose that lays the golden egg by her attitude toward men. By which I mean to say that it is women themselves who are destroying the things that they value most in life. It is women’s hands that are tearing to tatters the chiffons of romance and sentiment and idealism in which men have always clothed them. It is women who are stifling tenderness and slaying chivalry in the hearts of men. It is women who are doing away with all the graces and sweetnesses that made charm in the relationship between men and women and that incidentally lured men into matrimony.
For women are making men afraid of them and what they will do to them and that makes men cold and cautious in dealing with the fair sex. Even Romeo watches his step and counts the calories in his sweet talk when he keeps a date with Juliet nowadays.
Women don’t like this. They complain bitterly that there are no impassioned lovers. They say that young men are so afraid they may compromise themselves by their attentions to a girl that ten minutes alter meeting her they serve notice on her that they have no intention of marrying and that even one’s fiance’s letters read like a communication about the state of the stock market instead of being an outpouring of burning affection. …
Worse still, women are keeping men from marrying by demanding so much alimony that it makes matrimony not only a gamble in happiness but the most risky financial speculation they can engage in.
Under the present laws a man can marry a girl who makes no effort in any way to be a good wife. She can refuse to keep house, refuse to bear children She can be lazy, extravagant, high-tempered, nagging and make his life a torment to him, yet she can force him to support her as long as he lives. And, such being the case, it is not strange that prudent men are shying of more and more from the altar.
[Dorothy Dix, “Why Can’t The Modern Woman See That She Is Killing the Goose That Laysthe Golden Eggs When She Places a Commercial Value on Every Endearment a Man Utters, Cries Dorothy Dix,” syndicated, The Bee (Danville, W. Va.), Dec. 6,1929, p. 12]
►1937 – Lois Maddox Miller – journalist
Few people realize how easy it is to have a man thrown into jail for non-payment of money owed. A person who owes as little as $5 may be put behind the bars in New York City even before being tried and found guilty of not paying a debt. …
But let me tell you there’s nothing funny ahead for the man who is escorted to a county jail to serve three months or so just because he is unable to beg, borrow or steal enough money, to satisfy (temporarily, at least) some hysterical or vindictive woman who is his former spouse. If he has a job, he’ll probably lose it; if he has a business, it will probably go to pieces in his absence. He can’t earn any money while he is in jail, so when he is released three months later he will be broke” and jobless, and that Ol’ Debbil Alimony will catch up with him so fast that it is almost a sure-thing bet that his ex-wife will have him back behind the bars in no time.
[Miller, Lois Maddox, “I’m a Slave of His First Wife – Laments This Distracted Woman in a True-Life Drama that Bares One Side of New York’s ‘Alimony Racket,’ in Which Vengeful Wife No. 1 Can, and Often Does, Jail the Man She Loved, Until He is Down and Completely Out,” Billings GazetteMagazine (Montana), Jul. 25, 1937, Magazine Section]
The Unknown History of MISANDRY
