LIFE IN SOCIETY,

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 57, 9 March 1899, Page 3

LIFE IN SOCIETY,

INSIDE IMPRESSIONS OF YOUNG MARRIED WOMAN

A young married woman, the granddaughter of a well-known millionaire, and who, as it may be imagined, has had considerable experience of 'fashionable' society, has i>"t

down on paper a few of her impressious ot liie gay Jnc oi ac.tr.u 0,-u----sons." When I speak, she says, of the evils of fashionable society for young- wives, I must speak from personal experience. First of ail, I positively believe a great wrong is aoue the fashionable woman or girl in the statement so often repeated that society girls make marriages of convenience and calculation, rather than inarriuges ior love; that they, when mere children, consider marriage :;s a matter of business, and that their affections have nothing to do with the choice of a husband. 1 think this belief is cruelly unjust. I have known all, or nearly all, of the girls and young- women of 'i'ashionable' society since I came out, and 1 cannot recall one instance where the girl who marriefl in my own set did not give her heart with her hand. Girls of wealth and fashion arc just as honest, just as true, as the humblest maid who marries the man of her choice.

There is a popular fiction that fashionable mothers do not love their children as less worldly women do; that they neglect them, and that the maternal sentiment is not a strong one in women of the ultra - smart world. I think this does a great injustice to many of the dearest mothers in the world, and I cannot recall a single instance among my own friends where it would apply.

Fashionable women do not, cannot have their babies always in !heir arms or at their skirts, but they are not neglected. They are, on the contrary, the object of the greatest care and attention, both physically and mentally. 1 certainly have heard society girls say before they were married that they did not wish for children, and hoped they should never have any; but when these very same girls have had children. they have adored them.

For myself I cannot conceive of a woman who could remain cold to the touch of a little child's hand, who could do anything but love her -wn little baby. Just the thought of iicving something all one's own to love and care for is in itself so beautiful.

There is a deal of unhappiness in fashionable life, more perhaps than in the lives of those who are busy. We must all admit that no one of my time at least familiar with the tendency of society could say that the men and women of the fashionable world are as a rule really happy. But I think the unhappiness is more the fault of the husbands than of the wives. And here again I think the athletic woman who is to replace the neurasthenic wife is to be the salvation of the home. The young married woman with all her new freedom will be saved the perils of my early married life. She will be the companion of her husband in most of his pursuits, and fortunately the pursuits of the men of leisure of to-day are healthful. A, young married man no longer leaves his young wife to dawdle about the house, always tired, always seeking for diversion, possessed by the very demon of ennui, nervous and sleepless, and from these very causes petulant and discontented. He does not leave her for other men to find in any of these moods and for other men to console. On the contrary, a man's wife' of the very younger set is to-day his best friend and comrade. She joins with him in all of his sports. She hunts, fishes, golfs, and plays tennis. She does not know what the backache is, and there is no excuse for a man's saying such and such a diversion is too fatiguing for his wife. She will only laugh at him and point to her own exploits, which have usually been won at his expense. It is no longer the fashion, as it was eight years ago, for the young married woman to sit about on the balconies of the country clubs, listening to the tales of sport in which they had no share. They are out now on the field for whatever it may be. All these encouraging signs, I think, will have a great and most excellent effect upon women.

When I was a young married woman it was the fashion for wives to be in indifferent health.

As a matter of fact, it was not really an affectation, for the very artificiality of our lives resulted in fatigue, and we were either feverish or nervous as things happened to go. When everything was successful we ' were gay and in high spirits, but I do not think it was a normal condition. When we were annoyed and disappointed we believed we were ill, and we said so. A feverish, over-strained condition of health is ruinous to happy married life. A woman who is always tired from the fashionable function of the night before is in a state of nerves which renders it impossible for her to stand the slightest vexation. Little differences of opinion which i*eaily amount to nothing—would be nothing to a strong, well woman to throw off — exaggerate themselves and become grievances. Naturally a wife under these circumstances loses her attraction. Both sides being discontented, they too

often seek forgetfulness in the society of another. And, aiter all, it is not a question of incompatibility of temper, but the result of a false way of living and of frayed-out nerves and broken-down bodies.