WHO HAS THE BEST TIME.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 78, 1 April 1905, Page 9

WHO HAS THE BEST TIME.

A MAN OR A WOMAN?

"Who has the best time —a man or a woman?" asks John Oliver Hobbes in the new magazine, "The Grand," and she answers unhesitatingly that the woman has the best time. Nine persons out of teu', she says, would probably say, each unhesitatingly:—"Men have the advantages." The hesitating tenth would think a little.

To begin with, women are physically and sentimentally, beyond question, the suffering sex. Beyond question, also, men fully believe that men have the happier lot. This helps them to bear much without complaint. It makes them kind to women, tender towards them, willing to work for them, anxious to shield them. . ,

Men, with more liberty than women, t have many more opportunities of coming n to disaster. With more bodily strength s than women, much more is expected from n them in the way of hard work. With I more education ' than the. uncountable s majority of women, more prudence is ex- 1 pected'from-then, than from the intellec- •. tually neglected sex. More disciplined < thau women, they' arc expected to have. > •a* keener sense of justice, a higher code j of honour, a greater, earnestness, '~[' p All this is expected of men, and they i are aware of it. And just as they fail, j or fall short, in fulfilling these'quite .j common expectations, they have to en- *j dure slights—not-from women, but fropi other mem lt is what man,demands' from man which makes life acutely difficult alike to the strenuous and the idle, the industrious and the negligent. No domestic, no romantic affection, no pur- f suit, no vice, no amusement, no interest can compensate a man for being a fail- . ure —according to his luck —in the judgment of his fellows. , The hardship of men's competitive existence is unknown to womankind. They ( never speak of it to women. Men per- ' ish in despair by the ingratitude, or the ( treacheiy, or the baseness of their professing friends, by the malice and wrath ' of their enemies. Women seldom meet any one of these forms of adversity— ' to "the killing point—from their own sex. Yet, against the battles of men, what ' of the loneliness of many women, their secret discontents, cares, sorrows, and ' desires? What of their social and do- ' mestio worries' ? ' Worries about marry- \ ing and not marrying, about husbands, about children, about servants, about ' kitchen boilers, about dressmakers, about ' nerves, about occupation? And then the monotony! Rich women take up ' philanthropy or entertaining. Well-to-do women attempt to make five pounds i ■ produce the effect of twenty. ' Poor women either improve their circumstances ' by finding employment, or by learning cheerfulness; some, always grumble, some are always ill, some are always | fussy, some are always in love, some arc always quarrelling; but as they are not trained and drille in batches, as men are trained and drilled, they always preserve, without disguise, a certain individuality and strangeness which makes each one a perpetual source of pride and interest to herself. The visions which men follow, she say? further, seem to women absurd; their ambitions, apart from merely social distinctions, seem to women desolate; the problems which drive men to cynicism, to drink, to suicide, do not excite as much as wonder in their mothers; the contradiction between the flesh and spirit does not enter into the feminine mmd —she thinks her flesh is her spirit —therein lies her great power over the miserably thoughtful and her fascination for the unwillingly consistent. She throws a glamour over all wondering? and gives the. lie to any theory which interferes with her practice, whether good, indirectly good, or utterly evil. Who can maintain that men have the better time? Mcn —spurred till they fight; trampled on when they fall; over- | worked when they work; too much amused—when they are amused; men, the poets, the dreamers, the ecclesiastics, the enthusiasts, the master-builders, the music-makers, the physcians. the artists, the judges, the critics, and the labourersor else the drones and the fools of the human race. To compare the existence of men and women is to weigh the acquiescent with the inconsolable. "'What!" I hear women in a chorus exclaim. "Man inconsolable? No men ever said so. Are we not their consolers ?* Exactly. That is my.point. Women - never question silence, they break it. i whereas men are broken by it. That is** why women have the. better time. They ■ live and die in the belief that they bring - all the joy, and atone for ail the woe,; i of this sinful world. j