IS SHE SPOILED?

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1925, Page 9

IS SHE SPOILED?

THE WOMAN OF TO-DAY/ GETS WHAT SHE WANTS. HUSBANDS WITH NO PUNCH. j Is the Auckland woman of to-day . being spoiled by the foolish indulgence [J of her menfolk ': The question is suggested by the statement of an American | woman that in England the modern. I i woman is being spoiled by the men ! adopting American ideas and customs' lin their . attitude to their womenfolk. —Our women are spoiled in America,'" (she remarked, "and I am sorry to see ' j your men are growing more Jike our men where girls are concerned.. Your ' | young .girls are demanding to have .'' money lavished on them in entertainI ment by their escorts, and getting it; yonr young married women are lavishing on themselves, and on a .continuous round of excitement, the cash tiiat is making mere money-slaves of ( their husbands." ; Remembering how' the sentimentality . of American plays and books in respeot . to women used to be shifted at locally, , and observing that the same tiling is i applauded nowadays, one is inclined to , fear the worst about Auckland. The • late David G, Phillips has familiarised ns witli the odalisque wives of America, i has let us see into the homes of the kings and princes of American finance, i commerce and industry, to reveal i feminine tyrants there enshrined that i kept their' lords chained to tlie oflice . desk in misery as abject and unending •. las ever was that of prisoner immured i in feudal dungeon. • No doubt'the same L curse of wealth coming unexpectedly to : unprepared minds from changes wrought - by the war is submitting London, Auck-' I land and other places to. this phase. • which lias come to lie looked on as . peculiarly American. Someone is sure to blame ihe pictures, i We have got into the fashion of. blam--1 ing the pictures and. the war for every new possibility of eVil. Certainly the pictures have taken the place of the oldtime family interchange of visits, and ! chats, and "parties. The exchange of j fun, gossip and worldly wisdom is passed I on by the pictures as once it was by the family visits, or community gatherings, I with possibly more,oi an American tinge than in the old days, but possibly the essential difference 'is that the eharaeI ters in the entertainment are not personally known to the entertained, and. , I being presented in picture form, are apt to be over-idealised. The modern young man invests tlie girl with a Mary Pickford face witli all the happy qualities of tlie characters in which he has seen the immortal Mary of the pictures. His dad, who knew Mary's double's mother ami had seen her act pretty parts in tlie family-visit days, admired lier face and her acting, but also knew liev for a lazy sloven in the home, and tlie daughter of an extravagant mother, aud lils admiration was tempered by his personal knowledge accordingly. The pictures may be better fun than the oldtime parties, but they don't infect feather-heads, male or female, with any sort of horse sense. j -You can't put that Yankee Phillips picture of 'everybody loafs, but father,' • over on us Auckland girls," declared a boli-haired local product. No doubt | dad lias made his bit, as well as done his bit, since the war/and we have a car that we all drive. It certainly does i cost us girls something for cabarets and improving onr faces as we'll as our position, and mum has-her flutter at bridge, and Bobbie is sometimes the bunny's : tail i" Oxfords., and the whole d family is the cut's meo-uw. but - — j "But, wait a moment, 1 don't quite I understand." I "Oh, I forgot you belonged to pre|walk days, like Raugi (Rangatira, the jbig chief"), at the office. Bunny's tail is the last thing-in the outfit, and cat's ' j meonw .is the. big noise that ! makes the neighbours get up and Jlook. On the target—l mean what A was getting at, is that it don't ' [ come out of dad's credit balance. Before the war he, had three of. us girls uttering round at home eating off his'profits. In tlie war time we all got good jobs, and kepi them, and learned to pay our way at home and everywhere else. \\ c know how to drive and keep a. car, and what it costs. At the oflice we liaVe come to know a lot more about outside i work, accounts and men, than if we had (been kept, at, home all the lime fiddling | about. Which is all to the good when, land if. we marry. So that's that." And so it was, the critic agreed. PerI haps there was not so'much cause aft'.-r all for fearing the worst in Auckland. I lie submitted the subject to a g/1 who ! dated from pre-war days, and owned I several children but no car. !' "Of course the.girls are being spoiled | nowadays by their fathers, male friends' jand husbands,", she stated. "They 'always were, and always will be, for ! man is the natural prey of woman. But generally, 1 think it is not more so now 1 than twenty years ago. On the surface, girls have changed with the world. They, I are cleverer, more able to get about and' > look after themselves, and spend more | I because they earn more. But there are i | not any more Cle.opatras now than before: there only appear to he more •on [account of the greater freedom between ! the sexes bringing them into the open. i The uxorious husband, too. is more j easily picked in these days of motors on I easy terms, hut he was present all tlie i time." A man of some experience was tried !on the point, and lie was inclined to | agree that, men as a whole seemed more ! indulgent than they once were. "Women. 'always were the talking partners," he ' said. "Npw that they go everywhere and ■ sec everything they have become great, • iti-lighters, and can't be lieid off with I : the strong, silent man stunt when they i .want a thing. The weak man with no j | punch or a yellow streak goes (o the : ! wall. But there's this about it. When , they have a real ding-dong go and'the j I woman wins and gets.- what she wants. ' I voir may be sure that it's good for her, ■ land the pair of them are better pals ; than ever they could have been under ] the old ritles, But a man nowadays has j I got to have a punch." ;