PINPRICKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 4 (Supplement)

PINPRICKS.

TESTS OF LOVE. MATRIMONIAL DANGERS. (By JOAN KENNEDY.) Not long ago a certain breach of promise action must have given lovers— both married and unmarried—"furiously to think." The pair had been engaged for many years, when the man broke off the engagement. A reason that was cited was that the girl had an irritating habit. Love, we say, often grows out of propinquity, but propinquity can also be ' very revealing in another way. It t brings many pricks in its train, and in , most courtships and marriages there are revelations. As a rule the revelations come after marriage, for the average engagement nowadays does not last four i years. Modern couples are more rapid. 1 Love's Spectacles. , Once a lover begins to peer over the ■ tops of those rose-coloured spectacles > with which falling in love has supplied > him, there are usually some flaws to i be discovered in the idol. If those flaws l are going to irritate, then propinquity I is going to be purgatory. But that peering over the tops of the i spectacles usually comes after marriage, s We say that one must live with a 1 person to know that person. This is 1 true. It is propinquity which brings 1 the test of love, because propinquity • brings many pricks. ' Jill, who has skylarked in the local ] swimming bath, or bathed in the sea 1 while on holiday with her Jack, has no idea what Jack is like when his bath water is barely warm and his shaving \ water is brought to him little more than tepid. Music seems a lovely thing to Jill , when she and the boy who adores her , are foxtrotting in their favourite Palais ' de Danse. But when Jack, now a Benes diet, plays ragtime on the home gramo- ' phone when she ought to know that Mrs. Jack's nerves are "all on edge," music ■ can change into the bone of contention. 1 The pricks of propinquity are many, ■ and it is the intimacy of marriage ■ which brings the test of love. Things They Don't Know. She didn't know that he made noises when taking soup, and he didn't know that she whistled out of tune. When he courted her he was so much the attendant cavalier, but it comes as a shock to her sense of what should be when he falls asleep on the opposite side of the hearth and snores in her company. Besides, he does not look at all nice with his mouth open. Perhaps she is unconscious of the fact that a way she has of jigging her foot up and down when supposed to be still, or that restless tapping of her fingers, annoys him. He may never mention it, but some of her habits — such as when she is always using the poker—are very irritating. He wants to say, "For goodness' sake leave the poker alone and give the fire a chance!" but he bottles it up. She has many little irritating habits, but, generally speaking, a man is either more tolerant or else he is not so sensitive as is a woman, and so is not irritated by the small things. His wife may bite her nails, sing out of tune, tap her fingers on her chair, or plav with the cutlery at meals, but he just lets Jill alone. A woman, on the other hand, will "boil over" once she notices the small failings which irritate. "Oh, for goodness' sake, do put your chair up to the table, and do stop fiddling with your bread!" she cries. The very tone of her voice invites a breeze. Should John's liver be not exactly in order, his business affairs dragging at his cheery oulook on life, a tooth be aching, or a corn giving "gip," the breeze may not blow over. He pricks back, and tiny scars are made. Worse Than Blows. The pin-pricks of propinquity are often more perilous to happiness than blows would be. A woman will find herself loving the man who beats her (if there are husbands who beat wives nowadays), yet feel something which is akin to hatred for the husband who persists in tantalising habits which he knows annoy her. In some way we find that big troubles will bring a couple together. but trivialities will part them. Molehills so easily grow into mountains—especially with women. Let a man forget the anniversary of his wedding, and his wife imagines that he has ceased to love her. She will work herself into a state of hysteria over a forgotten anniversary, when by a hint she might have jogged his memory. Tolerance. There comes a time now and then in every marriage when two people manage to get on each other's nerves. It is perhaps a good thing that the average man finds his work takes him away from his home. There would be more divorces if marriage meant living in each other's pockets, because propinquity often brings irritation and boredom.