"OFFICE WIVES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 212, 8 September 1938, Page 24

"OFFICE WIVES."

NONE IN LONDON!

CRITIC CHALLENGED. «A BASELESS ATTACK." (Special.—By Air Mall.) LONDON, August 13. The allegation of Brigadier Stanley Price-Weir, Matrimonial Commissioner of South Australia, that unhappy home life is mainly caused by the affairs of married men with their secretaries finds little support in England.

Brigadier Price-Weir's remarks have just been published here, and sereral typists' champions have immediately protested. Miss B. A. Godwin, organising secretary of the Women ulerks' and Secretaries' Association, says: "The situation of the typist and her boss is fantastically exaggerated always. From our experience of dealing with 2000 typists and secretaries each year in London alone, I can say definitely that the • relationship between the woman office employee and her employer is what one would expect between any employee and employer.

"There is no earthly reason by the typist should be singled out for this kind of baseless attack. The typist is out to earn her living, not to make love to her employer or to be made love to by him. The majority of girls would deeply resent anything other than the business relationship. She goes outside the office to find her boy friends."

The accountant of the Women's Electrical Association replies: "It is most desirable that the typist and her employer should work together amicably. No good team work can be done without mutual understanding. The trouble is that when e certain type of woman sees a man and a woman working in harmony together she is apt to think there is something more between them."

" 'Office wives' may lead to unhappiness in the home, but never to the Divorce Court," is the opinion of Mrs. Sea ton-Tide man, secretary of the Divorce Reform Society. "I have handled thousands of cases. I have never come across one where an office affair was the cause of divorce. A lodger, or supposed friends of the man or woman are usually at the bottom of it."

The reply of the president of the Feminist Club, Mrs. T. A. Cameron, is: "The single girl concerned in an intrigue with a married man is a fool. The man is a scoundrel. Most office girls nowadays are attractive, and the man in the office does not see her under the same conditions as he sees his wife at home, busy looking after the family.' 1

"If single girls did not encourage married men, there would be no 'office wives,'" says. Mr. A. B. Fuller, a prominent theatrical manager.