FOR WOMEN MARRIES AT 68

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 284, 30 November 1944, Page 3

FOR WOMEN MARRIES AT 68

DR. MAUDE ROYDEN

GAVE ADVICE TO BRIDES

Dr. Maude Royden, 68-year-old preacher, and writer on marriage problems, was herself married recently to her next-door neighbour and lifelong friend, the Rev. G. W. Hudson Shaw, former rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, who is aged about 80.

It is her first marriage, and this woman who for years acfvisecl young Sw e couples about their marriage pioblems, was too shy to discuss her own, says the Daily Mail.

som e years she was assistant preacher at the City Temple, and that time and later she wrote p " articles on marriage and other social problems. Here are some of her observations:

A Bride's Secrets.—"You won't I hope, feel that you ought to tell him eveiy thing that belongs to the past; and you won't, I hope still more fervently, feel that he ought to tell you." 6

Trial Marriage.-— "I am a firm believer in the permanency of mar- " marriage is no marriage

Divorce.—"Marriage is a hopeless failure in some cases, and when this is so, I think it would be better to permit divorce than to keep a couple together."

Preparation for Marriage.—"l find it difficult to speak in measured terms of those parents who deliberately allow their daughters to take a step which involves the whole of their future life and happiness, and that of another human being also, in ignorance of what they are doing."

Human Nature.—"That there are so many happy marriages in spite ot all this ignorance makes one realise how extraordinarily loyal, fine and courageous, on the whole, human nature is."

Women.—"They want to be treated as human beings, not as a sex." Motherhood.—'"Motherhood should be endowed. The bearing and rearing of children is for most women a fulltime job, dangerous, responsible, essential and demanding the highest kind of skill. Those who perform it should be regarded as what they are—the most important people in the nation." Sex Equality.—"All professions and trades should be open to men and women without any hindrance whatever. The only condition that I would make would be that they must in every case receive equal pay for equal work." Adopted Babies (she adopted a girl in 1918).—"I can only say that a child of my own, liable to inherit all my worse qualities, and very likely some of those of my remote ancestors as well, would be a 'risk,' too, and I reflect that my adopted daughter cannot possibly surprise me more than I surprised my own mother."