RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30151, 7 June 1963, Page 17

RANDOM REMINDER

SLAVE TIRADE

According to British law, an unmarried daughter under 21, living in the family home is classified as a “female servant” We just wish we had known about this long ago. We have been under the impression that if there was any tugging of forelocks to be done, the duty fell on married fathers living in the home. Female servant. Huh! Perhaps New Zealand law says the same thing; but if it is to have any real meaning, there must be reference to the legal

right of the female servant to borrow her employer’s car a minimum of two and a maximum of five times a week; to negotiate with him, illogically but persuasively, on the matter of personal emolument; to borrow heavily in advance, while keeping the sketchiest but most helpful records of the transactions; to pursue her university studies of young university gentlemen, while reserving the right to object when one of them, brought home to dinner, is addressed by his host as Joe, when Joe, in fact,

was the one three weeks earlier. Female servants also have the right to borrow their mothers’ cosmetics, clothes and change. They have licence to discuss, for a minimum 40 hours a week, the associated problems of fashions and coiffures, interspersed with grave pronouncements on the aits, the sciences, matters of international importance, with an occasional return to the girlish giggle. Female servants indeed. The haijd getting ready to rock the cradle fools the world.