MARRIAGE FOR MEN.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3162, 11 May 1931, Page 7

MARRIAGE FOR MEN.

MYTHS AND MAXIMS. Every bridegroom goes to the altar handicappeo by the idea that, no matter how other couples may go on, he and his wife are going to be different. Especially his wife. He knows that other women snap at their husbands; that quarrels take place; that these other women are not patient with the little moods of their men, and are always wanting money. But so cleverly does Nature blind the male of the species that he is quite confident he has found the one exception.

Then, when disillusionment comes — as come it must—he acquires a perpetual grudge against his wife for not possessing the qualities with which his imagination had endowed her. Now, although no two single girls are ever very much alike, all wives conform strictly to type. The actions and reactions of most married women are surprisingly uniform, and it was this fact which made it possible for me to write these little articles. You will find them neither cynical, salacious, not sentimental. They are simply an attempt to show the young husband the quickest way to regain his lost sense of proportion, and teach him that marriage is only a failure when the man, in his ignorance, tries to get the woman he married out of ways that are common to all wives, and as immutable as the solid rock.

Both men and women are deluded with absurb ideas about marriage from babyhood. Prom the time the first fairy tale is read to them they are led to believe that once the wedding bells ring they will be Happy Ever After. Story tellers through the ages have finished on the same note of happiness assured (except those moderns who start with the ceremony and, going to the other extreme, depict such morbid misery that we cannot believe it). ' Apart from these cynical pessimists, the story tellers leave us to take the post-nuptial happiness for granted, and we do; wita the result that all men go into marriage misled by this myth. For myth it is, of course. Happiness ueve"r comes ready-made. Marriages may be made in Heaven, but the maintenance work has to be done on earth by the people concerned. If I can convince you of this fact, then you will go into married life without any false ideas about it, expecting to find as many false ideas about it, expecting to find as many snags as there are in work or sport, and armed with the knowledge that you can't get the most out of marriage by simply acquiring a wife any more than you can qualify for the centre court merely by buying a tennis racquet. Marriage, in other words, is just like any other sphere of activity in life. You'll have to - concentrate jolly hard before you begin to be a success as a husband.

It is really most unfair to let you believe that the marriage service will cure you for good and all of your many irritating ways, and that when the girl you have chosen dons her bridal dress she will cease to be a human being. How much better to advise you to prepare for the worst —for when no illusions exist, disillusionment is impossible. On the contrary, if you go into marriage with your eyes open you are likely to find it much better than you expected, in which case the only shock you'll get will be a pleasant one. There are so many silly notions about married life that those who are contemplating it cannot think clearly. Based on superstitions, and expressed in empty maxims, these ideas are so firmly established that to attack them is regarded almost as sacrilege. Yet they must be dispelled sooner or later. Take, for instance, the ridiculous idea that a man should be master in his own house. Of course, it is impossible. No man has ever yet been master in his own house, unless' he lived as an unattended bachelor. Even an elderly housekeeper will boss him unmercifully; so will a wife. It can't be helped, and you must resign yourself to your fate as speedily as possible. Your wife will discover every skeleton in your cupboard, and exploit them to the full. Since she sees you every morning sleepy and unshaven, she will cherish no romantic ideas about you. She will see how utterly helpless you are when faced with a simple job like sewing a button on, and glory in the power which such helplessness gives her over you. Wives are supposed to be very forgetful where buttons are concerned, but their forgetfulness is deliberate, conceived and carried out to keep men in their place. "Master in your own house," forsooth! How can a man be, when his very goings out are controlled by the women with the needle. I have yet to meet the man who could be masterly once he realised that upon his wife's willingness to sew strategic buttons on his trousers depended his ability to face the world as a decent citizjen. Every woman, unless she is a traitor to her sex, controls the man she married. It is useless for him to protest. If he tries to be firm in the matter of, say, the interior decoration of the house, he will fail. His wife knows that she has only to let him have his way with the wallpaper, and he will be so appalled by the result that henceforth he will leave such matters to her.

This is not because man is incapable of choosing wallpaper. As a matter of fact, his ideas are usually very sound, but his wife is too clever for him. She will put up curtains that clash violently, and he won't be astute enough to realise what is wrong. Consequently he thinks his taste is at fault and is humbled. The best plan for the man who wants to feel that he is master is to arrange with his -wife that he shall

decide upon all major matters, leaving the smaller and less important decisions to her. It is an ideal arrangement, for he will And that nothing big enough to warrant his interference ever crops up. Yet he will be happy all the while in the belief that she regards him as a wise counsellor ever in the background: a sort of benevolent tyrant ever ready to help with the big problems. Another myth Is embodied in the seriously inaccurate idea that women wax romantic over housework. Never was there a greater mistake; yet we go on perpetuating it. Popular songs about dear old mother, muddled maxims about "working her fingers to the bone for the man she loves"—all these carry on the same old myth. If you doubt me; if you believe there may be some truth in the very pleasing notion that your wife thrills as she mend* the hole* in vour tmrks. try % little experiment. Next time she suggests a visit to the pictures, remind her that there is a batch of your sock* upstairs waiting to be darned.

Everything connected with housework is slavish drudgery. Women make it so by their steadfast refusal to adopt labor-saving ideas (very few wives will use a vacuum cleaner once the novelty has worn off; it's too much trouble to put it together). So do not imagine that you have ensured the lasting happiness of the woman you married simply because you have given her a house and a man to look after. And when she tells you (as she will) that woman's work is never done, for goodness' sake don't try to be clever, and say that's because she never makes a proper start on it. That, of course, is the reason, but if you are unwise enough to tell her so it is then you will hear her real opinion of marriage, housework and yourself. While on the subject of work, by the way, I would destroy once and for all the illusion —charming though it undoubtedly is—that a wife will help her husband to success. Usually her attitude is to urge him to do better in the world, and then grumble if, in an attempt to obey her, he brings work home from the office.

A woman can be almost as jealous over her husband's work as over a human rival, and it takes years to over* come this. 'During the early part of your married life you will find that your wife expects you to devote every moment of your leisure to her. If you want to study, with a view to getting s better job, she will consider she has been seriously slighted, and cause a scene. If you try to reason with her, and point out that she will benefit by your ultimate promotion just as much as you yourself will, her retort will be that if you can't get a rise without spending every minute you are home with stuffy old books (they all exaggerate, you know) then you can't be very clever.

You will have to be very firm over this, unless you are prepared to let all your ambitions go by the board, and settle down into a groove. It will mean a fight, and I can give you no arguments to advance, because women will not listen to arguments, especially if they happen to be logical. All you can do is to say, "I'm sorry, my dear, but I've got to work," and leave it at that.

For a month —perhaps longer I —there will be trouble every time you assert yourself, because it will look very much as though you are trying to achieve the Impossible, and become master in your own house. Then, to your amazement, your wife will suddenly change, and begin telling you to work. You will find that she actually boasts to other women about the way she lets you go into your den whenever you want to. Notice, by the way, the significance of the phrasing of that last sentence. She will not say that you work when you feel like it, but that when you feel like it she lets you work.

She will come to you and relate how selfish Mrs. Brown Is, because that lady objects to her husband working in his spare time. If you are wise you will kiss her, and praise her for being so different herself. Don't, whatever you do, remind her that she was once the same, or she will never forgive you for inventing such an atrocious false* hood.

Then there is that other misleading saying, beloved of elderly ladies, that it takes two to make a quarrel. Any husband who has been married more than a week or so will tell you how % wrong this is. That period of married life is long enough to convince a normally intelligent man that it only takes one to make a quarrel, and that in some extraordinary way he always seems to be the one. This, as I have explained more fully elsewhere, is.due entirely to woman's convictions that she can do nothing wrong. If your Wife cuts herself through trying to sharpen a pencil with one of your old razor blades, she will inevitably blame you, and there will be a quarrel. When it is all over, you will have given up trying to persuade her that it was her fault, and will apologise for buying such sharp blades.

"Money doesn't bring happiness" is another fallacy. Although it only takes one to make a quarrel, no wife will allow her husband to start one when she wants to ask him for the money to buy a new hat. But if he refuses her the money, then she lets him have his way and quarrel to his heart's content. In such a case as this money definitely does bring happiness by encouraging the woman to keep her husband in a good humor. But the subject of money deserves a whole article to itself.