MARRIAGE FOR MEN.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3166, 8 June 1931, Page 7

MARRIAGE FOR MEN.

MAKING FRIENDS AGAIN.

By a Cynical Contributor.

Those bachelors who have glanced through the preceding articles of this series will be inclined to set the author down as a man who doesn't know what he is talking about, because of the frequent references to quarrels. It is hard for the ardent unmarried man to believe that he and his sweetheart will actually have tiffs when they are married. They are going to be so different. from all other married couples. Then when the first quarrel comes, it is always a very terrible affair. It changes all his ideas about marriage (his marriage), and he feels that life is never going to be the same again.

You will quarrel, as all other couples quarrel, including those who win the Dunmow Flitch each year. You will discover that the mere act of making a number of amazingly sweeping promises in the presence of a clergyman or registrar has not lifted you and your wife above the plane of ordinary unintelligent human beings. It is extremely doubtful whether you will be able to find how the quarrel started, so I recommend you not to hold an inquest on it; particularly do I urge you not to demonstrate, or attempt to' demonstrate, your own innocence. It will be a very sorry attempt, foredoomed to failure, for the woman is never wrong?

Suppose you do try to track it back? It actually started, we will say, when you complained about the bacon one morning. Immedately your wife burst into tears, said you were heartless, and horrible, and you told her she neglected you—and so it went on. Now that complaint about her cook ing, being one of the unforgivable crimes, would have started a quarrel anyway, but this one was a really bad affair. Consequently when it is all over you will point out to your wife that your mentioning that the bacon was brittle was hardly sufficient reason for her flaring up as she did. She will reply that it wasn't what you said that caused her to get annoyed, but the way you said it. , To this you retort that, while you cannot recollect giving your voice any particularly cutting inflection,, if you old it was because of the. way she glared at you.because you were a few minutes late coming to breakfast, which delay was caused by the fact that you had to get a new razor blade out of the packet. Her response to this will be that she wouldn't have glared had you not been so noticeably cool all last evening, a coolness which naturally made her think that something was wrong. Tou cudgel your brains to think up a good reason why you were cool, and then remember that the previous morning she had been slightly suspicious when you said you would have to work a little later than usual that evening, and she will admit that she was suspicious, because you have been staying late with increasing frequency recently. Before you know where you are, you will have dragged into the light of day all the. petty annoyances that have got on each other's nerves for the last few months, and will be discussing the funny way you looked at her that day you went to tea with the Browns, and she said you didn't like cocoa. And you will point out that, since she knows very well you do like cocoa, she ought never to have said such a thing. And you will get highly indignant all over again over the cocoa business, or something just as delightfully confused and illogical. Inquests are worse than useless, because by going over all this old ground, grievances which should have been buried and forgotten are revived, and when you have finished, you will find that you have an awful lot of things to be sorry for. Whenever a quarrel takes place, your duty is obvious. You must apologise. You'll have to do it sooner or later, so why not now? It may save days of unpleasantness. Never mind K you are not quite sure just what 1t in that you are apologising for. A detail like that doesn't matter, because you can always find out later. It is the principle that is important. Don't try any other methods, for they really won't work. I know a young husband who hit upon a scheme that he thought was brilliantly equitable. The idea was that when he and his wife fell out they should each apologise for their own share of the trouble (the scheme was based, as you will have observed, upon the fallacious theory that it takes two to make a quarrel). His wife agreed willingly, until the next quarrel occurred. Then the scheme fell flat, because, of course, his wife had had nothing whatever to do with this particular rift in the lute. So that young husband had to apologise twice; once, for being at the bottom of the quarrel, and again for daring to suggest that she had, or might have had, any share in it. Sometimes a mere apology will not work. The wife is deeply annoyed, and refuses to be won over by such simple methods. Then it is necessary to find another way. Whatever you do, do not commit the mistake of bringing her a present when you come home from work. If it is a cheap present you will only make matters worse, while if it is a good, expensive one, you are more than likely to find henceforth that your wife will start quarrels for the sake of the gifts they bring in their train. Let us go into this matter a little more deeply, for it is of the utmost importance. Say you buy the chocolates If you analyse your feelings you will have to admit that you are taking

them home solely in the hope that the gift will-help 70a to win over your .wife in the event of her still being ■ unwilling to forgive and forget. In other words, yon have armed yourself with a bribe.

In all probability it has the desired effect, and the world becomes rosy again. But those other quarrels will follow, and you will feel that, having established a precedent, you must keep it up. Until one day you determine that you ,will not give way. Probably this time you are more than ever convinced that you are in the right. Now the more firmly you are convinced of this, the more firmly your wife will be that she is the one who is in the right, and when you arrive home without the chocolates she is slighted. She thinks that you cannot love her as you used to, since you obviously do not worry over quarrels po much as you once did. The coolness that already existed becomes worse, and it is quite likely that your wife will remind you that when you loved her you used to patch up a quarrel with a gift. She will have become so used to the bribe that she cannot feel friendly towards you without it There is an even more serious aspect of this matter. Once you have fallen into the error of making friends with a gift, you automatically prohibit yourself from buying your wife any little present unless there has been a quarrel to justify it. If you do take home something you will immediately arouse ner suspicions. These gifts, you see, have become so closely associated in her mind with backsliding on your part that she will instinctively wonder what you have been up to now. These suspicions will be apparent in the way she receives the present, her whole attitude towards you, and relations are apt to become so strained that the usual order of things is reversed, and a quarrel follows the gift. So don't bribe. If it seems that an apology does not have the effect you desire, it is evident that your wife is still harboring a whole lot of little grievances which she has not disclosed, because the quarrel only lasted an hour. Things will not be the same again until she has aired them.

In such a case it is desirable to hold an Inquest—not for the sake of finding out how the quarrel really started, but solely in order to give her a chance to bring all those little matters which are bothering her. Start quite quietly and gently by saying that you have already apologised, but you would like her to realise that you would not have said what you did had not she, in the first place, spoken unkindly to you when you said you were short of money.

That will give her the opening she wants. Everything will come out, and soon you will- only have to apologise once more in order to make everything all right again.