HER WEARY LOT

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 224, 9 June 1923, Page 15

HER WEARY LOT

GRISELDA! Louis XIV. is reported to have been overwhelmed with surprise when on one occasion some Court functionary was not promptly at hand. “I reallv believe.” said the Grand Monarch, -‘that I am kept waiting.’ A like situation would, contain no elements of surprise for a woman. She is an adept at waiting. In almost all the pursuit's of life she is required to wait. The delays which consume so much of her time and try her patience are chiefly occasioned by the dilatory habits or the arbitrary regulations of men, states an English writer. In transacting nnv business women spend half their time in waiting. There is no such thing for a wor-ia.i as getting her business attended to on the instant. , , , , If she goes into a shop and selects her goods she must sit patiently until the attendant has made out the requisite number of accounts on different pieces of paper and various other persons have stamped these papers and wrapped the goods. Even in marketing women, have to wait on tho leisure and inclination of the sellers, for these are so anxious to get customers that they will stop cutting off a joint or weighing vegetables to serve another shopper, who evinces a disposition not to wait. The custom of making a woman wait is probably based on the theory that her time is of little .value, and that she can have no objection to wrs originally a masculine belief, but it has spread io those of her own sex who undertake to supply her needs If a woman yaes to a dressmaker, not only must she wait, but also she is lucky if she is not told to return the next day, for no modiste wiU allow it to bo suppose-1 that she has ever a single moment when aho is not overwhelmed with engagements. . * The worst experience of all w engaging a maid. If she goes to a registry office she must wait until the manager has winnowed, out the least objectionable applicants for a situation,' and if she sends to the office she must wait for him to get up to someone to call and interview her Besides all these enforced delays, a woman often has to wait for her husband to come home to dinner. If he has no early business engagements she must wait for him to get up to breakfast. But previously to all these achievements in waiting, she must wait to get married until she is asked.