IS AN OLD HUSBAND THE BEST?

Dunstan Times, Issue 3131, 21 August 1922, Page 8

IS AN OLD HUSBAND THE BEST?

(By Margaret Gordon.),

I confess that when 1 heard, the picttiest girl of ray acquaintance, sweet and 22, had discarded all suitors of her own age in favor of a man of 50, f decided it*was ray duty to give her a. piece of mv mind. The result, which J might have foreseen, was that the damsel in question gave rac a piece oi her mind, and she did it to such purpose that my prejudice against marriage between spring . Ult l shall 1 «ay autumn? —is 'ranch less violent than'it was. Ido not yet admit she is right. But on the other hand, 1 am not nearly so sure as I was that she is -wrong. “Don’t talk to me about young men, she burst out as 1 expressed my surprise. at her choice of a husband old enough to be her father. “As you know, 1 could have married almost any of my brother's friends. But just look at them!” “Some of them surely were quite nice, attractive fellows,” 1 put it mildly. “To look at, perhaps,” was her reply. “But not one among them ever asked himself whether I should be happy with him. A hoy of that age only thinks of himself. What can he know about life or about us—thc things that nlesise* nr hurt us —the little things that make all the difference? No. thank you! 1 was looking for a. husband who thinks first about me. and I’ve found him. If he’d been 70 I should have loved him for Its unselfishness. He not only wants to make me happy, but he knows how.’ Almost she pcrsuaclod me—this modeni maiden who had learnt her philosophy in the rough school of working for her living. Such girls judge men more truly than the ignorant sheltered daughters of the past. 1 don’t believe their hearts are colder, but they certainly jove differently, and with more discrimination. To their clear eves mere youth is no longer enough in itself for « life partnership. They may not cling to their independence, but they are less inclined to throw it away For a- dependence that may be more irksome than work when the gilt has worn off the gingerbread. Who shall say they are wrong in preferring a husband who has learnt some of life’s lesson to an immature. 1 awho has everything still to learn? A ontli is proverbially selfish. It feels too keenly to have much consideration for the feelings- of others. And ol all the young selfish things in the world, the young man i.s, generally speaking, the most selfish of all. Experience lias, on the other hand, usually taught the man of 50 something of the superior sensitiveness of the other sex. He knows, ten), that it is “up to him” to prevent his young wife from ever regretting that she consented to become an old man’s darling.