ARE SECOND MARRIAGES FAIR?

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 2

ARE SECOND MARRIAGES FAIR?

(By Margaret Gordon).

Spinsters of the “unkist unkind” sort are rather inclined to think second marriages unfair. Women who are twice winners in the matrimonial stakes are apt to be regarded by their “also ran” sisters as taking an unfair advantage of their opportunities. But fair or not, these second marriages happen, and since the war created a plethora of widows they have happened more frequently than ever before. Statistics for 1919 show, in comparison with the 1911 figures, that ten times as many widows under the age of 25 and six times as many between 25 and 30 replaced their lost mate by a new one. Even after 46 —an ago practically uninfluenced by war-casualties—-twice the number of widows took a second chance of connubial bliss under the very noses of our neglected garden of girls. Why is it? Economists suggest that an. explanation may be found in the increased prosperity brought through the war to a good many elderly men who could not before afford the luxury of a wife. This view is supported by the fact that the sensational increase in the marriage rate has affected more bachelors' than widowers. The general increase in wages is also assumed to account for the recent incursion of so many young men into the adventure of matrimony. But neither of these explanations gives ns the reason why so large a. proportion of these husbands chose a woman who had been married before rather than one of the aforesaid spinsters eagerly though silently waiting for their first proposal. Now, what makes the little widow so dangerous, even when she has passed her first youth, to the intending Benedict? The disgruntled spinster often complains that the widow is far better armed for the fine art of husband-catch-ing than the unmarried maiden. That used to be true when girls were only able to exorcise their charms under the eagle eye of a chaperon. But to-day, when sport and dancing throw young men and maidens together without any handicap the advantage of the widow cannot lie. said to depend any longer on her larger liberty. 1 believe that the secret lies in the magic word—adaptability. Experience has taught our little widow to think, or at least to appear to think, more of adapting herself to the tastes and ideas of the man who wants to marry than her girl rival. By subordinating her amusement to his she creates in his mind an image of herself as the ideal wife. He is flattered by her deference to his opinion. He is delighted by her ready sympathy with Ins aims and ambitions. “How wonderful,” he says to himself, “to find a woman who likes what. I like, and above all, who Jiat.es what I hate!” Is it any wonder that lie speedily comes to the conclusion that this charming and intelligent companion is the very woman he has been waiting for? A man often admires a girl who is too full of her own idca.s and attractions to pay much attention to his, lint lie hesitates about asking her to share his life. .So to spinsters of all parishes I say, “If you would outwit the widow at her own game take a leal' out of her book. It is the Book of Human Nature the greatest and most valuable book in the world. Referring to Genoa, Mr Lloyd George said that Italy and Britain conspicuously worked for the great aim of peace and brotherhood, which was the grfcat ideal of Joseph Mazzini. At Genoa the interest of Britain was a strong Italy, and the interest of Italy was a. strong Britain. They had the same common aims, the same common ideals; and anyone who read the works of Mazzini in England l would find there was something there that his heart could respond to. And working together, as lie trusted they would continue to do more and more and 1 more in the future, England in the misty North, Italy with its brilliant blue skies, we. lieto in these rugged climates and 1 they in the genial land where he spent some very happy weeks in fighting against a complication of difficulties! —they could work together. They ought to work together. “However powerful any one of ns may be,” concluded the Prime Minister, “we are more than twice as powerful 1 if we act together, and where there is an agreement—not of diplomats, not of M. Schanzer and myself, although our agreement was profound, hut an agreement of , the peoples —I say that when you have got that agreement for something that the world stands more in need of at this hour than ever it did in the whole of iis stormy career, it is imperative that we should work together. Let us continue to do so in a policy not of selfish interests, not of greed, but in a policy of co-operation amongst free nations, for the benefits of mankind.