MANNERS AND MARRIAGE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3133, 4 September 1922, Page 2

MANNERS AND MARRIAGE.

(By Margaret Gordon).

A woman who was admonished the oilier day by a comity court judge, to whom her husband had complained of her viperish tongue, replied, "Surely a wile is entitled 'to say what., she thinks of her husband—however unpleasant it may be!" Though most women would, T am sure, repudiate the right to such a claim, there is no doubt that a good many wives—and husbands, too—behave as if marriage absolved them from the debt of courtesy which every human being owes to every other. How often does the "politeness and consideration which mark the relations of engaged couples wear thin and sometimes degenerate into sheer rudeness after a few years of intimate life together! And what a mistake it is—a mistake much more often fatal to married happiness than most of us realise! It comes, T believe, from a false idea that courtesy is just an unimportant superficial thing.

Some men seem to think it is really rather silly to show their wives the littlo attention they would naturally bestow on any other woman just because sho- was a woman.

"Surely,-" they would answer, if one reproached them for boorish behavior, "it I love my wife and do all I can to give her the life .she wants that is enough." No. It i.s not enough. Love' that is never expressed in trifling acts of tender courtesy is not enough for any line, sensitive woman. She may be too proud to show resentment at the lack of these pctits soins, as the French call them. Hut the harmony of married life can nevertheless he as'easily destroyed, by a careless, impolite husband as by an unkind or unfaithful one. for courtesy lies at the very root of friendly Human relations. In the long run good manners are quite as necessary to make marriage a success as good morals. Women are. moreover, ;is apt to forget this great truth as men. In some ways it is even more difficult for them to resist the deadening effect of intimacy, it re<|iiires a strenuous effort to go on treating your husband as ii lie wcvv still your fiancee—to he charming, to look charming, day after day, year after year. It is so'easy to slip into the hain't of thinking any old dress will do for him. and from that into tlie much more fatal hain't of faying just what you think of him and of the contrariness of life, however unpleasant it mav be." \

So the 'sweet bells" being "to jangle out of time," because neither husband! nor wife takes the trouble to conform in their attitude towards each oilier io the ordinary standard of good manners. Vet marriage, if il is not to be a failure, is largely a matter of taking trouble in the little every- 4 day things. it is like the old story of the pence and the pounds. If we take care of the pence of politeness, the pounds of happiness will usually take care of themselves.