THE WIFE WHO IS REALLY A SPINSTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3139, 16 October 1922, Page 8

THE WIFE WHO IS REALLY A SPINSTER.

(By Elsie Grange.) Women have been decidedly slow in one respect in following the example of the male. Perhaps they saw a little further than lie did. The “bachelorhusband” lias been a matrimonial type ever since matrimony began: but the spinster-wife is merely of this day and generation. This newest of new women sees in matrimony a way out of bondage: it does not spell servitude to her. It is a door through which she can pass into complete indejiendeiice. She discovers it to be an escape from an exacting parental roof under which she was never allowed to grow up, or an exit from an office with musty ledgers, a tiresome clientele, and a salary that never catches up with her expenses. The spinster-wife takes no stock in cradles, however wonderfully decked out. There is no joy for her in dainty woolly socks, dimpled flesh, and baby smiles. She laughs at your early-Victorianisiii it you dare to hint at such a vision within yourself. She does not conjure ii)i that old-time womanly dream of having a man to wave off to his business each morning, and to welcome on his evening return, his slippers wanning. his favorite meal awaiting him—and of the kiss lie' will give her when he has partaken thereof. No! Her dream —the spinster-wife’s dream and she sees that it conies true is a home of which she is completely mistress. Her hours are regulated according to her own fancy. She sees in marriage no reason to allow her pet accomplishments in art, music, or sport, to deteriorate. But all things have their day, then ccaso to be. The “day” of the spinsterwife must of necessity he brief. Nothing is so short-lived as purely selfish gratification ; and, moreover, woman is happier as giver, not taker. True it is that marriage has been an exacting, monotonous institution for so many women in the past. “No man would choose to be a woman, because he does not like her job,” said a man to me the other day: and much less would ho choose the “job” of a married woman. Yet. though knowing this, no attempt was made on man’s part, to mitigate it —to shorten her hours of labor, or to grant her equal right to his income so that she should not be a penniless partner, or to rectify the unequal laws that still exist for married women. But the spinster-wife likewise is not concerned with domestic laws, for she is above them all —she. herself, is Law. Her persuasion has more followers than most of ns would imagine. She is an uncomfortable problem, hut fortunately a passing one. A few more years of it. and then —“too old” ! Too old to fan the flame of admiration in the hearts of men as once was so simple a thing to do; too old to establish a nursery; too late to kindle love anew in the breast of the man she married—failure !