WAITING FOR AN IDEAL WOMAN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3149, 25 December 1922, Page 2

WAITING FOR AN IDEAL WOMAN.

Qliy W. It; George.)

Being myself a married man I am as often puzzled by the resolute bacholordom of my friends as they are by the marriage of theirs. Whenever [' meet a bachelor of forty I ask myself why he has found no woman to share his life, what accidents of poverty or coldness have maintained him in the single state. Sometimes, very carefully, 1 try to lead him toward confession ; .as a rule 1 find in the man a fear that marriage means lost liberty, or expense, or impeded career. But. sometimes one finds a queer romantic feeling; the man has an ideal of womankind, and no woman lias embodied it. That tragic, situation (for indeed it is tragic) was stated to me by a fairly young man who much desired a wife. Only, this wife, to suit him, must be: 1. Young; 2. Beautiful; 3. Tender; i. Intelligent; 5. Sweet tempered; (J. Obedient; 7. Well oil'. He did not put his requirements so plainly, of course, but if we strip his statement of unnecessary remarks that is what he crnic down to. He was out for perfection; my readers will not be surprised to hear that he has not yet found a girl lit to bo his mate. The young man in question certainly wanted too much; fortunately not all are so exacting; still more fortunately, we are most of us given to discovering all these qualities in the girl we love just because we love her. But there are many exceptions. We all know of men who like women.', who seek out their society, and yet do not marry; It is not likely that they make absurd demands upon woman; no doubt they realise that woman is neither more nor less perfect than man; still they fail to rind a. wife, and in most cases must blame the feminine ideal they have enshrined within their heatrs. Which at once causes us to wonder whether there is such a thing as an ideal woman. She wouild have no faults. Tact and kindness would make up her speech ; she would be affectionate, pure, generous, industrious, forgiving. In other words, she would be perfectly intolerable, it is doubtless annoying to marry a woman who is too bad, but to marry a woman who is too good—a woman who is never in the wrong, whom one can never blame appears as a punishment too severe for the greatest criminal. Most will agree with me but at this point ask whether there is not an ideal woman for every man. It is difficult to reply "Yes" or

"No," because we know how men get on with the women, they marry, btit not how they woidd get on with.those they donit. However happy or miserable a man is with his wife lite might lie happier or more wretched with another. That is about all one can say; some wives are better than others, but no one can say that Gladys is the ideal mate for youthful James. There is no "Mrs Right." If there were our situation would be sad, for how ea&y it would be to miss her! One would miss her if one went to Eastbourne instead of Boxhill. One would miss her if one disliked her brother and were not asked to her house. Thus, if a man sets up his ideal of "Mrs Right" he may in despair make a poor shift of "Mrs Wrong." Idealism, in regard to marriage, is nothing hut a disease. The idealist waits and grows bitter, bitterness being the infallible reward of disappointment. He has in his mind a readymade picture of what his wife should be: he examines every giW by this critical standard, and naturally she falls short. Let me give an instance of what 1 mean. A certain Don Juan of my acquaintance gave me an infallible remedy against falling in love: "Examine the lady as nearlv as you can. Then ....

hand, ear. nose, something • will displease you, and you will be saved'." Exactly; that is more or less what the idealist does; he cannot take his good ■fortune as he find's it. He must scratch the silver on the plate until he comes to the copper below! Thus he .grows not only sour but suspicious, cynical; he loses the freshness of his mind as well as, that of his skin. And when at last lie love-, it may be too late.

There is only one way to haudte this situation !l amounts to asking oneself whether one is so ideal a mar. as to deserve an idea! woman. To that question a sensible man can answer only “No. ’ One is a decent, ordinary man; a. decent, ordinary woman is not only all one ran hope for but all one needs to help one on to happiness. Do not he deceived by the happy old couples who celebrate their golden weddings. They are happy not because they are ideal people hut because they have made the best of each other's poor humanity. We men and women are feeble things, petty." selfish, unreasonable; we cannot avoid it. but what wo can avoid is to a- A el one another more than we can give, l/ct a man study Iris wife, learn her testes, her points of view; let him try to make her happy: she will repom!. Let a man tit himself to the best he can get and leave misty ideals in the misty region where they belong; let him live on earth where belong ll.sh and blood. The woman he married may not bo ideal, hut it is open to him to tit himself ideally to what she is.