PUZZLING WIVES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1922, Page 16

PUZZLING WIVES

rA STUDY OF TO-DAY

MAN'S ROMANTIC NOTIONS.

The old-fashioned husband is always older than hie wife, if not in years, at any rat© in character. His desires and instincts are aged. She is young because she is alive, writes Gasquoiruo Hartley, in the "Sunday Pictorial." He wants to 'give her advice, but she ■will not listen. He desires to guide her, or at least, he must think that he does so. He protects her. Thinks of her as ypungand precious and tender. He does not speak of certain things before her. He caresses her, he pays her bills, gives her presents, and treats her in the way in which she has learnt not to treat her children.

For the old-fashioned husband is conservative and hopelessly romantic. The fact is he ever seeks in his ■wife the image of his mother, the first woman whom he worshipped, and whose virtues remain as an unforgettable pattern, ever to be repeated. He sees her daraing socks (horrible and useful occupation), making beds, dusting the china, arranging flowers, brushing her_ husband's overcoat and smoothing his hat, fussing needlessly over everything. These pictures are always interfering with the image of his wife—the new woman of to-day, with her restless, and noisy movements, her slang and violence, her knowledge, capable management and clearness of vision—that look-you-straight-in-the-^eyea air that belongs to wives of to-day. Why havo women altered so greatly? Why have women gone on and left their husbands behind? It is common to refer everything back to the war. Certainly the war did this —it sent both women and men into difficult schools; but the man's school was hoarder and quite different from that of the women. If the war had a devastating effect, the peace has likewise had for women it 3 revolutionary consequences. We all know what the war did. It took women out of their homes. The feminists rejoiced to see women in munition factories, on the platforms of trams, squeezed into Government offices, hoeing, and driving the plough. Then the peace threw them! back; closed the open doors,-cut off the day of financial prosperity, re-introduced them to their children—if they had any, and to their husbands—if they returned.. And now what happened ?* What effect had thia on. the desires of women and men? Why, the husbands yearned for the old order of home and wife and children. For the men had fought, they had experienced the uttermost bitterness of life. Their petrified imagination had no new ideals. They wanted nothing changed. For them a terrible interlude »was over, a nightmare passed, that must be forgotten.

WOMAN REFUSES TO GO BACK,

But the non-combatant women had not experienced war; they had only looked on. For many of them a glamour of patriotic achievement in various lands of work (which they much preferred to the old domestic duties) had thrown a Gloak. of romance over the war period. They had nothing to forget. The last thing they Wanted was to go back; all their desire was set on going forward.

Here, then, is the reason' why to-day there are so many modern wives with old-fashioned husbands. These wartrained women are very efficient; they impose their will on everyone. They are attractive and very honest,- but sometimes rather aggressive with their assurance and massed information. They go to and fro from their homes, when they like and how they like. The husband knows almost nothing of hia wife's' friends. He supposes it is all right. But he understands that ha cannot stop her, cannot control her interests. She makes his house her home, is his friend and dear companion, but she does not stay in his charge. Often he feels like a stranger, helpless, not knowing what to do. Wives are now almost more independ©sit that husbands used to be. /"I want to do it; therefore I must do it," is their acknowledged creed. They are on snch good terms with life and with themselves that they cannot imagine another yiew—the old view of the woman sacrificing herself. There are quite a lot at things they won't 4°; they are very shnpla and straightforward about them. Nowadays it is not fashionable for even young, unmarried girls to remain in. the guarded shelter of the home.

OloVfashioned fathers and brothers are sometimes alarmed at the freedom of friendship allowed—the light-hearted pairing off. Life is a game, a dance, like the figure in the-lancers where you "visit" arid ■waltz away, but then com© back to do the same thing with another partner. Yet these girls are not without hearts, but they realise that they must know men before they can choose the one man to whom'they must give themselves, TJiey have almost nothing in common with the boneless, emotional heroines of the pact. They are very practical, and know that love will not pay the baker's bills, and after realising all this, they have schooled themselves not to fall in love carelessly. They look all life squarely in the face, understand their duties; what they will do and will not do, in, a way that may* be* hard, but is nd-' numbly sane and admirably honest. Even on the vexed question of targe or small families the modern woman appears disconcertingly frank and outspoken in the eyes of the- old-fashioned husband. If she is not fond of children, she will say so without fear or shame. She ia absolutely honest about her feslingc, and makes no attempt to disguise her intention of having only a small, family, if any at all. The old-fashioned girl could never have achieved such freedom'and frankness. Wife or maid she was always younger than the man she loved. She studied him, listened to him, quoted him. She lived only in and through him. At least, that is what he thought. .Ho did not know 1 * that, she did not really listen, was tired of his stories, not interested,in his business pr his. frienda. All her seeming, submission and acceptance were \ised only to hold him firmer. The opinions of the old-fashioned woman were, quotations from authority; her motto obedience, but her practice was sweet rebellion. Veiy rarefy was she honest. Her eyes were so blinkered that she saw nothing that she did not wish to see. No, lam not sorry for oldfashioned men. They remain so childisTily blinded. Let them grow up, or, at least, conceal their outworn ideas. The modern woman faces the future with laughter, -and the present with quickly responsive feeling. She gives the world the essential gift of the eternal feminine, though she is cuttinsr awfiy the wornout unrea-snnble exaggerations of' perverted femininity—the coldness of the vicious woman—the ignorance and submission of the old-fashioned pood woman. She is able to see everything and to help in everything, without being deceitfnl, withoi.it benic" dulled.