A GOOD MARRIAGE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 139, 16 June 1930, Page 9

A GOOD MARRIAGE

NECESSARY QUALITIES

BOTH RESPONSIBLE

A WOMAN'S VIEW

(By Mrs. J. R. Clynes, Wife of the Horns Secretary.) (Copyright.) Marriage would be a happier state, I believe, were we to discard most of the inaccurate, unreasoning, aud unnecessary theories which we build up round it. People are made afraid to face r&alities by endless discussion of "adjusting one's personality" and the "psychology of marriage"—and we quite lose sight of the fact that marriage is a practical contract. We are taught both to hope and to fear too greatly. We arc always on the lookout for probable disaster and live in terror of emotional catastrophics that do not occur. lam of the opinion that we should be brought up from our childhood to regard it as normal and natural that two people should derfde to share their lives and live for one another. We should look upon the marriage contract as a state of being in which any intelligent person can take his due share of responsibility. ■My own training, although harsh, did prepare me, to a certain extent, for marriage—a fact that makes me realise that in this one thing the poor are richer than the rich—for qi necessity I wus brought up to understand that marriage for me would mean work, a certain amount ot drudgery even, and considerable anxiety. PARTNERSHIP. Among the wealthy, and also among the less well off, to-day, young women are scarcely taught to realise that the essence of ■ marriage is partnership and division of labour, but are warned, instead, of the psychological changes that will take place in both their husbands and themselves. They are told that it is equally important that they should look pretty as to be able to keep- house, more vital that they should dress smartly than be able to knit their husband's socks. I do indeed sympathise with the woman who' desires beauty and who attempts to keep a certain atmosphere of romance in her home. At the same time, I feel that these things are more or less superficial, and that far more is implied in the marriage contract. Nor do 1 believe that any man can regard his wife as his equal and his comrade unless she is willing to work for him and help him in much the same way as he works for her aud helps her. In this I speak from experience, for my own marriage to John Clynes would not have been the vivid experience and successful union that it has, had I not been prepared to face the rough as well as the smooth with, him, and uphold and encourage him when the future loomed dark. I met my lvusband for the first time at an Irish political meeting. I had gone with my brother to listen to that fiery orator, Michael Davitt. I met there and talked to a dark-haired young man, and although I realised he could not have been many months my senior—l was then nineteen—he spoke with the assurance of a" man of experience, a man twice my age*. . After the meeting we walked home with John Clynes, and from that moment a friendship sprang up between us. Gradually friendship developed into deep attachment and there was an understanding Shat so soon as we had sufficient money te get together a home, we would marry. VERY POOR. We were both very poor in those days —like everyone else we knew. I came from a working class family. .My father was forced through circumstances to work hard for his living and since I had lost my mother as a baby, my sisters and I used to do the housework. I scrubbed floors and made beds before I. was eight years old. When I began to earn my own living in a mill at the age of eleven, I had to set up at five o'clock and trudge along miles of muddy roadway through wind and rain, for buses did not exist in those days. We never had enough to eat as children, nor sufficient to clothe ourselves. Two of my sisters and one brother died in their childhood, and my father, broken by these tragedies and worn out by strenuous work, passed away when I was scarcely nineteen. As these terrible calamities, one after another, befell us. I began to rebel against a civilisation which forced human beings to exist in such conditions. I groped for some means by which 1 could learn to pull myself out of the mistry by which I was surrounded, and I was animated by a desire also, to help, if it were humanly possible, all others who suffered as I did. Political meetings dealt with some of my problems, and that was why I began to attend them, and thus it happened that I met John Clynes through whom I was ■" to see my dearest ambitions fulfilled. . AS AN ORGANISER. A few months after 1 first met my ■ husband some grievance arose in the mill and this earnest ypuug man, though he had scarcely attained his majority,; tried to organise a Piecers' Union. He did not actually manage to organise the men, but ha did succeed in making every one of them, listen to him when he spoke. His sincerity and his earnestness spoke for him—men listened because they could feel that he meant everything he said—he belived in himself and in his fellows—and, above all, people felt they could trust him. His success on the platform brought him to the notice of the Socialist Organisation, who asked him to take on the post of organiser to the General Workers' Union. I remember how very upset his _ family was when he decided to accept this offer. They came to me to try to dissuade him. They thought him mad to leave his position in the mill for so precarious a mode o£ livelihood as politics. However, I did not attempt to do anything of the sort, for I knew that his convictions were well thought out aud firm and no one could ..influence him. Also secretly I shared his views. When he left the mill his income was raised to 30s a week, and it was on this salary that we decided to marry. I left the mill so that I could give full time to my duties as a wife. EARLY HARDSHIPS. In spite of the terrible hardships of our early days together I was exceedingly happy. In addition to the housework, I made my own clothes and my husbands socks. If I wanted a new dress I would spend a day piecing one together from old materials, or if a new bedspread were needed I would set to and crochet one. My ■work in those early days was to make 30s do and—to save a little. Even to put away a shilling a week meant some protection against hard times. i A day before my first baby .came 1 baked bread enough to last a fortnight, washed all the linen on my bed, and cleaned the house thoroughly. Ten days after the birth of my son I was working again— because unless I did the work, no one else would. Two years later another baby was born —this time a daughter. By that time my husband was earning two pounds a week. I used to make that money do for the four of us, and even then managed to save something. I made all the children's clothes. I had an ingenious method of keeping the babies by me all the time I worked. I would fasten thwr belts with a large safety-pin to myself, which left them free to roam about under the table, and also left me free to go on with my machining. I was very ill after the birth of our second child, and whut little money we saved was drained away. My husband then began to write pamphlets, and to do whatever additional work he could, so that he could make a little extra money to meet doctor's fees and keep us all going. All the worry and anxiety of these early years might have embittered him, and by making him con entrate upon his own troubles have taken away his wonderful enthusiasm and desire to achieve this ambition. But my husband never once showed that he was suffering; he never became irritable nor disillusioned. THE GREAT CHANCE. .In 1900 there came the chance for which he had been hoping all ilia life. The Labour Party asked him to stand for the North-East Division of Manchester. Curiously enough, for the first time my husband seemed to doubt himself. This constituency., the Platting Division, had been represented by Sir James Ferguson, who •was Postmaster-General for over twenty

years. It seemed an impertinence to ask an unknown man from a cotton mill to oppose him. He came to me for ray advice, and I encouraged him to stand. Perhaps 1 was instrumental in giving my husband just that little confidence in himself which decided him to make a'fight for it. When polling day came he was returned with an enormous majority—over 2500, votes. This was the beginning of my husband's success, but most certainly not the beginning of his career. That began when he first spoke to the piecers in a Lancashire mill, and his triumphs followed only because he was sincere and desired nothing more than to be the means by which he could help his fellow-workers. I should say that the framework of happiness in married life is constructed upon confidence —mutual trust that in itself is one of the most superb fruits of love. My own marriage has taught me that the belief of a wife in her husband may inspire him to achievements far beyond those of which even he had dreamed himself capable. And I am certain that the knowledge that my husband has loved and trusted in me has made me strive, too, for the highest thing if, only to prove myself worthy of such devotion.