QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE.

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 3

QUALIFICATIONS FOR MARRIAGE.

Cynics tell you that marriage is such a splendid failure because botli parties expect so much and get so little. Xo doubt the cynics are right. They generally are. 1 ndoubtedly men expect too much from th eir wives. I often wonder why they expect anything at all, because so few wives ever have any qualifications. I don’t mean things like looks or £ s. d., which help, hut don't go for everything; I mean real qualifications like an honors degree in domestic economy, ;i diploma in cookery, or a first-class certificate in curing colds, disciplining children, and ordering the, meals. Of course, the wives will retaliate by saying that no husband was ever a fit person to take upon himself the responsibilities of marriage. My great-aunt Angelina is never tired of recalling that Augustus, when she married him, was an iresponsible loon heavily handicapped by an areumulation of debts, an imaginary flair for racing, and a public school education. On the other hand, Uncle. Augustus, while pleading guilty, would be quite justified in hurling back the retort through h;s spouse’s ear trumpet that she on her wedding cl a v was nothing more than a blushing imbecile of eighteen, unversed in | the domestic arts, ignorant of the value of money, and a martyr to megrims. And so it goes on. When yon think that thousands of women who marry arc not only incapable of mending a seek nr cooki ing a cabbage, but plain and penniless into I the bargain, the marvel is that marriage as an institution is still surviving. Its continued popularity speaks well for tho patience and the digestion of the male species, and proves the average man to be something of a sportsman before marriage and a good deal of a philosopher afterwards. As for the average woman, 1 hasten to pav her tribute. .Her power of changing herself in a few rears, or even months, from an irresponsible spinster into a responsible housewife is a marvel of transformation. It is not every butterfly that can turn itself back into a chrysalis, and perhaps that is why some of the canny and comfortable young men decline to take tho risk and remain bachelors until they are seventy. At that age they usually die or marry a housekeeper famous for her plain cooking. As a rule they just die, and servo them right. Uncle Augustus would sn.v the same, for ho was a sportsman. —“Simple Simon,” in ‘Eve.’