NEW PROBLEMS

Evening Star, Issue 20989, 31 December 1931, Page 11

NEW PROBLEMS

MODERN MARRIAGE A WIFE’S PART The marriage problems of to-day arc quite different from those of previous generations—not the big, main issues, so much as the hundred and one smaller ones, which are very important because they are the cogs of the _matrimony machine, says a writer in the ‘ Cape Times.’ The young woman of to-day comes in for a great deal of publicity. She is praised, she is criticised almost everything she does is commented upon. On the whole the activities of the average young woman between leaving school and getting married meet with general approval. Having learnt to work and play hard at school, she conti nucs on these lines She usually takes up some kind ot work, and her hie is fully occupier! In between working at her job she _ plays games or goes in fot some kind of strenuous sport, she dances and reads, and keeps herself very much alive. She can plan her life with a degree of independence that has never been experienced befoie by a generation of young women. When she gets married, however, sue has to readjust herself. The change over from single to married life is more of a revolution to-day than it was for the Edwardian and Victorian young women. In these days the young woman stayed at home and learnt how to help in the house, how to make jams and preserves, how to check the linen and mend the. sheets, and do IT ! al p' oilier smal ! hut necessary household jobs, Her life in the years between

school days and marriage was spent in preparing fo. being a wife and mother. Now, when a young woman gets married she finds that single life was in many senses no preparation for matrimony. LITTLE MONEY. To begin with, the average young couples of to-day have very little money on which to run their households. Quite often the husband earns a salary very little above that which his wife received when she was working. Consequently, the wfo has to remember this when she is making her weekly budget. If she has a sudden desire for a new hat and indulges in this whim, it will probably mean that she cannot afford to buy the material for the new curtains m the dining room, or that sho will have to refrain from ordering some wine for h<»r husband’s dinner. In fact, sho will have to remember that there are two people to be considered, and not merely herselfThere is ho doubt that the average young woman of to-day has, before she is married a fairly pleasant existence. If she is inteligent, she probably has a good job, and can lead her own life. But at the same time it is a very selfish existence although she is probably never conscious of its selfishness. The young wife of to-day has tf» learn the lesson of unselfishness above everything else. Not only in relation to the spending capacity of one salary instead of two, but in the expenditure of energy. Too soon the young woman forgets what it feels like to come homo after a hard day’s work in a city office. Husbands are usually tired when they come home, and do not want to go out every night The wife has been, mildly busy helping in the house or making herself some clothes, is nearly always readv for an evening’s entertainment, hut her husband usually prefers to “ potter round.” PLAYMATES. In America this problem of husbands and wives has reached a critical point.. Some judges even declare that the cause of many divorces in the States is duo to this attitude of wives expecting their husbands to be gay all night after having spent gruelling days in the city. ■A certain amount of evening entertainment is essential for both men and women, but it is up to the women to gaugo it correctly. On the other hand, the modern young wife arranges her domestic prejn’ornme so that she is fre® to play with" her husband in his spam time. . ' „ , , , _ The young wives of to-day must plan their lives, not under the old system of being paid housekeepers, at tho beck and cal l of husbands, but as lively coninanions who organise their husband’s domestic lives far move successfully and agreeably than they had ever experienced before. And, as in most other departments of'life, the young women of to : day am demonstrating their capabilities and making a success of their jobs.