The Love Pursuit

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 9

The Love Pursuit

Fulfilling Nature’s Role

FRANKLY, ill my opinion, women do not understand falling in love as men under- __ stand it, writes F. E. Bailey in the “Sunday Chronicle. ’ ’ I write this far from books of reference—to borrow a phrase used by people too lazy to investigate—but my memory recalls no well-known example of a woman so much in love with a man that she pined away ;md died. There was, of course, the Maid of Allan Water, who drowned herself, but she did so on account of the scandal that arose over her affair with the soldier. Whoever heard of a woman who betook herself to the vast Dark Continent of Africa and lived evermore remote from her kind because a man failed to return her affection? I never did myself, hut I have met men there whose lives have been wrecked by the scorn in a pair of blue eyes. Women are selfish in love. At the back of their minds are always these questions: “What am I getting'out of this love affair? Am I getting anything out of it? If not, what on earth am I going on with it for?” A man only tells himself: “I want this girl. I dont’ care what the consequences arc to me. I love her more than anything in the world, and Fm going. to marry her. ’ ’ Heaven knows I am not drawing invidious comparisons, or blaming women for their attitude towards love. They merely fulfil the role which Nature planned for them. Nature cares nothing for the happiness of men or women, her sole preoccupation is the continuance of the race. To ensure this Nature has constituted woman a stimulus and an irritant to man in order that he may be goaded to the point when he will overcome all obstacles in order to possess her. For Nature’s purpose to be achieved the more calm the woman’s judgment and the more disordered the man’s the better. If woman’s judgment remains calm she can observe her victim with scientific detachment, and should one lure fail to attract him substitute another. If man’s judgment remained calm he would perceive the trap into which he was walking and retreat in time. Therefore, Nature has arranged that he shall be too much in love to exercise any judgment, and that woman shall only be in love sufficiently for her intelligence to be stimulated, and not swamped. Nature does not care a button whether women are happy in love or not, because women are static. She does care if men are happy in love because men are dynamic, and if happiness is absent they cease to fulfill Nature’s purpose. Another reason why women do not fall in lov<j like men is that subconsciously they are preoccupied with the welfare of their unborn

Huntress Woman Marks Her Man

children. Directly she first opens her eyes the life of a girl child is in pawn to the next generation. Only the most irresponsible woman will marry a man who makes her wildly happy if she feels in her heart that his character is not to be relied on.

She may flirt with the charming ne’er:dowell, but. she marries him very rarely. One of the girls in Noel Coward’s operette,

“Bitter Sweet,” puts woman’s attitude to love and life very succintly. She expresses her desire to marry, and another girl suggests: “Of course you’ll be very much in love.” “I hope not,” says the first girl, and when the second.protests the first explains: “Men are so much easier to manage when you’re not in love.”

This young lady speaks for the whole of womanhood in regard to love. Love for women is an industry, and for men romance, a glorious adventure, something remote from every day. A man becomes as drunk with love as with alcohol, and a woman becomes no more drunk with love, when she intends it to end in marriage, than with tea. Love to men who mean to marry is champagne, and love to women who mean to marry is tea. The fact that after marriage the effect of the champagne evaporates in the case of men and the effect of the tea doesn’t evaporate in the case of women is not really relevant. You cannot fall from heights you have never reached. For countless generations women have industrialised love, and they will go on doing so until the day dawns, as it is about to do, when every woman will continue to earn her own living after marriage in the same occupation that she followed before marriage. When all women continue to support themselves after marriage they will be able to afford themselves the luxury of falling in love. They will cease to marry for homes, and look on their love-life with their husbands much as men look on their love-life with their wives—until the tea versus champagne attitude of these ladies dulls the fine gold of love.

But since women, unless policy dictates otherwise, tend to he tyrannous and overbearing in love ■when they take it seriously, and lack all sense of humour concerning themselves, their love affairs in their affluent future will tend to become stormy. Divorces will fall thick and fast.

Still, as anything is better than stagnation, I look forward to the days when for women to fall in love will prove commercially possible.