THE IDEAL HUSBAND.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8965, 3 August 1905, Page 3

THE IDEAL HUSBAND.

To write on the. ideal husband twenty years ago would have presented no difficulties, says Lady St. 'lielier (Lady Jeune) in the Leisure Hour, for the lords of creation had it all their own way, and the world accepted their standard of the position they occupied. Xow it is all changed. Woman in her new-found strength is redressing the inequalities of four thousand years, and demanding a recognition at the hands of her former lord and master of the position of equality she h»s taken up the new woman has determined that she will share the man's life in every sense of the word, and that men are to lead lives surrounded with the safe-guards and self-restraint that have hitherto protected women. The standard of life is to be reversed. Women are to know all, and men are not to be permitted greater liberty and indulgence than women.

Thus we have the advent of the new man and the ideal husband, both the creation cf the new woman and the feminine spirit o£ the time. What will ths ideal husband be like? And when we have got him, shall we like him ? Will lv, with his greater virtue, his higher morality, be the man Englishwoman have loved, even with all his faults and inconsistencies? And whom, with all tho ide.is of a new creed and covji-1. in -. no: .' l'h-Mai'inf.'. will >l ii iOVrt"

TLe v ''! ick.i! hu-l''M.d slwuM I ■ i l>ii-iy :rvi. [>-f~i or<_- -\ !.<■*■> c" n~ I- 'f. r;! '-- M-ii <i iivc i jjiiv without i'l"ti'.< of vojlj: h;i-i' n ii; 1;. who hi-. iy» oul 1 ' i i"i 1.43 or. ■' zy •'-•'V.l.K.:i Lcitow-, it on !rhousehold, with the generally unfavorable results. Small household concerns are not a man's business, and nothing i.s more irritating than the perpetual interference of a theorist in the small matters of life. In jjlenty of occupation is the real secret of happiness, but the woman must be content to take the smaller share in the wider and more engrossing life of the man

she lives wuh

It is very difficult to describe the ideal husband without the contrast of the wife who may not I:e faultless ; for where there is a happy household both man and woman emliody the qualifications which create the character. Happiness is more secure when a man's life and occupations take him away from the smaller and worrying details of life, and when the home to which he returns is one in which peace and harmony hold undisturbed sway. Many of the unhappy lives we come across are caused by the weaknesses and foolishness of women.

In enlarging their interests and sympathies women become much more capable of appreciating the wider and broader lines of their husband's career, and more able to be a help and adviser to him. Husband and wife become friends and comrades, with the identity of occupations which give no time or scope for the trivial, insignificant incidents which play so important a part in the lives of people who have no broader and more varied interests than those which arise out of the small details of domestic concerns.

Women are very sensitive about the small attentions, the petits soins, whir-h they consider they have a right to exact from their husbands; and the ideal husif he is a sensible one, will not forget the small signs of affection which constitute such a real joy in the lives of many women. Many a married life has been wrecked by the neglect of these small attention as dear to the heart of women, but to which men pay so little heed and attach so little value. It is not that the sense of affection on the husband's part his diminished, but the fullness of his life and .his business occupations absorb his thoughts, and the wife should content herself with such evidences of tenderness which he, harrassed and busy, can find time to bestow, and the value of which is no less than the warmest feelings of their earlier married life.