MARRIAGE OR CAREERS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3262, 3 February 1931, Page 6

MARRIAGE OR CAREERS

NOVELIST'S VIEWPOINTS.

CANDID COMMENT. A well-known and clever writer, Ursula Bloom, expresses her views candidly on the subject of marriage. She says:— At one time marriage offered the only investment for woman. Life granted her no other opportunity. It was only the poor relation who took up a career. It was usually the dire employment of nursery governessing, or companioning, both of them desperate back alleys into which the tide of misqhance had washed her. To-day woman has other things to think about. Her opportunities, although still not quite on a par with masculine ones, are many. She can take up a career and make a man's success of it. She can interest herself satisfactorily and without comment in most undertakings. She is no longer restricted to those hobbies which were scheduled into rut and routine, of needle, of frying-pan, and ;oif washing babies; now she can broaden her outlook and widen her intelligence. Most doors of opportunity have swung open to her. The modern girl who thinks, and who is standing on the threshold of her life, must ask erself: "Is marriage a wise investment?" She sees marriage at a discount, for undoubtedly it is gradually creeping out of fashion. Marriage is undergoing a change. We have got to develop a new viewpoint toward it; while it is adapting itself, and we are shaping ourselves to that viewpoint, it is obvious that it must present certain difficulties.

The girl who is debating sees a couple fondly in love. She see them start their life together and watches the marriage wear thready. To-day in the average household there is need for economy, and it is naturally the woman who suffers. She often cannot afford all those trimmings of life that go to make it more attractive. It may sound a cynical statement, but I do not' intend it as cynicism, but as sound, common sense, when I say that love is made far more lovely by fripperies. Bath, salts, adequate powders, perfumes, a becoming hat L pleasing atmospheres, all go to make it more attractive. They lend it glamour.

In marriage woman suffers the more. The man can escape the closer shackles of his marriage; he can leave the home that has become his prison, and go out and about. The man can always start life all over again in the middle years, if he so wishes; the woman cannot! The woman with the sword and scales is flirtatious, and she has tipped those scales in the favour of the mere man. Later, when his first romance is grey ash on his hearth, there are still some glowing sparks left in it. There is still the chance of some other attractive creature stepping across the rug and blowing renewed life into the sparks. But the woman's ashes of romance are inevitably grey and dead. She is older at forty than her husband is. She has learnt more in her fight with life. She stands there with the ruins —if ruins there be —about her, and she knows that old charlatan Fate does not intend to give hed a second chance.

No wonder that a girl asks: Is marriage a wise investment? On the face of things the career offers much. Being built up entirely of his own effort, it is her own fault if it fails. The resources upon which she draws are entirely of her own effort, it is her own fault if it fails. The resources upon which she draws are entirely individual. Bit by bit the structure is built until it is sound, only sheer bad luck can wreck it. This the wise woman, using caution and skill, can guard against.

"She can, provided that she earns enough, obtain the home of her own that poets rave about, and which is to be such joy to her. Having only herself upon whom to spend, she can employ efficient labour to maintain that home. 'She can use it as a man uses his house, leaving it in the morning, returning in the pleasant evenings, which actually is the joyous way of using a home.

Unfettered and unhampered by children, by the difficulties of maintaining a husband's interest in her, she is younger. She can spend more, flirt and amuse herself without incurring criticism. Is not the dividende paid out to her a handsome one? On the face of it, yes. Under the surface, no! Whatever venture you entertain you are bound to incur some risk. There is the chance that a husband may elope, or that children may turn out badly; but there is also the chance that a career may suddenly become bankrupt. Risk is part of life's equipment; we meet it at every turn that we take; every time that we cross the road we take our lives in our hands.

In our hearts we have no real desire to dispense with risk, for without it we should lose the savour of life's adventure.

The career is excellent in youth. It serves a woman well even into early middle age. It is when the summer

begins to lose its sweetness that it fails her. There must come a year in every woman's life when the first keen sharp edge is worn off enthusiasm; when she sees young admirers turn to fairer charmers; when the

powder does not lie so smoothly. Then she must realise that the career was definitely not the wiser investment.

Woman was not meant to be alone. You cannot fight fundamental instincts and yet expect to win your battle. You cannot chafe against the harness of matrimony and maternity, because they will always lie upon you and haunt you with a hundred might have beens." The unmarried woman is lonely. Marriage supplies companionship, the intimate and blessed companionship of husband and children. Marriage is a woman's insurance on happiness.