THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP.

Mataura Ensign, 30 December 1911, Page 7

THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP.

DO WOMEN POSSESS IT? A All'OH-DE HATED QUESTION. Among the many charges levelled against women as a Docly few are oftener heard than that they have not the power of making friends—that the world they know outside their own domestic circle is nothing hut a wilderness of acquaintanceship. Jf the charge stopped short of accusing women only of being more wont to stray in the land of pleasant, transitory companionship than in the more select and exacting realm of friendship one might admit it had some degree of justice. A woman devoted to housekeeping and mothering in the good okl-fashioned shape gets play enough for her emotions. Indeed, unless she be careful she becomes so narrowed and self-centred in her interests that any bond which does not hold to children or husband or home is impossible to her. What plaint is ;o frequently heard where women do congregate as, "We used to be great friends before her marriage, but now I hardly ever see her"; or, "We saw a lot of each other at one time, but her marriage seemed to change her." And the personal experience of the listeners will in nearly every case give mntal agreement. Is there one of us whoj does not harbor, as among the bitter ] disillusions of life, the visit to some confidential dear friend in the early days of her married lifer" What heroically blind gropings we made to snatch at the old companionship, to bring the new assumptions and the new assertions into the old key of confidential outpourings. Then, after more or less lengthy efforts to lit the new wine of house-proud, husband-absorbed matronship into the old bottles of pro-ject-filled, romantic-yearning youth, there came the crushing realisation that never again with this friend will it be possible to be other than second to the arrangement of her drawing-room and a cipher on the horizon where a husband stands. Yes; we have nearly all had such burials of friendships. The Bachelor's Friends. But who would argue that such experiences are confined to women r Ask any old bachelor to turn over the tables of memory. Let him pause over the records of such and such a meeting with such and such a companion, when the afternoon faded into evening, evening into night, and night merged into the approaching dawn; and still talk continued, and still there were confidences to be made, and still glorious ideas kept straining on the lips for birth of expression ! Or it may tell of a holiday tramp—a whole month with never a disagreement in one of its days, with mutual understanding on all things from the flavor of a glass of beer to the influence of a cathedral's architecture. And even pleasanter still was that bungalow partnership with John Kobinson —whole weeks lazed away containing hours and hours when Emerson's ideal of the perfect friend was attained, when each could think aloud without disturbing the other. Where are those friends now ? What has happened to them ? you ask. "They are married," is the lugubrious reply. I think, however, it may be said for the married man's friendships, as against those of the married woman's, that there is a greater chance of his replacing the old with new. Life branches out for him in so many directions; he avoids the concentration in home which is the destruction of friendship. There are "good fellows" still to be found who can adjust themselves to the lesser freedom which makes the despair of the chums of bachelordom. I know a friendship between two married men which lasted for 20 years—they dined together one night a week and spent a fortnight's holiday together every year. Yet they know nothing about one another's domestic circle. Now I doubt if it would be easy to find an example of a friendship like that between two married women. The ordinary woman cannot separate herself from domesticity, and in spito of tho extreme widening of woman's sphere m all directions, a friend for her still means one who must be given admittance into home life and wTiose home may be invaded in return. The formation of a real friendship with a married woman under such circumstances is very difficult. If a shadow grows between you and a self-assercivo young Edith or Clare, its darkness is sure to fall over the mother as well; if you have a non-partisan eye for the faults in person, manners or intellects of the Tom or Henry bread-winner, your lack of enthusiasm chills like a snow-impregnated mist.