"SPORTING MARRIAGES”

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6804, 7 January 1929, Page 11

"SPORTING MARRIAGES”

Lord Strathspey, in tho Manchester Evening News, writes on “True Sporting Marriages,” as follows: I think it is quite safe to say that the great majority of marriages to-day arc arranged on the tennis court, or the golf course, or the hockoy field. Tho reason is not hard to seek. The last few years have seen an amazing increase in sport. Playing fields have become the scene of the meetings bo;tween the youth of both sexes, and a better and healthier meeting place it would be difficult to find.

Although I feel sure there is a tendency of the purely ‘sporting’ marriage to go awry, I am still convinced that the playing fields ih the best maker of happy marriages. In the days when woman was encouraged by ( man to consider herself aptly described as weak, clinging and unself-reliant, those who took part in sport had a strong tendency to miss the spirit of it. They could not quite keep their sex out of it. They took when they won, but did not like giving in when they lost. The playing fields have abolished all this, and now, under the mud that plasters them from head to foot, man and maid are the same, both playing a hard but clean game, not for their own glory but for that greater glory of the team. Surely that is a spirit that will tako any couplo througn life. Surely it is a sounder foundation on which to build a home than man, the master, and woman, the ornament and childbearer. To me such ventures seem to bo the true sporting marriages. Neither of the pair may be a star performer. But if they take their games seriously enough to go all out to do their best, and if, doing that, they can yet laugh at defeat and enjoy the game just for the game’s sake, then they will make an unqualified success of their “sporting” marriage.