ON SOWING WILD OATS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18458, 23 July 1923, Page 12

ON SOWING WILD OATS.

• The impulse to pose as a rake utitl persists to-day. Where women preen them- ; selves on their virtues, men proclaim 'their | vices. Are men more conservative than ! women ? Is their reluctance to advertise j their good, qualities a relic of the days ! when only the effeminate weakling was able to stand' straight on his legs after dinner, leaving the stalwarts for the iaost part below the table? Or is it possible, ; asks a writer in an exchange, that i; the poor, deluded darlings still treasure the obsolete belief that to be popular with the other sex a man must have the reputation of being somewhat of a rake Do they not know that "straight" is the one word stamped on the tape by /which man is measured by modern woman ? ' The truth is, the sowing of wild oats is; about sis out of. date as the sewing ot samplers. But men, for some strange reason of their own, are loath to admit it. Why ? That is another of the things every woman would like to know. There is a third. It has to do with that fine old phrase " iseoing life." Why do people talk of seeing life when they do not mean life at all, but, to put it plainly, the red-light district of the city ? List us put the phrase on its proper footing. Let us make a point of '.' seeing life"— honest, workaday life in its different phases. But let us be careful''whom'we select as guide. The Benedict is not alone, in his predilection for the villain's role. It is a part beloved alike by the small boy and the elderly bachelor. A companion of my extreme youth was wont on occasion to lisp "cuss" words despite several parental admonitions. After a j peculiarly trying scene I remember asking him why he persisted in using words which ! incurred such awful penalties. His answer j was illuminating. they're bad," j said ho in a'sepulchral whisper. "Do you like being bad?" I queried innocently.) He eyed me .scornfully. " S'only girls that's good." I believed him then, I know j better now. I know that the sexes cannot ! be labelled any more than nations, that j the mentality of men and women .alike comprises equally what the butcher terms " a streaky cue.'' ;