HUSBANDS OF TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19141, 6 October 1925, Page 14

HUSBANDS OF TO-DAY.

"I am not one of the women who shower praise upon men," said Jane, but I should like to say a good word for the present-day husbands. They are, I think, an enormous improvement upon t.ose of the previous generation." And we all agreed with Jane. We were all sure that the husbands of todav are much less selfish and self-indul-gent than were those of 20 or 30 years ago. Then it was the usual custom for men to spend all their evenings at their club or an hotel while their wives stayed at home alone. They really do not do that now, perhaps because present-day wives would not stay at home alone, and their husbands know it, writes Jocelyn Fane in an exchange. The wife of our mothers' day stayed put " Not so the wife of to-day. If Jack goes to his club, so will Jill. Probably the fact that the Victorian wife was always there when her husband wanted her made her society of less value in his eyes. For we all vsdue less what we can obtain easily. Then, too, the woman who lived a purely domestic life could not be a companion to her husband as can the woman of to-day, with her wider life and more varied interests. * One reason for the change seems to be women's greater economic independence. When girls remained at home, dependent for their amusements upon the money allowed them by their parents, they were j accustomed to see all the more expensive j pleasures enjoyed by- their money-earning brothers while they went without. Now, when most girls earn something, j and many successfully compete in the j labour market with their brothers and j men friends, they, too, spend a considerable sum on their pleasures. One can imagine their surprise if, when married, they were told that there would be only enough money for one to join a golf club, and that one their lord and master. Whatever the reason, it is certainly true that present-day husbands do not neglect their wives in the good, old-fashioned way. Treatment that twenty years ago would have passed without comment now rouses a storm of criticism. If wives of to-day are selfish, as I have heard asserted, this good at least has resulted from it—husbands are less selfish. Perhaps when women can be sure that unselfishness is in no danger %f exploitation they will again cultivate it as a virtue. But they will do well to wait | until men's unselfishness is more strongly established.