GOOD WIVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

GOOD WIVES.

BY EBXA GRAHAM IIACKY.

The very highest tribute that can be paid to a woman is to say that she is a good wife. Being a wife is not listed under the professions nor under the trades, yet the skill and intelligence required for successfully filling this ordinary position far exceeds that required by doctors, lawyers and politicians in their much-vaunted avenues of service. Iho good-wife combines the qualities of critic and- counsellor, nurse and companion, housekeeper and business manager, mother and sweetheart, social entertainer and publicity agent. She must have unlimited tact, patience, humour and sympathy, a wide knowledge of human nature, physical strength and mental, power above the average. Yet Ave take it all as a matter of course and our training for this exalted state of wifehood, is certainly haphazard, to say the least. The simple truth of the matter is that we hopo to muddle through us our mothers did before us. There is undoubtedly something due to the man who undertakes to support us for life. ' If we are inefficient and stupid, he has no means of dispensing with our services.

There are several types of wives, all good in their way, but inclined to specialise. There is the obedient, catering wife, 'who meekly does the bidding of her lord and sees that his meals are cooked and his socks darned. There is tho interesting and stimulating wife, who t a Ices' a part in community affairs and brings home breezy chit-chat from her clubs, getting quito a lot of pleasure but of various kinds of reform. _ There ' is the ornamental and social wife, who tlisplavs • her charms to the best advantage, * invites her husband's business * 1 friends to dinner and makes acquaintances in tho circles which will most benefit their commercial, political or professional interests. There is the "sporty wife, who goes in for golf and tennis and companions! her husband ljko another making' of married life a §ort of pal arrangement. There is the mother typo who lives V for her children, sews for them, superin- ' tends every vitamin in their diet, takes them for ♦long holidays in the ' busiest season, and considers them first in every way," If there are a few crumbs of maternal affection left over, tho husband gets them: if not, he goes hungry. The modern wife, like tho modern physician, tends to specialise. It is: hard to know whether we makegood wives or not. Husbands are of little value as judges. They are either too wise or too reserved to give us full credit, if we are a success, or they are too gallant or cowardly to say anything about it if they consider us rank failures. But there are "three people in the world who Have all the qualifications necessary to judge of our ability as wives and the winning of their approval would ensure indisputable merit: One's mother-in-law, (!ao girl one's husband used to be friendly with before his marriage, and the village gossip. Ah, me! llow I would rejoice to feel that [ had just one of these critics on my side!